Chapter XVII

BEFORE we leave Stevenage, we must pay a visit to the “Old Castle” inn, in whose stable the body of the eccentric Henry Trigg is deposited, in a coffin amid the rafters, plain for all to see; somewhat dilapidated and battered in the lapse of two centuries, and with a patch of tin over the hole cut in it by some riotous blades long ago, but doubtless still containing his bones. His Will sufficiently explains the circumstances.

IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN.

I, HENRY TRIGG, of Stevenage, in the County of Hertford, Grocer,
being very infirm and weak in body, but of perfect sound mind and
memory, God be praised for it, calling into mind the mortality of my
body, do now make and ordain this my last Will and Testament, in
writing, hereafter following: that is to say:—Principally I recommend
my soul into the merciful hands of Almighty God that first gave me
it, assuredly believing and only expecting free pardon and
forgiveness of all my sins, and eternal life in and through the only
merits, death, and passion of Jesus Christ my Saviour; and as to my
body I commit it to the West end of my Hovel, to be decently laid
there upon a floor erected by my Executor, upon the purlin, for the
same purpose; nothing doubting but at the general Resurrection I
shall receive the same again by the mighty power of God; and as for
and concerning such worldly substance as it hath pleased God to bless
me with in this world, I do devise and dispose of the same in manner
and form here following.

[Picture: Trigg’s Coffin]

_Imprimis_. I give and devise unto my loving brother Thomas Trigg,
of Letchworth, in the County of Hertford, Clerk, and to his Heirs and
Assigns for ever, all those my Freehold Lands lying dispersedly in
the several common fields in the parish of Stevenage aforesaid, and
also all my Copyhold Lands, upon condition that he shall lay my body
upon the place before mentioned; and also all that Messuage, Cottage,
or Tenement at Redcoats Green in the Parish of Much Wymondly,
together with those Nine Acres of Land (more or less) purchased of
William Hale and Thomas Hale, Jun.; and also my Cottage, Orchard, and
barn, with four acres of Land (more or less) belonging, lying, and
being in the Parish of Little Wymondly, and now in the possession of
Samuel Kitchener, labourer; and all my Cottages, Messuages, or
Tenements situate and being in Stevenage, aforesaid: or, upon
condition that he shall pay my brother, George Trigg, the sum of Ten
Pounds per annum for life: but if my brother shall neglect or refuse
to lay my body where I desire it should be laid, then, upon that
condition, I will and bequeath all that which I have already
bequeathed to my brother Thomas Trigg, unto my brother George Trigg,
and to his heirs for ever; and if my brother George Trigg should
refuse to lay my body under my Hovel, then what I have bequeathed
unto him, as all my Lands and Tenements, I lastly bequeath them unto
my nephew William Trigg and his heirs for ever, upon his seeing that
my body is decently laid up there as aforesaid.

_Item_. I give and bequeath unto my nephew William Trigg, the sum of
_Five Pounds_, at the age of Thirty years; to his sister Sarah the
sum of _Twenty Pounds_; to his sister Rose the sum of _Twenty
Pounds_; and lastly to his sister Ann the sum of _Twenty Pounds_; all
at the age of Thirty Years: to John Spencer, of London, Butcher, the
sum of _One Guinea_; and to Solomon Spencer, of Stevenage, the sum of
_One Guinea_, Three Years next after my decease; to my cousin Henry
Kimpton, _One Guinea_, One Year next after my decease, and another
_Guinea_ Two Years after my decease; to William Waby, _Five
Shillings_; and to Joseph Priest, _Two Shillings and Sixpence_, Two
Years after my decease; to my tenant Robert Wright the sum of _Five
Shillings_, Two years next after my decease; and to Ralph Lowd and
John Reeves, _One Shilling_ each, Two Years next after my decease.

_Item_. All the rest of my Goods and Chattels, and personal Estate,
and Ready Money, I do hereby give and devise unto my brother Thomas
Trigg, paying my debts and laying my body where I would have it laid;
whom I likewise make and ordain my full and sole Executor of this my
last Will and Testament, or else to them before mentioned; ratifying
and confirming this and no other to be my last Will and Testament, in
witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this
Twenty-eighth day of September, in the year of our Lord One Thousand
Seven Hundred and Twenty-four

HENRY TRIGG.

Read, signed, sealed, and declared by the said Henry Trigg, the
Testator, to be his last Will and Testament, in the presence of us
who have subscribed our names as witnesses hereto, in the presence of
the said Testator.

JOHN HAWKINS, Sen.
JOHN HAWKINS, Jun.
× The mark of WILLIAM SEXTON.

Proved in the Archdeaconry of Huntingdon, the 15th day of October,
1724, by the Executor Thomas Trigg.

The inn-signs of Stevenage afford some exercise for the contemplative mind. As the town is approached from London, the sign of “Our Mutual Friend” appears, nearly opposite a domestic Gothic building of red and white brick, originally a home for decayed authors, founded by Charles Dickens and the first Lord Lytton. The decayed authors did not take kindly to the scheme. Perhaps they did not like being patronised by authors of better fortunes than their own. The institution was a failure, and the building is now put to other uses. No doubt the sign of “Our Mutual Friend” derives from those times when Dickens and Lytton foregathered here and at Knebworth. At quite the other end of the town appears the obviously new sign of the “Lord Kitchener,” almost opposite that of another military hero, the “Marquis of Granby.”

