A mere sliver of pavement separates a terrace of thatched cottages from the highway in this backwater hamlet. If I stretch out my arms, the fingers of one hand touch the rendered outside wall of a bedroom or living room, while the other arm reaches into the road. On the opposite side, farm buildings front the street itself. And for two hundred years such close proximity probably didn’t much matter. The odd horse and cart, a very occasional car, maybe a milk float in the 1970s. When I first came to this area, I used to dream of buying a house here, but it was an estate village, where the estate owned every property, so that was never an option.
Since those yearnings for a tranquil place, a pulse has come to run through this settlement that has nothing and everything to do with the people who live here. Even today, mid-morning on a winter’s weekday, I feel it where I stand. Every few seconds, a vehicle passes, every second one an SUV. They offer space, utility and a ferocious whoosh and draught of air that feels like an assault. On this thread of a pedestrian zone, there is no escape from the buffeting, and it becomes relentless during rush hours when chains of cars drive through in both directions.
In towns, such traffic is restrained to 30mph or even 20mph, but in less populated spots like this, the limit is set at 40mph – yet every vehicle’s electronic friend knows there are no speed cameras, so drivers push on a little faster.
And those electronic friends and navigators take us off the wide major roads that transport planners built to facilitate faster progress. On the parallel A1, the main carriageway half a mile to the west, traffic often piles up into long queues before the roundabout. When such arteries are clogged, satnavs entice drivers into the capillaries, the twisty lanes with their blind corners and summits. We sigh with relief at avoiding a snarl-up. For such freedom and fluidity of movement, we make places like Little Barford pay a thundering price.
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