| |
| Ermine Street |
| 'Earninga Straete' (Anglo Saxon 1012) |
| Arrington is located on a main north/south road, an ancient
highway of historical, cultural and touristic interest which has played a significant
role in English history. | | The original road
was Roman, and construction began in 43 AD. It was an important military and trade
route and ran north from Bishopsgate, London, through Ware, Royston, Arrington,
Godmanchester, and Ancaster to Lincoln (Lindum) and thence to York (Eboracum),
crossing the River Humber at Brough. It remained one of the great roads of England
until modern times. [Map
of Roman roads] | |
|
| "The
Building of Ermine Street"
|
| Roman
roads were well constructed with a paved surface. They allowed quick efficient
travel for military leaders and the legions, high dignitaries, merchants travelling
on business, civil servants, commercial traffic, foodstuffs moving towards the
towns from the countryside, wares from local workshops, raw or finished materials
on their way to far destinations... | | There
was an extensive Roman settlement on Ermine Street at Arrington
Bridge - the southern tip of the parish at the ford crossing of the River
Rhee [tributary of the River Cam]. This point was also the junction between
Ermine Street and Akeman Street, the Roman road to the settlement at Cambridge
[Duroliponte] and on to the Isle of Ely. | | We
do not know whether our Roman road had a Roman name. 'Ermine' is actually of Anglo-Saxon
origin (in 1012 'Earninga Straete'). The names Arrington and Ermine
are both derived from the Earningas, a group or tribe of people who lived
in Armingford [ancient district roughly covering Arrington, East Hatley, Steeple
Morden, Royston, Melbourn, Whaddon, Wimpole and points between] in Saxon and
Medieval times (see 'Arrington - Origin of Name'). |
| Ermine Street was one of the four main highways of
saxon England and can be traced back in documents to at least 955 AD. The ford
at Arrington was probably the meeting-place, or moot, of Armingford
Hundred [a sort of Saxon local parliament]. It is believed the first
bridge across the Rhee was built around 1285. | | In
the thousand years since the Romans left, the road structure probably disintegrated
into little more than a wide muddy track. Badly maintained, if at all, the surface
would have been dry and dusty in summer - wet, muddy and frequently impassible
in winter. What little upkeep the road received would have been organised by local
landowners to maintain their own passage to towns and markets. |
| People usually travelled on horseback or by foot since coach
or wagon travel was difficult in all but the driest weather. Most goods and even
large quantities of industrial raw materials had to be transported by trains of
pack horses since wagons tended to become mired down in the muddy soil of Cambridgeshire.
| | In 1555 Parliament ordered that the upkeep
and care of roads was to be devolved to the parishes as statute labour. Every
adult inhabitant of Arrington parish would have been obliged to work four consecutive
days a year maintaining Ermine Street, providing their own tools, carts and horses.
The work was overseen by an unpaid local appointee, the Surveyor of Highways.
| | It was not until 1654 that road rates were
introduced. However, the improvements to the roads offered by the introduction
of paid labour were offset by the rise in the use of wheeled vehicles greatly
increasing wear to the road surfaces. The government reaction to this was to use
legislation to limit the use of wheeled vehicles and also to regulate their construction.
A vain hope that wider rims would be less damaging briefly led to carts with sixteen
inch wide wheels trundling through Arrington. They did not cause ruts but neither
did they roll and flatten the road as was hoped. |
| | In
1663, Ermine Street was designated as the first turnpike road in Britain, whereby
travellers paid tolls to pass through toll gates and the income used for road
upkeep. | | In the eighteenth and first
half of the nineteenth century, Ermine Street, or Great North Road, became
"the most important turnpike in England", being the busy stage coach
route between London and York. | | The
first regular coach route between London and York had began in 1706 and it came
through Arrington. These early coaches were referred to as 'flying coaches' by
the stage companies, although 'flying' was perhaps more hope over reality. By
1734, it still took 10 days to travel from London to Edinburgh. |
| In 1784, the stage coaches began to carry the Royal
Mail and the best and the fastest coaches were known as Mail Coaches. Everything
on the road was expected to get out of their way and they would have been a familier
sight (and sound) to villagers. |
| Coaching inns provided a support structure for coach routes.
The Hardwicke Arms in Arrington became known as one of the finest coaching
inns on Ermine Street, ending the first 'stage' north of Royston. |
| Fresh teams of horses were kept at the Hardwicke Arms
in readiness for changing the exhausted team that had just run the previous stage
of the journey. The teams of horses were contracted to stage lines or the Royal
Mail, although other horses were available to be leased by individuals. The Inn's
hostlers prided themselves in changing teams of horses in as little as three minutes. |
| |
|
|
| In a nostalgic Essay written in 1914 by Alexander Campbell
Yorke remembering his childhood at Wimpole Rectory, "The Old North Road past
the Gates was known to my father [Henry Reginald Yorke 1802-1871, Rector of Wimpole
and brother of the 4th Earl of Hardwicke] in his boyhood, while he was at Harrow."
| | "It was then (circa 1817—1820) infra dig
for a Harrow boy to wear a greatcoat. In the depth of winter, on an outside [mail
coach] seat, my father has travelled from Edinburgh to London without a greatcoat.
The only concession allowed to human weakness was that the British boy might put
on two starched shirts." | | "It was
within his knowledge, although I do not think he claimed to have been a passenger,
that galloping down Arrington Hill to the change at the Hardwicke Arms,
the coach ran into a mob of cattle. One of the great beasts was lying down right
in the road; and, before he was up, the coach was atop of him; The beast gave
a heave, and over went coach and passengers into the ditch." |
| The coming of the railways around 1840 ended the golden era
of the English stage coach, except in out-lying regions. | | Ermine
Street, increasingly called the Old North Road, gradually lost its importance
during the twentieth century as the modern transport systems were developed. Designated
the A14 in 1923, "one of the great roads of England" was quietly downgraded
to the rather prosaic A1198 in the 1990s. | | The
modern Ermine Street is called "Ermine Way" as it passes through
Arrington. | | Ermine Street remained the major
road and route north out of London for nearly 2000 years. The history of Arrington
is inextricably intertweaved with the history of Ermine Street. |
| (Steve Odell) | |
|
Council
Meeting:
|
|
War Memorial:
|
|
Christian
Aid:
|
|
Churchyard:
|
|
