During the 18th
century the majority of the people in St Neots, Eynesbury, Eaton Ford and Eaton
Socon were employed in the primary industry of agriculture. Agricultural
labour was the most common job.
Landowners wanted
to profit from new developments like iron ploughs, steam-powered equipment,
seed drills, cross-breeding, mass produced clay drainage pipes and new
fertilisers. This cost money so only the wealthier farmers could afford it.
They also were keen on enclosing land to make larger fields and
parklands closer to their houses.
There were a
number of associated agricultural trades like millers, blacksmiths,
slaughterers, butchers, skinners, tanners, corn merchants, bakers, maltsters and
brewers.
The main
industrial process in St Neots was milling corn. The mills were powered
by water wheels (e.g. Paxton Mill and the River Mill in Eaton Socon)
or by wind (e.g. Duloe windmill).
In 1846 John
Medlock built a corn mill in Nutters Lane (Bedford Street)
after the steam-powered cornmill in New Street was burnt down. He sold it to Joshua
Malden. It then belonged to Thomas Smith and in 1865
to William Paine, the brewer. £200 was spent on improvements,
which included a sawmill.
When the first
brewery was built in St Neots is uncertain. It is possible the monks at the
Priory brewed their own ale. A new one may well have been built on the
site of the priory when the navigation locks were completed in Little Paxton in
the early 17th century. Jeffrey’s map of 1768 shows a brewery by the
river. Before 1780 the Priory Brewery was owned by Francis
Atwood, then Edward Arnold who sold it to William Fowler.
Between 1780
and 1782 Fowler erected a barley drying
kiln (now called ‘The Oast House’), a malthouse, stables for
horses, and a storehouse (demolished in the 1960s). A large maltings
was set up on Cambridge Street supplying local inns and alehouses with malt to
make beer.
In 1814 Richard
Fowler sold the Priory Brewery to John Day of Bedford At that time Fowler owned 24 licensed premises, five in St
Neots, two in Eaton Socon and one in Eaton Ford. Day expanded the brewery by
knocking down the gatehouse of the old Priory and building on the site. Between
1818 and 1839 Day bought a further 39, ten of them in St Neots. Barrels of his
beer were sold in London. He also erected the first cast-iron lamp post
in St Neots in 1822. At first it burnt oil but later used coal gas.
In 1824 he
employed 18 men and two boys. The foreman was paid 18s. (£.0.90)
a week and then men from 8s. to 14s. (£0.40 -
£0.70). Day did not just brew beer. His business also included selling coal,
salt, slates, barrel staves, clunch, timber, isinglass, sperm oil, Greenland
oil and seal oil. A pair of whale’s jaw bones formed an arch by the
entrance to the brewery yard. Day is also said to have owned the brickworks in
Eynesbury.
The first
large-scale brewery in St Neots is thought to have been
established by Samuel Emery. He purchased The Bull Inn on
the Market Square and the public house next door and combined their two
brew-houses to brew in larger quantities. A well sunk into the gravel terrace
provided ‘clean’ water. Having a wharf on Hen Brook allowed the import of
barley and hops by boat. When Samuel died his daughters took over the inn
and his son, Samuel, the brewery. He sold it to William Foster in
1792 who owned three licensed houses.
In 1831 William
Foster sold his brewery on the south side of the Market Square to James Paine (1789 – 1855). He too was an
entrepreneur. Over the next few years Paine set up a Stone Flour Mill
and an office. He invested his profits from selling beer to acquire three more
‘tied’ houses (they could only sell Paine’s beer). He set up a maltings in St
Mary’s Street, Eynesbury, owned five houses on South Street, corn shops in Bell
yard, a house and shop in Eaton Ford, 16 acres of farmland in Eynesbury,
farmland in Great Paxton, brick kilns there, at Riseley and Gamlingay.
A beam steam
engine was installed in 1840 which was there until 1935 when
it was replaced by electricity. When James died in 1855 four of
his sons took over the business. One of the sons, probably James, opened the Eynesbury
brickyard on Potton Road.
