Hertfordshire Part 3

2. _Pre-Roman._--The earliest inhabitants of Hertfords.h.i.+re in times more or less "historic" were of Celtic blood; these, after a settlement of considerable duration, were driven out by Belgic invaders, of whom the Ca.s.sii, or Cateuchlani, seem to have been one of the most powerful tribes. The Ca.s.sii, who shared at least a part of the district with the Trin.o.bantes, were numerous and war-like when Caesar invaded Britain; their chief, Ca.s.sivellaunus, is believed to have lived near what is now St. Albans. He was chosen as leader by the British, and offered stout resistance to the Romans, but was driven back and his capital--wherever it was--stormed and captured. Earth works, supposed to have been erected by these Pre-Roman inhabitants, still remain at Hexton, Ashwell, Great Wymondley, Tingley Wood, and elsewhere, but are rapidly disappearing in the general obliteration of ancient landmarks. Grymes-d.y.k.e, still to be traced on Berkhampstead Common, is the most famous; but many others are marked in a map prepared by Sir John Evans. Some of these are hardly more than conjectural sites; a few will be mentioned in the Gazetteer.

Bronze Celts of many kinds are in the possession of Mr. W. Ransom, F.S.A.; some of these were found at c.u.mberlow Green. Relics of the Bronze Age in the county include two bracelets of gold found at Little Amwell; and many narrow hatchets, or palstaves, from the neighbourhood of Hitchin.

To the Late Celtic Period belong the imperfect iron sword-blade, in a bronze sheath, discovered at Bourne End and now in the British Museum; also the two bronze helmets, one from the neighbourhood of Hitchin, and one from Tring. At Hitchin, too, was discovered some pottery of the same period.

3. _Roman._--Hertfords.h.i.+re formed a part of the Flavia Caesariensis of the Romans--the district E. of the Severn and N. of the Thames. Most important of their stations was the municipium at Verulamium (W. of St.

Albans) of which some fragments of wall yet remain in the neighbourhood of the River Ver and the Verulam Woods; here, too, is the site of the only Roman theatre known in Britain (of _amphitheatres_ there are many remains). There were also stations at Cheshunt (Ceaster), at Braughing (ad Fines), at Berkhampstead (Durocobrivis?), at Ashwell, Wilbury Hill, etc.; there was a cemetery at Sarratt; a sepulchre at Royston. Roman villas have been unearthed at Purwell Mill, Abbots Langley and Boxmoor.

The Roman coins found in the county would, if brought together, form an exceedingly valuable collection. They have been found in considerable numbers at St. Albans, Ware, Hoddesdon, Hitchin, Willian, Ashwell, Caldecote, Boxmoor, and many other places. Small bronze coins, known as _minimi_, have been recently found at St. Albans, and are now in the city museum. They date from after the year 345, when the earliest specimens of this type were struck, and are conjectured to be copies of coins issued under Constantius II. (337-61) and Julian the Apostate (361-3). On the obverse is the "Imperial Head"; on the reverse a soldier striking with his spear at a man on horseback. The coins, however, are a.s.signed by at least one numismatist to a later date. They may have issued from a Romano-British mint at Verulamium. The famous Watling Street entered the county at Elstree and crossed it by way of St. Albans and Redbourn to Dunstable (Beds); the Icknield Way ran N.W. through Ickleford, Baldock and Royston; Akeman Street pa.s.sed through Watford, Berkhampstead and Tring; Ermine Street, entering Hertfords.h.i.+re at Waltham, pa.s.sed through Ware and Braughing to Royston.

4. _Saxon._--A few fragmentary remains at Berkhampstead, Bennington, Offley and Hitchin have been thought to mark the sites of the palaces of Mercian kings; but genuine Saxon remains are scarcely found except, perhaps, among the foundations of a few churches, _e.g._, St. Michael's at St. Albans, Standon and Wheathampstead.

Mention must however be made of the story, narrated in _Archaeologia_, of the discovery of the sepulchre of St. Amphibalus at a spot near Redbourn called the "Hills of the Banners". St. Alban himself appeared to a layman in a vision and told him where the saint's bones were to be found,--indeed, he is said to have himself gone thither to point out the spot. This was during the abbacy of Symon (1167-83). We learn from Roger of Wendover that the remains of St. Amphibalus were found lying between those of two other men; the bones of seven others were also lying close by. Among the relics found with the bones of the saint were two large knives, one of which was in his skull. We know that the holy relics were deemed worthy of solemn removal to the Abbey of St. Albans; his shrine there is mentioned in the Gazetteer.

