City and Suburban
By JOHN BETJEMAN
THEAR a nasty rumour that some merciless ad- ministrators are trying to unite the Soke of Peterborough and the Isle of Ely into one new county. It is a, most inhuman idea, for the two places have disliked one another since the days of Hereward the Wake. The Isle was separate from Cambridgeshire until 1836 and still has its Own courts and local government officers. The -Soke, though it is much smaller, and for some curious reason coloured the same as Northamp- tonshire on the maps, is even more proudly in- dependent. The late Lord Exeter was Lord Paramount or Custos Rotulorum of the Soke acting under a commission of oyer and terminer. He appointed the magistrates who, I believe, still retain the power of hanging a criminal for murder and exercised it as late as 1812. I was in the Soke in the golden sunlight of last Saturday on behalf of the Friends of Peterborough Cathedral, that grand building whose west front is surely one of the most beautiful mediaeval compositions in Europe. I came by train from Bridge Street, Northampton, through the gentle Nene Valley. The bigger stations such as Bridge Street, Irthlingborough, Wellingborough and Oundle are like 1840 Tudor parsonage houses. The yellowing willows, the oaks and elms still green, the towers and spires of churches on hill slopes, old limestone cottages and farms variegated with bands of ironstone, all confirmed my impression that Northamptonshire is one of the most beautiful as it is one of the least regarded counties in England. But once we were through the tunnel at Wansford and into the Soke, we were in another country which partook of East Anglia and not of the Midlands. Some remarks that the Soke ought to be an independent coun- ty like San Marino drew forth applause and cries of `We are proud of it!' And this is no joke. Local pride, separate regiments, separate local government, separate courts and old customs are essential to English life. We are driven into big• groups, but we are happier in small ones. Local rivalry built the towers and spires of England when village vied with village. Who in Ely wants to pay his electricity bill in Peterborough and who in the Soke wants to pay for Chatteris, Wisbech and March? And why should one county have two of the best English cathedrals?
NEWS FROM BOND STREET
A good piece of news comes from Bond Street where I have for some time looked with appre- hension at Number 143 where there is a notice of demolition. This building contains the charm- ing chemist's shop of Savory and Moore with its square panes and iron railings and late Georgian interior complete with jars and mahogany shelves and paintings of herbs. The shop has been ascribed by Sir Albert Richardson to George Maddox (1760-1843), who also designed the chemist's shop which stood until lately in Tavistock Place with the name Maitland above it. The Savory family lived above the shop in Bond Street in the eighteenth century and their descendant Mr. D. A. Savory tells me that his firm is going to some trouble and no little ex- pense in retaining the old shop front and its in- tenor in the new building that is to go up on the site.
DESTROYING THE PAST
One of the chief beauties of the Berkshire Downs is the presence on them of barrows rising like huge mosquito bites, round or long, on their broad flanks of grass. An eminent Oxford
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