Churches

St Mary, Buckden

Originally written for Let's Talk! Cambridgeshire

Buckden Towers, alongside St Mary's, was once the bishop of Lincoln's palace

THOUSANDS of people pass through Buckden every day, but most of them probably never even notice. Time and the A1 have bypassed the heart of a village that was once one of the great staging posts on the Great North Road.

In the 18th and 19th century heyday of the post coach, Buckden was a proud and prosperous place, a hard 60-mile day's journey north of London . Three great coaching inns - the Lion, the George and the Vine - still stand together on the old main road, still (or again) exuding an air of confidence and prosperity. These days they even boast a brasserie and a designer-label clothing shop, things you will not find in many villages of 3,000 people.

But long before there was anything you might call public transport, Buckden was already a very important travellers' stop. For here the Bishop of Lincoln had his palace.

This may seem strange, given that Buckden is some 70-odd miles from Lincoln, but the bishop often had an important role in the court life of London, and the palace lay conveniently between the two cities.

Classic Cambs perpendicular

In fact, the connection is an ancient one. The Domesday Book of 1086 names Buckden as a manor belonging to the Bishop of Lincoln, and the palace remained the bishop's residence until 1842.

Today, the splendid remains of the 15th -century palace are a Catholic retreat and conference centre, Buckden Towers .

This is somehow appropriate, as until the 16th century the bishops who resided there were of course Catholics - including St Hugh of Lincoln, to whom the modern Catholic church on the site is dedicated.

Next door is the historic, and now Anglican, St Mary's, where five of Lincoln 's bishops are buried.

The building, though not large, is grand on the outside and charming within.

The grandeur comes from the fine 15th-century clerestoried nave and aisles, and the tower's splendid spire.

Much of the charm comes from the bare stonework that makes the interior walls look like exterior ones.

Serious bishop, comic corbel

There is also a delightful collection of oversized stone corbels. Simon Jenkins refers to them in his book England 's 1000 Best Churches as "a riot": I think he means that they are comic, and some are certainly quaintly at odds with the serious wooden bishops who stand on them, holding up the roof timbers.

The most significant historic event in Buckden was a near-riot of another kind entirely.

This was in December 1533, when Catherine of Aragon, the recently divorced first wife of Henry VIII, was in residence at the palace. Henry, gradually reducing Catherine's status, sent the Duke of Suffolk to Buckden to move her and instruct her servants to stop treating her as a queen.

The servants stayed loyal to their mistress - and, more remarkably, the common men of Buckden turned out in strength, armed with rural implements, and after a few days forced the Duke to back down.

So much for the long-touted theory that the English Reformation was a widely popular modernisation. Catherine, of course, was a Catholic

The Assumption of the Virgin in the porch

- and it was purely in order to divorce her and marry the Protestant Anne Boleyn that Henry founded the Church of England.

In demonstrating in the streets their loyalty to Catherine, the men of Buckden were also showing their loyalty to the old ways and the old religion.

All of which makes it rather fitting that one of the first things you see as you enter St Mary's church is a very Catholic image of St Mary herself. Look up as you go through the 15th-century porch and there is a carving which did well to survive the iconoclasts of the 16th and 17th centuries.

It is a beautifully preserved image of the Assumption - the ascent of the Virgin into Heaven.