Buckden

Buckden is a thriving and historic village on the A1, midway between Huntingdon and St. Neots. Its most remarkable feature is Buckden Towers, once a favourite palace of the powerful Bishops of Lincoln, now home to the Claretian missionaries.
The harmonious contrast between its redbrick Great Tower and the yellow-grey stone of St. Mary's church has remained miraculously unspoilt over the centuries (although it probably failed to console Catherine of Aragon during her imprisonment here by Henry VIII).
The stagecoaches running day and night between London and the North, made Buckden prosperous, but when the Victorian railway boom killed coach travel, Buckden entered a quiet period, famous only as the first night's stop for penny-farthing cyclists racing from Knightsbridge to John O'Groats. Then the growing popularity of the motor-car revived the Great North Road and Buckden flourished again - as an early police speed trap.