In 1865 William
expanded the business, buying a flour mill on Nutters Lane
(Bedford Street) and as well as brewing, flour milling and sawing he
was buying and selling malt, hops, coal, malt calms, linseed cake, slates,
bricks, tiles, building stone, salt, tar, hair, whiting, lath (single and
double fir), cement (Portland and Roman) lime (burnt,
slack, and clunch), deals and battens (Petersburg, Wyberg and Memel). To
help in his business he also hired a yard and wharf on the east side of
Eynesbury bridge, where he put another saw mill. By 1869 he had
bought St Neots Railway Tavern’.
Needing more
capital he went into partnership with William Atkinson in 1872. A
new malting was erected in Nutters Lane for £2,400 and the old one sold to George
Taylor of the Chequers Inn who converted it into a mineral
water factory. In 1877 Atkinson sold his share in the partnership
and John McNish joined with the firm then trading as Paine & Co.
The building merchants side of the business was sold in 1879
to Charles Daintree and Fred Jewson. The yard behind the Dog
and Duck Inn near Eynesbury Bridge was too small so
they first hired, then bought, Navigation Wharf across the street.
In 1880 the
Nutters Lane flour mill was pulled down and a new mill was built on the same
site. A steam engine was used which worked until 1931 when a diesel engine was
installed. When William Paine retired in
1882 the McNish brothers took it over until 1896 when the firm
was launched as a public limited liability company as Paine and Co. Ltd.
The Bedford Street
Nutters Mill was burnt down in 1903 causing damage valued at £15,000. It
was rebuilt with more space. The brewery and Stone Flour Mill were burnt down
in 1905 so the company bought the next-door premises and milling
restarted. The brewery was rebuilt using more modern equipment.
In 1900 the
Bedford Street maltings began production of malt extract (e.g.
Bovril, OXO cubes) and it was traded worldwide. After the first World War (1914
– 1918) larger premises were needed so Paine & Co. Ltd bought and equipped
the derelict Bower’s Gas Meter Works on Brook Street. These works were badly damaged by fire in 1947.
They were rebuilt
but burnt down again in 1955 so Paine’s used the Bedford Street premises
again.
Licensed Houses
During the 18th
century there were 32 licensed premises (public houses) in St Neots, 11
in Eaton Socon and at least two in Eynesbury. Many of these were
coaching inns. Local brewers either built them to be able to retail their ales
or converted people’s houses to make public houses.
Road transport
Only the upper
middle classes could afford to keep a horse or pony of their own. Business
people hired horses and carts from ‘job masters’. Most people walked.
Paths alongside tracks or across fields and woods eventually became the public
footpaths.
Carriers hired out their horse and cart to people
wanting to take their produce to the Thursday market and bring back produce and
baskets of poultry that they bought. There was not enough room for passengers.
Coaching
inns.
Travelling by coach
was the fastest way to travel between the 17th and early-19th
centuries. The stage coach was introduced in the 18th century with
teams of up to eight horses made journeys of between ten and twelve miles (16 –
19.2 kms). The addition of iron springs above the wheels made the
journey much more comfortable than on horseback or horse and cart.
The first regular
long-distance coach trip was from London to York in 1706.
By 1754 the
journey from London to Edinburgh took at least eight days.
Coaching inns provided rest, food, drink and
accommodation for travellers – especially those who stopped on their journeys
up and down the Great North Road between London and Edinburgh (e.g. The White Horse, The Cock Inn).
Some coaches made
the loop into St Neots Market Square and then back onto the main road. Passengers and mail was collected from The
Cross Keys. Other inns included The King’s Head, The Queen’s Head, The
Bull, The Bear, The Falcon, The Half Moon, The White Lion, The Angel, The Fox
and Hounds, The Golden Ball and The Wrestlers.
Local farmers,
butchers and bakers and brewers were able to sell produce to the innkeepers.
Washer women and laundresses had jobs cleaning and ironing the linen.
The inns often had
stables with replacement horses for the next stage of the journey. Local
horse-breeders, farriers, harness-makers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights and
carpenters made a living from the trade.
