Hertfordshire a landscape history

349 Pages·2013·30.209 MB·English

by  Anne Rowe, Tom Williamson

HERTFORDSHIRE

HERTFORDSHIRE
a landscape history
Anne Rowe & Tom Williamson
hertfordshire publications
an imprint of
University of Hertfordshire Press
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by
Hertfordshire Publications
an imprint of
University of Hertfordshire Press
College Lane
Hatfield
Hertfordshire
AL10 9AB
© Anne Rowe and Tom Williamson 2013
The right of Anne Rowe and Tom Williamson to be identified as the authors of this work has
been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Front cover images l–r
Much Hadham church © Nigel Otter
Fields near Therfield © Bill Martin
Veteran oak pollard, Knights Hill, Westmill
Pargeting, Furneux Pelham
Hatfield House
Lavender fields, Cadwell Farm, Hitchin
River Mimram near Panshanger © Tom Crowley
Buttercups at Moor Green © Stephen Wooderson
Aerial view of Welwyn Garden City. Courtesy English Heritage
ISBN 978-1-909291-00-3
Design by Arthouse Publishing Solutions Ltd
Printed in Great Britain by Hobbs the Printers Ltd
Contents
List of figures and tables vi
Abbreviations ix
Units of measurement and money ix
Acknowledgements xi
County map of Hertfordshire parishes xii
1 A county in context 1
2 Hertfordshire’s ‘champion’ landscapes 32
3 The landscape of east Hertfordshire 59
4 The landscape of west Hertfordshire 88
5 The landscape of south Hertfordshire 117
6 Woods, parks and pastures 144
7 Traditional buildings 178
8 Great houses and designed landscapes 207
9 Urban and industrial landscapes 239
10 Suburbs and New Towns, 1870–1970 268
Conclusion 297
Bibliography 301
Index 317
vi Hertfordshire: A Landscape History
Figures
1.1 View of Berkhamsted Frith in the Chilterns 2
1.2 View of Standon in east Hertfordshire 2
1.3 Hertfordshire: simplified surface geology 4
1.4 Hertfordshire: topography and landscape regions 8
1.5 Aerial view of Therfield Heath barrow cemetery 11
1.6 View of St Albans Abbey from the Roman town of Verulamium 17
1.7 Hertfordshire: the pattern of medieval hundreds 18
1.8 Hertfordshire: the distribution of recorded population in Domesday 18
1.9 Hertfordshire in 1307, from the lay subsidy returns 20
1.10 Hertfordshire land use in c.1840, based on the tithe maps 26
1.11 Hertfordshire in 1543, from the lay subsidy returns 27
1.12 The extent of the Ashridge and Gorhambury estates in 1853 and
1768 respectively 28
2.1 Typical ‘planned countryside’ in north Hertfordshire 33
2.2 Part of the open fields of Ickleford, as shown on a map of 1771 35
2.3 Map of the village of Ickleford 41
2.4 The village of Pirton, based on a map of 1800 43
2.5 The chronology of enclosure in the ‘champion’ parishes of north Hertfordshire 47
2.6 Part of the open fields of Clothall as shown on the 1883 Ordnance Survey map 50
2.7 The ‘ridge and furrow’ on Norton Common 54
2.8 A massive ‘strip lynchet’ on Bird Hill in Clothall 55
2.9 Earthwork of a former headland in Clothall 55
3.1 Bury Green, Little Hadham 60
3.2 Levens Green, Great Munden, from the air 60
3.3 Typical east Hertfordshire countryside between Throcking and Sandon 61
3.4 The ancient territory focused on Braughing 64
3.5 Probable late Saxon settlements and open fields in east Hertfordshire 68
3.6 The distribution of ancient woods, commons and medieval deer parks in
east Hertfordshire 72
3.7 The development of the landscape around Westland Green, Little Hadham 73
3.8 Woods, commons, ‘clearance’ field names and the principal medieval
manorial sites in north-east Hertfordshire 75
3.9 The earthworks of a small deserted hamlet at Knights Hill, Westmill 79
3.10 Earthworks north of Warrens Green, Weston 80
3.11 Aston End, as shown on the tithe map of 1840 82
4.1 The typical landscape of the eastern Chilterns near Breachwood Green 89
4.2 The distribution of minor settlements bearing Old English names in the
Hertfordshire Chilterns 92
4.3 Place-names relating to woodland on the Chiltern dipslope 94
vii
4.4 The parish boundaries of Watford and Abbot’s Langley around Commonwood
and Chipperfield 96
4.5 Surviving Chiltern heath on Berkhamsted Common 98
4.6 Co-axial field systems and watershed tracks on the Chiltern dipslope 104
4.7 Gaddesden Row, as shown on the first edition 6-inch Ordnance Survey
of 1884 105
4.8 Co-axial field patterns around Berkhamsted and Hemel Hempstead,
compared with earthworks at Ashridge 108
4.9 Trackways on the watersheds of the Chiltern dipslope 109
4.10 Watercress beds on the river Mimram at Whitwell 112
5.1 The chronology of settlements in south Hertfordshire 118
5.2 Co-axial and sub-parallel lanes and boundaries, and areas of common land
in the eighteenth century, in south Hertfordshire 122
5.3 Parallel boundaries and lanes in Ridge and Shenley 123
5.4 Co-axial lanes, field boundaries and earthworks in the west of
Broxbourne and Wormley 125
5.5 The distribution of commons, woods and deer parks in south Hertfordshire 128
