Another
view of Stanway House's 'mellow' facade. Entering the 19th century,
Stanway was probably at its peak, with a population topping the 400
mark.
A school
roll of 24 pupils in 1825 suggests that children were either not going
to school or were soon leaving to start work. Shortly after the middle
of the century, however, a 'national school' opened, and was to remain
the bedrock of education for village children for the next sixty years.
J. M.
Barrie, best known as the creator of Peter Pan and a regular summer
tenant of Stanway House, donated an unusual thatched cricket pavilion
to the village team in recognition of his own interest in the game.
In 1904
the railway arrived, just down the road at Toddington, only to close
later in the century. Electricity reached Stanway in 1930, and in
1948 a considerable part of Stanway House was pulled down and it returned
to the L-shaped appearance it had three centuries earlier.