Coaching reached
its ‘Golden Age’ in the first half of the 19th century.
Passing through St
Neots in 1836 were the Perseverance coach from London to Boston, the Regulator
and the Old Oundle between London and Oundle, the Regent
between London and Stamford, the Express between London
and Lincoln and the Rockingham between London and Leeds. The Eagle
went between Cambridge and Birmingham and the Oxford between
Cambridge and Oxford. There were also several mailcoaches every day which had
their maroon livery and Royal Crest painted on the doors. Eaton Socon had even
more coaches. There was estimated to be one coach every twenty minutes
on the Great North Road.
Eaton Socon had
about 20 coaches stopping every day. As the coaches did not pass through
Eynesbury its residents did not profit much from the coach trade.
It was a common
sight to see water carts sprinkling the streets to keep the dust down.
Travelling was
hazardous in those days. Coaches used to overturn when driving too fast or
their wheels got stuck in ruts. Wheels, axles and springs often broke
and needed repairs. Wet weather made the road very muddy and floods were
common. There was also highway robbery.
Two local men
named Hitchcock and Stevens, sometimes living in St Neots, sometimes in
Great Paxton, used to hide in a field at Crosshall and came out at night
to attack travellers as they passed over Hail Bridge on the Great North
Road.
One particular
gruesome event took place on the Cambridge Road in the early 18th
century.
A young woman, having collected a large sum of money, was riding back to St Neots. Fearing that she might be robbed she had concealed the money bag in her hair, piling up her long tresses over it and pinning them tightly before putting on her kerchief. On her way she met another rider who offered to escort her home. As he was a neighbour whom she knew well, a local butcher and innkeeper, she accepted gratefully, but made the mistake of telling him about the money and how she had hidden it. This resulted in her death, and the murderer, anxious to escape the scene, did not stop to remove the money but chopped off her head and stowed it in his saddlebag.
A short time afterwards two other horsemen came along, a gentleman and his servant, and found the decapitated corpse. The gentleman, obviously quick-thinking, sent his servant on ahead telling him to contact the first person he overtook, who was likely to be the murderer, and accompany him wherever he was going.
This was done and the servant and butcher rode into St Neots together. Once there the servant called the local constable and the saddlebag was searched, revealing its grisly contents. What makes the story really horrific is that that the head was recognised by the constable as being that of his own wife!
(Young, R. op.cit. pp67-68)
The damage
done to the roads by the traffic forced local landowners to improve
them. They were often very dusty in summer and muddy during the winter. Turnpike
Trusts were set up. By 1700 a few turnpikes had been set up across
the main roads.
Daniel Defoe, writing in 1724 wrote that the stretch of main road between Biggleswade
and Buckden was “a most frightful way” and that travellers often turned off onto
private land to avoid “the sloughs and holes which no horse could wade
through” .
In 1725 an
Act of Parliament set up a Turnpike Trust to manage the Great North
Road between Biggleswade and Alconbury. The trustees used
to meet in a room in The Cock Inn in St Neots. Several toll bars were
put across the roads where travellers had to stop and pay tolls before
they could continue.
Later they set up toll
gates to collect tolls. The money was used to pay for the toll
gates, toll keepers’ cottages, the toll keepers’ wages and for gravel
and granite chippings to fill the ruts in the roads caused by cart and
coach wheels and the hooves of cattle and sheep being taken to the cattle
market in St Neots.
Mile stones were erected giving the distances to the
next town.
Coach drivers had
to pay tolls at the toll gates but Royal Mail-coaches were exempt. The
driver blew a post-horn to warn the tollkeeper to open the gate.
They planned to
erect a toll at Eaton Socon but it was placed further north on the parish
boundary between Little Paxton and Southoe. The toll-keeper for most of the 18th
century was Francis Losley. He was a keen gardener and member of the
Cambridgeshire Hunt. He clipped a bush in the shape of a horse and rider.
During the hunting season he put a red coat on the rider and it became a
well-known landmark for travellers.
In 1772
another turnpike trust was set up to manage the road between Cambridge and St
Neots. One of its toll gates still stands near Weald House on the A428.
