3. Denbigh Hall / Goodbye Denbigh Hall Words and Music by Paul Clark
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In 1838, Britain’s first major rail link was being built from London to Birmingham, designed and engineered by Robert Stephenson; but a huge setback – a roof collapse and flooding in the 1½ mile Kilsby Tunnel, Northants[1] - meant that trains would be unable to complete their pioneering journey for at least six months. So, a temporary railway station was opened near to where the line crossed the old Roman Watling Street, about a mile north of Bletchley. From here, passengers had to board stagecoaches to finish their journey to Birmingham or to Rugby 40 miles away. That bridge over Watling Street still survives - in what is now West Denbigh in the city of Milton Keynes. As the modern and expanded West Coast Main Line railway bridge - number 158 – it bears a specially commissioned plaque commemorating the station:
‘Prior to September 1838 the southern part of this railway terminated at this bridge whence passengers were conveyed by coach to Rugby where they re-joined the railway for Birmingham. Inscribed by Sir Herbert Leon Bart and Lady Leon of Bletchley Park Bucks. By permission of the L&NW Railway Company August 1920.’ The original Denbigh Hall was sited nearby, an early 18th century inn with some notoriety. Previously known as The Marquis of Granby, it was renamed when the Earl of Denbigh stopped overnight and ‘was made so comfortable that he declared it his half-way house to London.’ However, according to meticulous research by local historian John Taylor, the diarist Rev William Cole had described the inn as ‘a reputed Bawdy House’ (which) ‘alas still stands’! And a local farmer could remember the ‘shanty town’ that flourished, as in Paul Clark’s words, ‘to serve the traveller’s needs’…[2] Now it is the name given to Network Rail’s marshalling yards north of Bletchley Railway Station. Paul Clark’s first song on Denbigh Hall3 resonates with the exuberance which abounded at the inn during its six months of wild pleasure; the second song, starting in a minor key, underscores the sadness of loss as the temporary station closed - but the tempo and enthusiasm picks up as the future is revealed: Wolverton was chosen as the place to change around A station and an engine shed - beginnings of a town! The songs were composed for All Change! - Milton Keynes’ first-ever local large-scale community musical documentary drama. Commissioned by Milton Keynes Development Corporation in 1976 and produced by the Stantonbury Campus Drama Group, it included a host of pioneering features: specially written songs from local musicians, a huge cast aged from 6 to 60, a script created from letters, diaries, newspapers and other documents… It would be the template for Living Archive’s community drama for the next quarter-century, charting the upheaval, and excitement, of change; and Paul’s songs echo the exhilaration that settlers in Milton Keynes New City were experiencing for themselves in those early days. Fittingly, in 1999, All Change! was the first drama performed at the new Milton Keynes Theatre. [1] More information is on Kilsby Tunnel - Wikipedia [2] See more about Denbigh Hall on: Bletchley Railway Heritage (mkheritage.org.uk) [3] The digital performance is from the original All Change album of 1977 with Marion Hill singing and Pual Clark guitar . A link to the later 4/4 version is on Denbigh Hall | The Living Archive Band (bandcamp.com) from CD Real Lives of 2000 with Marion Hill and Shahnaz Hussain |
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