Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Annotations
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Short history of Baldock (Baldwick).
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Baldock
“Baldock, or Bagdad as the Knight Templars used to call it, grew where the Great North Road crossed the Icknield Way. And a rather untidy crossing it was with the Great North Road turning right onto Icknield for a couple of hundred yards, before turning left to resume its proper direction again.[…] “When, in later years, the Templars fell from grace, the property was transferred to the Knights Hospitallers. The town grew slowly through the centuries and perhaps gained most importance in the coaching days when it was the first main halting stage on the Great North Road out of London. […] “Baldock gets an eye-brow raising mention in Pepys’s diary for August 6th 1661: ‘Took horse for London, and with much ado got to Baldwick. There lay, and had a good supper by myself. The landlady being a pretty woman, but I durst not take notice of her, her husband being there.’” http://www.biffvernon.freeserve.co.uk/baldock.htm
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see above quote.
http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1661/08/06/