Potton?
There it is, due east of Sandy and north-east of Biggleswade. These two towns have stations on the East Coast main line from Kings Cross.
fbb has to confess that he has never actually been to Potton - even more sadly - has never visited either Sandy or Bigglewade except passing through at high speed courtesy of the East Coast main line!
Potton is in Central Bedfordshire, one of the three Unitary Authorities that were once the real Bedfordshire. The others are "Bedford" ...
... and "Luton".
Potton used to have a railway station ...
... on the line between Oxford, Bedford and Cambridge, the first stop east of Sandy.
The route of the re-opened link, planned but "under review", is as yet undecided, so trains may not return to Potton; but the station building remains as a reminder of times past.
The new owner has even restored the platform canopy - very nice!
It is a pity that there is an industrial estate at the end of the garden!
But this station was not the first at Potton.
Following the opening of Sandy railway station by the Great Northern Railway in 1850, local landowner Captain William Peel, third son of former Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel, saw the benefits of a connecting link to Potton and added his voice to those of local traders who were calling for the construction of a line.
Peel, the owner of an estate of around 1,400 acres (5.7 km2) between Potton and Sandy, offered to give permission for the line to cross his land and, furthermore, to construct it at his own expense. Construction began in May 1856 and by 25 June 1857 was ready for opening to goods traffic. The line, 3 miles (4.8 km) and 2 furlongs long and built at a cost of £15,000, did not require an Act of Parliament as it ran through private land owned by Captain Peel.
Details of this line are sparse and pictures (certainly on-line where it isn't all) are non existent apart from its one locomotive. "Shannon" which moved to the LNWR when the "proper" line through Potton was opened and it then migrated to the Wantage Tramway in about 1930.
Presumably because of the Wantage connection, Shannon sleeps peacefully at the Didcot Railway museum.
So pottering to Potton today must be by bus.
In 1978/9 United Counties served Potton irregularly from Beford and Sandy ...
... and from Biggleswade.
These services were typical of their day, serving works (0630 and 0730, service 190) and various combinations of Market Day timings. There was nothing remotely like todays "repeat patterns". fbb knowledge of the area is thin in the extreme so there may well have been independent companies plying their trade at Potton. More well infromed readers may know of Bartles of |Potton.
Omar Bartle traded from part of 7 Market Square at Potton with garage facilities "round the back" ...
... but your eager beaver author can find nothing more about Omar's omnibus operation.
But it is today's services that are of interest and which will feature in tomorrow's blog. By way of anticipation, please enjoy the town's rather splendid Market Square ...
... and its gloriously splendid bus shelter.
Once visited, never forgotten; that's Potton.
The village's name was spelled Pottun in 960 AD and Potone in the 1086 Domesday book. It is derived from the Old English for "farmstead where pots are made".
Evidence of early-middle Iron Age settlement in the form of ditches, a pit and sherds of pottery was found in 2009 by archaeologists at Vicarage Farm off the B1042 Gamlingay Road.
The Great Fire of Potton started in a stack of clover in a field in the area of what is now Spencer Close, in 1783. King Street, half the Market Square and some of the Brook End area were destroyed. It was reported to have burned for a day. Local people raised £6,000 to help those most in need. The 13th-century parish church, St Mary's, survived. 
Rebuilding after the fire has left the town with a number of Georgian buildings.
Puzzle Picture
Here is Hebden Beridge station in 1908!
The goods shed is now the car park but the picturesque Station Road still crosses the River Calder.
Northern towns are not all dark satanic mills!
Lovely!
Next Potton potter : Tuesday 24th August
Omar Arnold Bartle had begun with a school bus service to Bedford School 1926. Later he developed routes from Potton to Bedford, to Biggleswade, to St Neots and to Royston. He sold the business to United Counties in 1953
ReplyDeleteThe whole area around Biggleswade has bus services that wouldn't be there were it not for Rural Bus Grant. RBG came about in the early 2000's as a way of encouraging bus use from rural areas, and many rural bus services owe their existance to this.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, what John Hibbs would have called "thin" populations were just not enough to stimulate demand, and such services have gently but continually withered away over the years. Suffolk once had a large network of RBG services; normally every two hours or thereabouts . . . but they were never commercially viable, and very few remain.
Unless these services are actually used, they should not survive . . . per trip subsidies of £5 or more means the route(s) simply aren't necessary.
IMHO the money could be much better spent on Park and Ride facilities in larger towns where a reduction in car traffic (and therefore emissions) is both measurable and useful.
{Correspondent dismounts from soapbox!!}.