Bletchley and its important railway junction have caused much building here in recent years, and bid fair to presently link up with “Fenny,” just as Wolverton with “Stony.” The distance between the two Stratfords is a little over four miles, the villages of Loughton and Shenley, away from the road, in between, and the main line of the London and North-Western Railway crossing the road on the skew-bridge described in a rapturous railway-guide of 1838 as a “stupendous iron bridge, which has a most noble appearance from below.” At the cross-roads between these two retiring villages stands the “Talbot,” a red-brick coaching inn, mournful in these days and descended to the lower status of a wayside public. It lost its trade at the close of 1838, when the London and Birmingham Railway was completed, but, with other neighbouring inns, did a brisk business at the last, when the line was opened for traffic only as far as “Denbigh Hall,” in the April of that year. The temporary station of that name was situated at the spot where the railway touches the road, at the skew-bridge just passed. Between this point and Rugby, while Stephenson’s contractors were wrestling with the difficulties of the great Roade cutting and the long drawn perils of Kilsby Tunnel, coaches and conveyances of all kinds were run by the railway company, or by William Chaplin, for meeting the trains and conveying passengers the thirty-eight miles across the gap in the rail. From Rugby to Birmingham the railway journey was resumed. “Denbigh Hall” no longer figures in the time-tables, for the idea of a “secondary station,” once proposed to be established here was abandoned. But while the break in the line continued this was a busy place. It is best described in the words of one who saw it then:— “Denbigh Hall, _alias hovel_, bears much the appearance of a race-course, where tents are in the place of horses—lots of horses, but not much stabling; coachmen, postboys, post-horses, and a grand stand! Here the trains must stop, for the very excellent reason that _they can’t go any further_. On my arrival I was rather surprised to find all the buildings belonging to the Railway Company of such a temporary description; but this Station will become only a secondary one when the line is opened to Wolverton. There is but one solitary public-house, once rejoicing in the name of the ‘Pig and Whistle,’ but now dignified by the title of ‘Denbigh Hall Inn,’ newly named by Mr. Calcraft, the brewer, who has lately bought the house. Brewers are very fond of buying up inns, to prevent, I suppose, other people supplying the public with bad beer, wishing to have that privilege themselves. The unexpected demands for accommodation at this now famed place obliged the industrious landlord to immediately convert his parlour into a coffee-room, the bar into a parlour, the kitchen into a bar, the stable into a kitchen, the pig-sty into a stable, and tents into straw bedrooms by night, and dining-rooms by day.”