In the _Antiquary_ (vol. xi.) mention is made of the supposed discovery of an Anglo-Saxon burial ground in a field near Sandridge. Many bones and some implements were unearthed, and p.r.o.nounced by local experts to date from Saxon times. They were buried again by some ignorant person.

A bronze brooch, discovered at Boxmoor, has been a.s.signed to "the latest period of true Anglo-Saxon art". A gold ornament, resembling an armlet, was found at the village of Park Street, near St. Albans; it is thought to date from A.D. 700-1000.

5. _Churches._--These will be separately mentioned in due order, especially St. Albans Abbey, the unique meeting ground of all Styles; but a few sentences touching the predominant periods may be permissible here:--

_Norman_ work is found in many places; Anstey, Bengeo, Barley, East Barnet, Graveley, Hemel Hempstead, Little Hormead, and Ickleford are largely of this period, and Norman features are mingled with later work at Abbots Langley, Baldock, Weston, Great Munden, Great Wymondley, Knebworth, Redbourn, Sarratt, and the churches of SS. Michael and Stephen at St. Albans. There are Norman fonts at Broxbourne, Bishop's Stortford (found beneath the flooring in 1869) Anstey, Buckland, Harpenden, Great Wymondley and Standon.

_Early English_ churches are at Ashwell, Brent Pelham, Digswell, Furneaux Pelham, Great Munden (Norman doorway), Knebworth, Royston, Stevenage and Wheathampstead. Some of these, _e.g._, Digswell and Knebworth, are pleasantly situated and others contain features of great interest, but on the whole they can hardly boast of much architectural beauty.

_Decorated_ churches are rarely found without prominent transitional features, the purest structures dating from that period being those at Flamstead, Hatfield, North Mimms, Standon, and Ware. Early Decorated portions are noticeable among Norman surroundings at Hemel Hempstead, and among Early English at Wheathampstead; Late Decorated is found with Perpendicular at Hitchin. Standon is the only W. porch in the county.

Flamstead and Wheathampstead are the only churches in the county that have retained their original vestries, N. of the chancel.

_Perpendicular_ churches are fairly numerous in Hertfords.h.i.+re. Almost purely Perpendicular structures are those at Bishop's Stortford, Bennington, Broxbourne, Clothall, Hunsdon, King's Langley, Sandon, St.

Peters (St. Albans), Tring and Watford. Churches later than Perpendicular cannot be mentioned as antiquities.

A characteristic feature of Hertfords.h.i.+re churches--rare elsewhere--is the narrow tapering _fleche_, or leaded spire; a feature almost wholly absent is the apse, which is, I believe, present only at Bengeo, Great Wymondley, and Amwell.

X. CELEBRATED MEN

Comparatively few really famous men have been born in Hertfords.h.i.+re, but very many have resided in the county, or have at least been a.s.sociated with it sufficiently to justify the mention of their names here.

1. _Men of Letters._--Chaucer was clerk of the works at Berkhampstead Castle in the time of Richard II.; Matthew Paris, the chronicler, lived and wrote in the great Benedictine monastery at St. Albans; Sir John Maundeville, once called the "father of English prose," was, according to his own narrative, born at St. Albans and, if we may trust an old inscription, was buried in the abbey;[2] Dr. Cotton, the poet, lived and died in the same town, where the poet Cowper lodged with him at the "Collegium Insanorum". Bacon lived at Gorhambury and was buried in the neighbouring church of St. Michael. Bulwer Lytton lived and wrote at Knebworth, where he was visited by Forster, d.i.c.kens and others. George Chapman translated much of Homer at Hitchin, and is believed to have been born in that town. Young, the author of the _Night Thoughts_, was for many years Rector of Welwyn; his son was visited there by Boswell and Dr. Johnson. Macaulay was at school at Aspenden. John Scott, the Quaker poet, lived at Amwell; Lee, the dramatist, was born at Hatfield.

