s what was then a tinker's shop and a farm-yard behind; the
pedal stone of the ancient Cross, now in the Institute garden, was then
at the back entrance to the Bull Yard, near Mr. Innes' shop, having
been removed from the Cross a few years before; the market place could
only be approached from the High Street, through the inn yards. Of the
ponds of Royston, Gatward's Pond, on the Barkway Road, was open and
unenclosed. It was not a very savoury bath, but in its turbid depths
so many boys used to disport themselves, that it was commonly remarked
in the district that Royston had no water, and yet more boys learned to
swim here than anywhere else in the district.

The other more notable ponds were those in Kneesworth Street, the first
where the piece of waste ground now is at the boundary between
Kneesworth and Royston (Cambs.) parishes, and one lower down the same
street. The pond which gave the most rural aspect to the north end of
the town was that in front of the White Bear public-house, at the top
of the present Gas Road; a genuine country pond, with a rail around by
that part of it next the road--which was then narrowed to half its
present width--and on the north side a long baulk or mound about four
feet high upon which was a group of trees.

The overturning of one of Lord Hardwicke's carts, laden with boxes,
into the pond, and sundry immersions of customers from the White Bear
in the night time, led to its abolition by the Turnpike Trust about
1830.

The Old Vicarage House stood in the Churchyard, with a public footpath
through the churchyard in front of it, and the present Church Lane at
the back. The old malting in Kneesworth Street, now Mr. Francis John
Fordham's coach-house and stables, played an interesting part in the
town life--a place of worship, an academy, and a reformer's trysting
place. At one end of the old barn-like structure the "Ranters" or
Methodists met for worship, at the other, later on, the late Mr. John
Baker conducted a school, and in this room, reached by a ladder, the
first Free Trade meeting was held in Royston, when, it goes without
saying, the Manchester men, coming within the smell of malt and near a
market which had flourished like a green bay tree under the _aegis_ of
Protection, had a warm reception in this, the only _room_ they could
get in the town!

But what would a town be without its Town Hall as the heart and centre
of its official life? Such a building Royston has for