est snow that had been known for 40
years began--was some days falling--and continued on the ground for
five weeks, and in places drifts were 15 feet deep. The frost
continued for 12 weeks, till March 20th. On the 8th of the month of
January the frost was of almost unexampled severity. A fair was held
on the Thames where a sheep was roasted. A card printed on the Thames
during that strange winter fair is now in the Royston Institute Museum.
Houses were in many cases snowed up, and the difficulties of traffic
were enormous. Large gangs of labourers toiled at mountains of snow in
order to open up the coaching routes. When the frost was 20 deg. below
freezing point, Benjamin Dunham, seventy years of age, was found frozen
to death between Barrington and Harlton.

The armed burglar was in evidence during the last and early years of
the present century as a terror to householders, with this difference
from the present system, that the offenders generally went in gangs.
One notable event of this kind is connected with the residence of
Squire Wortham (now Mr. J. E. Phillips) in Melbourn Street, Royston.
The party, approaching from the Dog Kennel Lane in rear of the
premises, disturbed the housekeeper, a Mrs. Cannon. She in her turn
called out to Old Matt, the huntsman, but that worthy slept so soundly
that she could not wake him; meanwhile the burglars seemed about to
effect an entrance, when the redoubtable Mrs. Cannon secured a
blunderbuss and, firing out of the window in the direction of the
visitors, they made off. It was generally believed that the
housekeeper shot one of the burglars, and years afterwards this was
verified in a curious way by one of the party who, just before he died,
made a confession to Mr. Stamford, then living at the Old Palace, to
the effect that he was one of the party and that one of them was shot.

1826. On December 16th, a woman 61 years of age, "undertook for what
the public of Royston chose to give her, to walk 92 miles in 24
consecutive hours--that is, starting from the White Lion in the High
Street and walking through the town, half-a-mile in and half-a-mile
out. She began her journey at 9 minutes after 4 on Friday afternoon
(the weather unfavourable, the street excessively dirty and the boys
rather troublesome) and completed her task at 3 minutes after 4 the
next afternoon, having 6 minutes to spare."

1831. In 1831, with the uneasiness caused by the appearance of the
cholera m