coaching and other traffic was so much
greater along this road and that the work had to be adapted to the
continuation of this heavy traffic. The passage of coaches over the
temporary roadway was not of the smoothest, and it is said that one
passenger became so alarmed that he jumped from the coach, being afraid
it would upset, and in doing so broke his leg. The Turnpike Trust,
being responsible for the state of the road, though not for the
passenger's want of courage, made him a compensation of L50 for the
injury.

In 1837 the coronation of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, was worthily
celebrated in Royston. There were free dinners for the townspeople on
the Market Hill, with bands of music, and the principal residents dined
together at the Bull Hotel afterwards--much the same as in the
celebration of the jubilee of Her Majesty's reign fifty years
afterwards in 1887.

1840. In this year the Royal Agricultural Society held their second
annual show on Parker's Piece, Cambridge, and, as an illustration of
how such exhibitions have advanced since then, it may be mentioned that
at the show of the "Royal" at Oxford in the previous year there were
only fifty exhibits of live stock and twenty-three of implements, and
the exhibition at Cambridge brought not very many more.

1842. During the winter months of this year a mail-coach driver was
killed near the turnpike, Mill Road, Royston, by the coach being
overthrown owing to the snow.

In the same year the Rev. J. Snelgar, vicar of Royston, hung himself in
his own rooms at the residence (now Mr. Walter --ale's) [Transcriber's
note: several characters missing from Walter's surname] near the Sun
Inn, at the top of Back Street.

{187}

[Illustration: TRIUMPHAL ARCH AT BUNTINGFORD.]

1843. Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Consort visited Wimpole and
Cambridge this year, passing through Royston on their way to Cambridge.
Triumphal arches and other signs of welcome were erected in most of the
towns and villages on the road from London to Cambridge. Of these
outward manifestations of loyalty, the illustrations here given
appeared at the time in the _Illustrated London News_, which, now
claiming to be the father of illustrated journals, was then in its
infancy and only about one year old. Three triumphal arches were
erected in Royston; one at the entrance into Royston opposite the
residence of Mr. Hale Wortham, one at the Cross, and another at the
Institute, with no end o