In 1735 Joseph
Eayre bought one of the best sites in St neots, on the banks of the Great
Ouse by the old priory. He built a bell foundry in Priory Lane, workshops
and a navigation wharf. Its entrance was in the shape of a bell!. Old bells
were brought here and recast. Some of them still hang in the churches of
Huntingdonshire and other counties. He was also engaged in watch and clock
making.
His profits
were invested in property, He built ‘The George’ in St Neots in 1740 which
had the town’s Assembly Rooms on the first floor. He also owned all the
houses between Huntingdon Street and the High Street corner, and along the High
Street as far as the Congregational (United reform) Chapel. There were also
properties in Eynesbury and Eaton Socon.
When he died in 1770
his son, Edward Arnold, the brewer as well as clock and watchmaker, carried on his
bell-making business. In 1778 he opened another factory in Leicester and
sold the St Neots business to an apprentice, Robert Taylor. Arnold
rented him the premises but, perhaps because Taylor married Arnold’s daughter,
he turned him out in 1789. His new foundry was in a yard behind
Cambridge Street where there were engineering workshops and a blacksmiths.
He cast at least 29 bells before his Cambridge Street premises were destroyed
by fire in 1821.
Okestubbe Mill was
a water-powered medieval corn-grinding mill by the Great Ouse in Little Paxton.
It was owned by the monks of St Neots priory. It was acquired in 1799 by Owsley
Rowley, rebuilt and let to Mr Hobson of Eaton Socon.
In 1804 it
was leased to a firm of paper-makers, Henry and Sealy Fourdinier and John
Gamble. They spent £60,000 on machinery to change it from producing flour
to a paper mill. Instead of making single sheets Henry invented a
process to make rolls of paper. Unfortunately they did not patent it and
other entrepreneurs used their ideas and competed with them.
The mills was
powered by the waterwheel turning a spindle which turned cogs to operate the
machinery..
They became
bankrupt in 1808 and sold the company to Matthew Toogood. He
employed experienced paper makers and used sound business methods to make a
success of the venture.
The 1823 flood
left the machine room five feet (1.85m.) under water and four men were trapped
for four days. He and his sons after him
operated the paper mill until the 1887 when the business closed down. Steam
power units were introduced in 1851 and updated in 1861 to
reduce the mill’s reliance on water power.
A raised footway,
called the ‘traps’, was built to allow the workforse to get to work in
the winter months when the river flooded.
The closure of the
mill and the decline of the Vulcan Iron Works led to unemployment and
distress among the poor. As
the mill had provided employment to hundreds of local men and women some local
business people (John McNish of Paine’s brewey, Joseph Wilcox, W. Emery, James
Paine and W. Bowyer) set up a consortium and reopened it in 1888 as St
Neots Paper Mill Company Limited. They took no money from it themselves
until the business became profitable again.
They were limited
by out-of-date machinery. By 1903 new turbines and steam engines were installed.
Much of the wooden
buildings were destroyed in a fire in 1912 when 200 people were
employed. Rebuilding started in brick and improved equipment was used. By 1913
the mill produced the finest grades of bank, writing, ledger, drawing,
chart, cartridge, typing, loan and envelope papers, and cream and tinted typing
and envelope papers.
Its fortunes
declined during the economic depression after the 1920s and it closed down in 1939.
However, during the Second World War, Wigmore Teape evacuated their
paper mill at Dover and moved to the safer inland site in Little Paxton. After
the war there was a trade in paper to countries like India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
and the Far East that had previously got their paper from Japan.
The mill was
converted to manufacture nylon but had closed down by 1948. The lease was sold
in 1950 to Samuel Jones Limited.
The River Mill
in Eaton Socon was rebuilt in 1847 using better machinery. Duloe windmill burned
down in 1815 and was rebuilt. Other mills were built next to the Paper Mill, in
Cambridge Street and John Bull Mill on the Southwest corner of the
Market Square.
