In the year 1842 or 1843 it was rumoured that the London and North-Western Company were about to feel their way eastward, and the project for making the Peterborough and Northampton Railway was put into shape. Our wildest dreams never expected a railway. We had a coach, and that was quite a novelty. The Bishop and Dean and Chapter had a good deal of property on the line, and strongly opposed the railway. When the Bill came into the House of Lords it was, to our great delight, passed by a majority of One. There is an anecdote of Lord Fitzwilliam, who was an opponent of the Bill. That one day his Lordship was coming down by train, and in the same carriage was one of those gentlemen who knew everything. This gentleman was giving to a friend a history of the line, and when passing Alwalton Lynch said: “That is the road to Milton Park, and do you know that Lord Fitzwilliam opposed the Bill because they would not make him a station there?” A little further on the train stopped at Overton Station, and his Lordship got out. Just as he was shutting the door he said to the gentleman: “That little anecdote which you just told your friend about that crossing is not true, and when you say anything more about it you may say that Lord Fitzwilliam told you so.” The Northampton line was opened in 1845, and I remember being in the Cathedral when the first engine came down. It stopped at the end of the Fair Meadow, for the Dean and Chapter prevented the line being brought any nearer the town, as they would not have Bridge Fair interfered with. The engine was only about one-third the size of what they are now, but when it blew off steam people said they would never be able to hear anything in the Cathedral! Yet now no notice is taken of what was looked upon then as a deafening noise. We had next the London and York Railway, which then crossed the Thorpe Road near where the old mill stood. Lord Fitzwilliam compelled the Company to put the line by the side of the Syston and Peterborough Railway, where it is now. There were some amusing incidents connected with the Syston Railway. It was strongly opposed by Lord Harborough, and there were riots and fights between his men and the surveyors of the line. I will say no more about the railway system. The communications with Peterborough would be very incomplete if one forgot the river, because the river in those days was very necessary to the comfort of the town. I daresay now, if I were to quote Cowper’s lines: Nen’s barge-laden waves,