Ok..so *that* saying..watching for the bad word faerie to bleep me,.,.chuckles.

Sooooooooo..In stony stratford the small town that is just down the road and around the corner from Wicken, there are a few watering holes... (pubs), two of which are named... The C***K and the other just down the way a bit is called The Bull, each has a painted picture of each animal hence you wouldnt need to guess too hard..

Now these two drinking establishments prior to the mid 1600s were coaching inns, as seen by the rather tall and wide entrances, any way, the rule of thumb around here has been to say that rival travellors that would stagger from one of the pubs to the other embellishing stories they had heard in each would be talking a load of rubbish...

So prevelant was this story that it is hard to work out if this is not the case, of course with many things such as this there is little or no coroborating evidence but its certainly kept close by the townsfolk of Stony Stratford!

The town has had a very long history, it was the crossing over the great river ouse for prehistoric man, the romans, famous for their straight roads built a road called Watling Street which runs from London to Holyhead!

Danish marauders were fought here by King Edward the Elder, further kings frequently held their courts here and dear Queen Eleanors funeral cortege also rested here on the journey down from Nottingham to London..

A house still standing here in the main high street was where king richard 3rd did the nasty on poor uncrowned Edward 5th sealing his fate in the infamous tower of london..

John Wesley preached in the town and the tree where he did so is still preserved, although I`m not convinced that its the same tree though....its not far from the pub ( a matter of a few feet) called the Crown where fans of "Withnail and I" will perhaps know that the pub in the film called The King Henry is not in Penrith, but was filmed here in Stony, as was the tea shop, this was filmed in the chemist just opposit the crown pub!

“We want the finest wines available to humanity, and we want them here, and we want them now.”

Hear Hear I say....L