In 1895 St
Neots Spa opened. A spring of mineral water was found by the Paper
Mill Bridge. A company was formed to exploit it. Hoping to develop St Neots as
a spa town, a tap was fixed and bottles of water, marketed as ‘Neotia’,
were sold. A procession of decorated boats sailed from the bridge to St Neots
to advertise the water. It was said to have a foul taste which may explain why
the business did not take off.
The technique of
heating coal slowly so that it did not burst into flames created coke. It also
allowed the coal gas and coal tar (bitumen) to be collected and
stored. In 1845 the St Neots Gas and Coke Company was set up with
capital of £2,500 in £10 shares. Its contract was supply the gas for St
Neots’ street lighting.
In 1846 a gas
plant was erected.
By 1889 the shares
were worth £18. By 1897 they peaked at £20. Gas making continued into the 20th
century but in 1948 the industry was nationalised and placed under the Eastern Gas Board. It
was closed down in 1958.
In 1850 George
Bower (1826 – 1911) bought John Carrington’s ironmonger’s business at 22
Market Square. He already had a foundry in West Hartlepool and had patented
a coal gas apparatus so wanted to set up an engineering works in the
back premises. As he found it difficult
to get castings, in 1858 he sold the ironmongers to Walter
Lanning, keeping the yard. He used the money to buy no. 24 Market Square
and set up his St Neots iron foundry.
It became known as
the Vulcan Iron Works, which at the height of his prosperity, employed
150 men. He made farm machinery, Ransom ploughs, gas making
equipment, gas lighting equipments, gas cooking stoves and boilers.
By 1854 he had
contracts to supply gas lighting to over 1,000 towns and built a gasworks
in Kimbolton. He also patented a portable building that he sold to gold-diggers
in Australia.
He invested the
profits from his business in 1856 by buying George Squire’s premises on
the west side of Eynesbury bridge and began to manufacture gas meters.
They were sold in Britain and overseas, including Russia and Brazil.
In 1857
Bower was appointed Town Commissioner, a post he held until 1878. He then was elected Chairman of the Local
Board for 12 years. He wanted the town to install a public water supply and
improve the sewage disposal.
By 1874 he
was director of the Rio Grande du Sul Steamship Company Limited in which
he had invested £150,000. They had a contract to build four steamships and
carry 37,000 emigrants to Brazil. However, a shipwreck, losses on contracts to
Russia, a revolution in South America and not being paid for a shipment of gas
appliances to Brazil made him bankrupt in 1872. He had lost more than
£100,000.
His creditors
(people who he owed money to), allowed him to remain in business, helped by
some more inventions that he patented. In 1883 his patented Bower-Wharf
process to coat iron and steel surfaces with a magnetic oxide was a
success. He set up companies in other parts of Britain, the continent and
America.
With a capital of
£30,000 he set up Bower’s Gas Lamps Ltd. in 1887 but his creditors demanded repayment of their
loans. He managed to stay in business and in 1888 he won a contract to
light a town in Queensland, Australia.
In 1895 he
only employed 11 men at his Iron Works. His creditors complained that he
still lived in a large house, the ‘Shrubbery’ with servants, a butler and
several gardeners but had not paid them their money.
He patented a new
gas plant in 1899. During his life he paid for a Working Man’s Club in
New Street which became the Constitutional Club. He also paid for medals to be given to every child in St Neots
and Eynesbury to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. When he died in 1911
his son continued his business.
Bower’s Gas
Meter Works on Brook Street lay derelict until after the First World
War when the site were converted for producing malt extract.
The river Great
Ouse was navigable by shallow-bottomed sailing boats (lighters) which
allowed the trade of cereals, malt, timber, wine, iron, coal and stone
up the Great Ouse to Bedford and downstream to King’s Lynn, the Wash
and the North Sea coast. Sails were used during windy weather but horses
were often used to tow the boats along the river. With the development of coal-fired
steam engines boat owners invested in this much quicker and more reliable
power source.
Hen Brook was wide
enough for boats to come a little upstream. Traders and manufacturers made use
of the river. Private jetties were built behind their properties backing
onto the river. There were wharves alongside the river at Priory
Brewery, on either side of Hen Brook and by the River Mill in Eaton Socon.
