Wansford’s peculiar fame is thus more than local. Perhaps the queer picture-sign of the grand old inn, representing Drunken Barnaby on his haycock, helped to disperse it over England in days when it could not fail to be seen by every passing traveller. The “Haycock” ceased to be an inn, and is now occupied as a hunting-box. It affords a pleasing relief from the Duke of Bedford’s almshouse-looking cottages, and is a building not only of considerable age, but of dignified architectural character. Stone-built, with handsome windows and steep slated roof, and carefully designed, even to its chimneys, it is, architecturally speaking, among the very finest of the houses ever used as inns in England, and has more the appearance of having been originally designed as a private mansion than as a house of public entertainment. The sign is now hung in the hall of the house, the corbels it rested on being still visible beside the present door, replacing the old archway by which the coaches and post-chaises entered and left the courtyard of the inn of old. The “Haycock,” even in its days as an inn, was a noted hunting centre. Situated in the country of the Fitzwilliam Hunt, it afforded, with its splendid accommodation for guests and for horses, headquarters for those who had not a hunting-box of their own, and in those days stabled as many as a hundred and fifty horses. [Picture: Sign of the “Haycock.”] “Young Percival” kept the “Haycock” from about 1826, and drove the “Regent” between Wansford and Stamford, in place of “old John Barker.” At that time he had more valour than discretion in driving, and on one occasion at least nearly brought disaster upon the coach at the famous bridge by “punishing” a spirited team which had given some trouble at starting. At the steep and narrow entrance to the bridge they took it in their heads to resent his double-thonging, the leaders turning round, and the whole team presently facing towards London instead of Stamford. They had to be driven back to the “Haycock,” and Barker took them on to Stamford. [Picture: Wansford Bridge]