5.6 Evidence for open fields in Bushey, Watford and Aldenham 132
5.7 Land use in Bushey, south Hertfordshire, in 1840 134
5.8 ‘Ridge and furrow’ surviving on King George VI Recreation Ground, Bushey 136
5.9 Fields abandoned in the area around Wormley Wood in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries 140
5.10 View across the Cuffley Brook to Cuffley and Northaw in south Hertfordshire 141
6.1 The distribution of medieval parks in Hertfordshire 152
6.2 Old beech pollards at Frithsden Beeches 154
6.3 A surviving hornbeam pollard on the former Broxbourne Common 155
6.4 Outgrown hornbeam coppice in Broxbourne Woods 158
6.5 Sheep grazing on Harpenden Common at the beginning of the
twentieth century 161
6.6 The rabbit warren on a map of the manor of Digswell, c.1599 162
6.7 View of Hunsdon Mead 164
6.8 Detail from the Bayfordbury estate map of 1807, showing meadows
divided into strips 165
6.9 A typical species-rich east Hertfordshire hedge 168
6.10 The varying proportions of oak, ash and elm trees, and pollards,
in different parts of the county 170
7.1 Anglo-Saxon ‘long-and-short work’ at Reed church 180
7.2 View of St Mary’s church, Ashwell 182
7.3 Hertfordshire Puddingstone in the wall of St Andrew’s Much Hadham 186
7.4 Fifteenth-century brickwork at St Dunstan’s church, Hunsdon 187
viii Hertfordshire: A Landscape History
7.5 St Andrew’s Much Hadham, a typical Hertfordshire village church 188
7.6 The distribution of churches with ‘Hertfordshire spikes’ 190
7.7 The distribution of new Anglican churches erected in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries 192
7.8 A picturesque range of vernacular houses at Much Hadham in
east Hertfordshire 195
7.9 Reconstructions of the original forms of late medieval buildings
in Hertfordshire 196
7.10 House in Aldbury with wide square framing typical of west Hertfordshire 197
7.11 The Old Rose and Crown, Braughing 198
7.12 Pargeting patterns on a house at Furneux Pelham 200
7.13 (a) The distribution of houses in Hertfordshire erected before the late
seventeenth century. (b) The distribution of medieval ho uses in
Hertfordshire 201
8.1 The former Bishop’s Palace, Hatfield 208
8.2 The earthworks of impressive terraced gardens at Benington Park 211
8.3 Nineteenth-century illustration of the ruins of Sir Nicholas Bacon’s
Gorhambury House 213
8.4 View of Hatfield House 214
8.5 Engraving of Cashiobury by Kip and Knyff, 1707 216
8.6 Detail of a map of Hertingfordbury Park, 1732 219
8.7 The ‘Folly arch’ at Gobions 221
8.8 The bridge designed by James Paine for Brocket Park 222
8.9 The ‘Golden Valley’ Ashridge, designed by Capability Brown 224
8.10 Ashridge House, designed by James Wyatt and Sir Jeffry Wyatville in
the early nineteenth century 226
8.11 Drawing of ‘More Park on the river Colne’ by J.M.W. Turner, 1824 230
8.12a The distribution of parks and large pleasure grounds in Hertfordshire,
as shown on Dury and Andrews’ map of 1766 232
8.12b The distribution of landscape parks as shown on Bryant’s county
map of 1821–2 232
8.12c The distribution of parks in Hertfordshire, c.1880, as shown on the
first edition 6-inch Ordnance Survey maps 232
9.1 The market places at St Albans, Hitchin and Stevenage 242
9.2 The parish boundaries in the medieval town of Buntingford 246
9.3 Watford, as shown on the tithe map of 1842 248
9.4 Bushey, as shown on the parish plan of 1800 250
9.5 View of Fore Street, Hatfield 254
9.6 Principal canals and turnpikes in Hertfordshire 256
9.7 Hertfordshire’s rail network 258
ix
9.8 Digswell viaduct, near Welwyn Garden City 260
9.9 The distribution of windmills and watermills in late nineteenth-century
Hertfordshire 262
9.10 Early nineteenth-century sketch of Apsley Mill by Harriet Dickinson 264
10.1 Typical early twentieth-century terraced development in south Hertfordshire 270
10.2 View of Aldenham Road, Bushey c.1910 271
10.3 View of cottage-style houses in Letchworth Garden City 275
10.4 View of typical inter-war ‘semis’ in south Hertfordshire 278
10.5 T.H. Mawson’s design for the upmarket housing estate at Moor Park, c.1921 282
10.6 Aerial view of the centre of Welwyn Garden City 284
10.7 Plan of the Bushey Hall estate from the sale catalogue of 1878 286
10.8 The chronology of suburban housing development on the
‘Bushey Grove Estate’ 287
10.9 Hertfordshire: the expansion of the built-up area in the second half
of the twentieth century 292
Table
Table 1 Comparison of church plans in 78 parishes in the lay subsidy returns for
Hertfordshire in 1307 and 1545 183
Abbreviations
BL British Library
HALS Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies
HHA Hatfield House Archive
HHER Hertfordshire Historic Environment Record
OD Ordnance Datum
OE Old English
TNA:PRO The National Archives:Public Record Office
VCH Victoria County History
Units of measurement and money
1 mile = 1.6 kilometres
1 acre = 0.4 hectares
A pound (£) contained twenty shillings; one shilling (s) contained 12 old pennies (d) = 5p