There was a public wharf on Brook Street.
From 1865 Paine
and Company had a building merchants business in the yard behind the Dog
and Duck Inn near Eynesbury Bridge. They sold tools and materials to
local builders and skilled craftsmen. In 1879 the business was sold to Charles
Daintree and Fred Jewson. The yard was too small so they first
hired, then bought, Navigation Wharf across the street. It used to be
the wharf and depot of the Ouse Navigation Company but the coming of the
railway in 1850 had caused serious decline in the canal trade.
More storage sheds
were built and the 1850 steam engine from Paine’s Bedford Street mill was
brought up to power a new sawmill. It was replaced by diesel in 1931 because of
the high cost of coal. The old limekiln
was re-used for making cement and mortar.
In 1881 they
advertised as ‘Deal Timber and Slate Merchants
Dealers in
Malt, Hops, Flour, Meal, Pollard, Bran, Lime, Poles, Staves, Lath, Chimney
Pots, Wind guards, Glazed socket pipes, Tiles, Slate, Stone, Whiting, Tar,
Hair, Reed, Coke, Charcoal, Salt, Grindstones, Fire Lumps, Sewerage Pipes,
Cement etc. Proprietors of the New Sawing, Planing, and Moulding Mills.’
Richard Jewson
took control of the business in 1887 after Daintree’s family emigrated to
Australia. He sold the yard, stock and goodwill of the business in 1889 to
Charles Tebbutt, who became very involved in local sports clubs.
During the First
World War Tebbutt bought the Felmongers Yard on the south side of
Eynesbury bridge. He installed a rack bench driven by a portable steam
engine to produce timber from local trees.
In 1938 the
Tebbutt brothers bought A. W. Atkinson & Company’s merchant business which
dealt in timber, builders’ materials and coal.
During the Second
World War they set up a saw mill in the yard of 45 High St to cut local
timber but, a year after a fire in 1965, they sold their office and the
yard.
Railway
transport
Robert
Stephenson’s Locomotive and other railway engines led to the building of
railways across Britain in the 1840s.
Coal-fired steam
trains could haul much greater amounts of freight than canals and riverboats so
merchants and traders were keen to switch their transport to the railways. The
Iron works were able to produce lengths of iron rails for the trains to run on.
Ships were importing hardwood like mahogany which could be sawn up using
steam-driven industrial saws to produce sleepers. Passenger traffic was
introduced with the development of covered wagons. Over the next few decades a
network of new iron railway lines were laid down, mostly by Irish ‘navvies’.
In 1850 the
Great Northern Railway Company decided to buy land to the east of St
Neots and Eynesbury and built the railway line joining London with Edinburgh. A
railway station was built, sidings, a coal yard and a goods yard.
Eaton Socon landowners were keen for a station but the line was not built
through their parish.
The trains took
much of the traffic from the rivers and canals as well as from the coach
companies. Some coaches supplied the routes from the town to the railway
station but eventually horse-buses were introduced which could carry more
passengers than the coach. The innkeeper of The Cross Keys in St
Neots ran a bus service for his customers to the station claiming that it met
every train.
Adverts appeared
in local newspapers advertising special railway outings to the seaside and
various annual events in other parts of the company. Those who could
afford the tickets could go to Skegness, Cromer, Great Yarmouth and
other east coast resorts. By the 1890s they could go to Scarborough
and Brighton. There were trips to London, Royal Ascot and Epsom for
the horse racing. Many local groups took advantage of special offers as well as
works outings there were excursions by local choirs and Sunday Schools outings.
The first bicycles
were seen in St Neots in about 1870. In 1874 H. W. Pearson rented out bicycles
and velocipedes from his shop on the High Street. These were probably the
‘bone-shakers’ and ‘penny-farthings’. A thriving bicycle club was set up by
1899.
The first motor
car seen in St Neots was probably in 1896. ‘A motor car, en route from
Cambridge to Bedford, stopped for a short time at the Post Office [in the
High Street] and a small crowd assembled. The motor power was benzine. It
travelled at a good pace and appeared to be well under control, but, we are
told, the smell was objectionable. How long will it be before we have to record
the appearance of a horse as a strange event?’