Passing through the little old-world village of Graveley, succeeded by the beautifully graded rise and fall of Lannock Hill, we come into the town of Baldock, with its great church prominent in front, and its empty streets running in puzzling directions. It was at Baldock that Charles the First, being conducted as a prisoner to London, was offered wine in one of the sacramental vessels by the vicar, Josias Byrd, and it was on the road outside the town, near where the old turnpike gate stood, that the Newcastle wagon, on its way to London, was plundered of £500 in coin by three mounted highwaymen, on a February morning in 1737.

Our old friend Mr. Samuel Pepys, journeying on August 6th, 1661, from Brampton, came into Baldock, and stayed the night, at some inn not specified. He says, “Took horse for London, and with much ado got to Baldwick. There lay, and had a good supper by myself. The landlady being a pretty woman, but I durst not take notice of her, her husband being there.”

Always some spoil-sport in the way!

Baldock, from its stunted extinguisher spire to its fine old brick houses and nodding plaster cottages, is characteristically Hertfordshire. Among other things of general interest, it has a row of almshouses, duly inscribed:—

“Theis Almes Howses are
the gieft of Mr. John Wynne
cittezen of London, Latelye
Deceased, who hath left a
Yeareley stipend to everey
poore of either howses to
the Worldes End. September
Anno Domini 1621.”

The worthy citizen reckoned without the Charity Commissioners, who may confidently be expected to propound a “scheme” some day long anterior to the final crash, by which his wishes will be entirely disregarded.

Away to the left of Baldock will be noticed a new town, and the factory chimneys of it. This is Letchworth, the “Garden City,” developed out of Letchworth, the little village of old. This “First Garden City,” founded in 1902, on a nominal capital of £300,000 actual £125,000, by the Garden City Association, itself founded in June, 1899, with a capital of about thirty shillings, represents a passionate quest of the ideal life on a 5 per cent. basis of profit. The problem of how to create an earthly paradise (plus industrial factories) was here to be tackled. The beginnings of such things are always the most charming; and Letchworth began ideally. But the factories and the five per cent. always have a way of overcoming ideals; and we shall see.

[Picture: At the 39th mile]

The stone outside Baldock, marking the thirty-ninth mile is milestone and upping-block as well.

Midway between Baldock and Biggleswade, at Topler’s Hill, the Bedfordshire border is crossed. We may perhaps be excused if we pass Topler’s Hill unwittingly, for the rises called “hills” on the Great North Road would generally pass unnoticed elsewhere. Biggleswade town and neighbourhood are interested wholly in cabbages and potatoes and other highly necessary, but essentially unromantic, vegetables. The surrounding country is in spring and summer one vast market-garden; at other times it is generally a lake of equal vastness, for the Ivel and the Ouse, that run so sluggishly through the flat lands, arise then in their might and submerge fields and roads for miles around.

As for Biggleswade itself, it is a town with an extraordinarily broad and empty market-place, a church with a spire of the Hertfordshire type, and two old coaching inns—the “White Swan” and the “Crown”—facing one another in an aggressive rivalry at a narrow outlet of the market-place. The “White Swan” was the inn at which the up “Regent” coach dined. It was kept at that time by a man named Crouch, “that long, sour old beggar,” in the words of Tom Hennesy. Here “the process of dining on a really cold day in winter,” to quote Colonel Birch Reynardson, “was carried on under no small amount of difficulty. Your hands were frozen, your feet were frozen, your very mouth felt frozen, and in fact you felt frozen all over. Sometimes, with all this cold, you were also wet through, your hat wet through, your coat wet through, the large wrapper that was meant to keep your neck warm and dry wet through, and, in fact, you were wet through yourself to your very bones. Only twenty minutes were allowed for dinner; and by the time you had got your hands warm enough to be able to untie your neck wrapper, and had got out of your great-coat, which, being wet, clung tenaciously to you, the time for feeding was half gone. By the time you had got one quarter of what you could have consumed, had your mouth been in eating trim and your hands warm enough to handle your knife and fork, the coachman would put his head in, and say: “Now, gentlemen, if you please; the coach is ready.” After this summons, having struggled into your wet greatcoat, bound your miserable wet wrapper round your miserable cold throat, having paid your two and sixpence for the dinner that you had the will, but not the time, to eat, with sixpence for the waiter, you wished the worthy Mr. Crouch good day, grudged him the half-crown he had pocketed for having dined so miserably, and again mounted your seat, to be rained and snowed upon, and almost frozen to death before you reached London.”

[Picture: Biggleswade]

Leaving Biggleswade, the Ivel is crossed and Tingey’s Corner passed. Tingey’s Corner marks the junction of the old alternative route from Welwyn, by Hitchin to Lower Codicote, the route adopted by record-breaking cyclists. The hamlets of Lower Codicote and Beeston Green open up a view of Sandy, away to the right, with its range of yellow sand-hills running for some three miles parallel with the road, and seeming the more impressive by reason of the dead level on which they look. The canal-like, bare banks of the Ivel are passed again at Girtford, and the roadside cottages of Tempsford reached; the village and church lying off to the left, where the Ouse and the Ivel come to their sluggish confluence, and form a waterway which once afforded marauding Danes an excellent route from the coast up to Bedford. Even now the remains of a fortification they constructed to command this strategic point are visible, and bear the name of the “Dannicke”; that is to say, the “Danes’ work,” or perhaps the “Danes’ wick,” “wick” meaning “village.”

An infinitely later work—Tempsford turnpike-gate, to wit—has disappeared a great deal more effectively than those ancient entrenchments, and the way is clear and flat, not to say featureless, over the Ouse, past the outlying houses of Wyboston, and so into Little End, the most southerly limit of Eaton Socon.