When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, if you walked up Caldecote Hill and looked out across the Fens, you would see no railway line and certainly no motorway. Instead a lake about 3 miles across would be visible in the distance. This was Whittlesey Mere and you could reach it by boat from Stilton. Twenty years later the view had changed dramatically. The railway had arrived and the lake had been replaced by fields; farmers had taken the place of fishermen. But the motorway was still a long way into the future. 

In 1786 John Bodger, a local land surveyor, published the most detailed map we have of Whittlesey Mere before it was drained in 1851. It was over two feet (60 cm) wide and was printed on satin or calfskin. It cost one guinea (£1.05). A paper version cost half a guinea. The map was widely purchased at the time and is a key historical document.

Perhaps encouraged by the success of the Whittlesey Mere map, John published a number of other engravings, mostly connected with horse racing at Newmarket, including a detailed plan of the race course.John Bodger was the son of a farmer called Samuel.  His mother, Mary, died in 1760 aged 38. Samuel’s second wife, Bridget, died in 1781 aged 30. Both Mary and Bridget bore numerous children who died in childhood.  Unusually, John and his younger brother Richard survived and were both about 90 when they died.

John lived in a handsome three-storey house in Church Street with his wife Mary. As far as we know, they had no children. Mary died in 1836, and John lived there with his widowed niece Hannah Palliser until he died in 1843. We don’t know when he moved in, but we do know that he was involved in a legal dispute because of the “nuisance” (the smell) caused by the “shambles” (butchers’ stalls and slaughterhouses) on the opposite side of the road. For generations, and smelling much more agreeably, this house has served as Stilton’s village shop.

Like his father previously, John was a churchwarden, serving between 1794 and 1796. He signed the parish records which include the baptisms of a number of children whose fathers were in the militia and served at the Norman Cross prisoner of war depot during the Napoleonic period.

In the churchyard, not far from the south door, an elaborate memorial stone commemorates John and Mary, his parents and stepmother, and some of his brothers and sisters. Nearby, a small footstone shows John and Mary’s initials and 1836, the year of her death.