The cars travelled
at about 20 m.p.h., Using one gallon of fuel at a cost of 8d. (£0.04) they took
two hours to travel the forty miles.
The first car
bought by a local man in the early-1900s was Alfred Jordan’s steam-powered car.
With telegraph
wires connecting the Post Offices across the country, by 1870 people could
send telegrams. The telephone was not advertised locally until 1892
when the Post Office was given the monopoly of trunk lines between
towns and cities. Private telephone companies like the National Telephone
Company could provide lines in the rural areas. They had difficulty getting
subscribers in St Neots until the early 1900s.
Every year there was a Hiring Fair held in the
Market Square. Men and women stood in groups according to their occupations.
People who needed employees would go up to them and discuss wages and working
conditions. They used to wear items in their lapels like scissors, needle and
thread, or woven straw to identify their skills as domestic servants or
agricultural workers. .
With the demand
for new buildings during the 18th and 19th century
entrepreneurs exploited local resources like the London Clay.
In 1770 there were
brickworks on Dark Lane, (between Duck Lane and Howitts Gardens) belonging to Stephen
Gorham. In 1809 his son, G. J. Gorham, owned the brickworks
producing 500,000 grey or yellow bricks a year. They were valued at 2s.6d.
(£0.125) per 100. In 1892 the site was called the ‘old brickilns’.
According to Rosa
Young, in her book St Neots Past, Mr Day, the brewer, owned a
brickworks in Hail Weston and between 1842 and 1860 bought the brickworks in
Eynesbury, between Barford Road and Potton Road (Where the Ridgeway is
today). C. F. Tebbutt however, claims that between 1855 and 1865 James Paine,
the son of James Paine the brewer, took over his father’s brickworks in
Riseley, moved into Elm House on Potton Road, Eynesbury and used his inherited
capital to start the Eynesbury brickworks.
Many men and boys
were employed to dig out a large clay pit. The topsoil was piled up in a
bank. The clay was dug out, put into wheel barrows and then emptied into an
iron trough with cast-iron bladed which churned it up and squeezed it out into
a long rectangular slab. This was cut into roof tile or brick-sized blocks
using a metal wire. Labourers piled these onto trolleys and wheeled them into a
drying shed. From there they were wheeled into a kiln where they were
fired. Once baked they were taken out and piled up, ready to be sold in the
thousands. Loaded onto a cart, a horse would haul them to the building site.
As Mr Day also had
the brewery, all employees were entitled to free beer. Even visiting
workmen got a pint when they came to borrow a ladder and a pint when they
returned it!
When Frank Day
died in 1919 the brickworks and Priory Brewery were sold to two millers,
Messrs. Jordan and Addington.
The River Great
Ouse used to flood almost every year and vast quantities of small stones
and pebbles built up on the inside banks of the meanders. Before Tarmac, gravel
was needed for filling in the ruts of roads, covering the market square, for
drives and paths. It was also added to cement to make concrete. Entrepreneurs bought land on these beds of
gravel (e.g. The Gingerbread Lakes, Wyboston Lakes, Paxton Pits) and
hired men and boys to dig it up, wash and sort it (grade it for size) and cart
it away.
Cattle
sold at market were slaughtered, skinned and butchered. The skins were used to
make leather at the Tannery in Eynesbury, There was also Parchment
Works. It used the skin of baby pigs
(vellum) to make good quality document paper.
Apart
from these occupations Eynesbury and St Neots had butchers, bakers,
shopkeepers, tailors, dressmakers, drapers, grocers, carpenters, blacksmiths,
ink-mixers and umbrella makers.
In
Eaton Socon and Eaton Ford there were also coach-builders, saddlers and
harness makers for the stagecoaches that used the coaching houses on the
Great North Road.
(Sources: Young, R. (1996), 'St Neots Past',
Phillimore; Tebbutt, C.F. (1978), St Neots – History of a Huntingdonshire Town,
Unwin Brothers)