Skelton probably stayed at Ashridge just before the Dissolution of the Monasteries; Sir Thomas More lived awhile at Gobions, North Mimms.

Cowper was born at Berkhampstead. The county has been immortalised by Walton and Lamb in writings known to all.

[Footnote 2: As most readers are aware, it is now, to say the least, gravely questioned whether "Sir John Maundeville" was ever more than a name.]

2. _Divines._--Bunyan laboured and preached much in Hitchin and its neighbourhood; Baxter preached at Sarratt and elsewhere, and lived awhile at Totteridge; Isaac Watts lived for many years at Theobalds near Cheshunt; Philip Doddridge was at school at St. Albans. Fox, in his _Journal_, mentions visiting Hitchin, Baldock and other places.

Tillotson was a curate at Cheshunt; Ken was born at Little Berkhampstead; Nathaniel Field, a man of prodigious learning, chaplain to James I., was born at Hemel Hempstead. William Penn, whom many considered a divine indeed, lived with his beautiful wife at Basing House, Rickmansworth; G.o.dwin was an Independent minister at Ware. Ridley and Bonner were much in the county. Fleetwood, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, was Rector of Anstey; Cudworth was Vicar of Ashwell; Warham was Rector of Barley; Horsley was Rector of Thorley. The two Sherlocks, respectively Master of the Temple and Bishop of London, were Rectors of Therfield. Lightfoot, the Great Hebraist, was Rector of Great Munden.

To cla.s.sify other celebrities connected with the county would require almost as many headings as names. Henry Bessemer was born at Charlton near Hitchin; Cardinal Wolsey lived at Delamere House, Great Wymondley; the munificent Somers lived at North Mimms; Nicholas Breakspeare, who became Pope Adrian IV., was born at Abbots Langley; Piers Gaveston was much at Berkhampstead and was buried in the priory church at King's Langley; Sir Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury, lived at Theobalds and is buried at Hatfield; Lords Melbourne and Palmerston lived much at Brocket Hall, where the latter died; Sir Ralph Sadleir, statesman and amba.s.sador to Scotland, who is said to have rallied the English at Pinkie, lived at Standon and is buried in the church.

Many n.o.ble or ill.u.s.trious families have resided in Hertfords.h.i.+re. Some of the owners of old manors are mentioned in the Gazetteer; but a few prominent families may be here named. The Cecils have been Lords of Hatfield since James I. gave the manor to the first Earl of Salisbury in exchange for that at Theobalds. The Cowpers have resided at Panshanger since the erection of their castellated mansion in the Park a century ago by the fifth earl. The Egertons, Dukes and Earls of Bridgewater, lived at Ashridge; one of them, Francis, third duke, is known in history as "the father of British inland navigation," and another was the projector of the famous _Bridgewater Treatises_. The Capells, Earls of Ess.e.x, have owned the beautiful estate at Ca.s.siobury Park since the father of the first earl obtained it by marriage during the reign of Charles I. The Rothschild family have an estate at Tring; Lord Ebury is the owner of Moor Park; Lord Lytton still owns the grand old house of the great novelist at Knebworth, founded nearly 350 years ago. The Earl of Cavan has a house at Wheathampstead; Viscount Hampden at Kimpton Hoo; Earl Strathmore at St. Paul's Walden Bury; the Earl of Clarenden (Lord Lieut. of Herts) at the Grove, Leavesden; Lord Grimthorpe lived at St.

Albans. Gorhambury, near St. Albans, is the home of the Earl of Verulam.

Mgr. Robert Hugh Benson lived and wrote many novels at Hare Street House, near Buntingford.

DESCRIPTION OF PLACES IN HERTFORDs.h.i.+RE ARRANGED ALPHABETICALLY

Abbreviations of architectural terms:-- E.E. = Early English.

Dec. = Decorated.

Perp. = Perpendicular.

ABBOTS LANGLEY (1 mile S.E. of King's Langley Station) is a village on prettily wooded high ground near the river Gade. It is famous as the birthplace of Nicholas Breakspeare, who, having vainly endeavoured to be admitted as a monk in the great Benedictine monastery at St. Albans, studied at Paris and eventually became Pope Adrian IV. He died in 1158 at Anagni; tradition states that he was choked with a fly whilst drinking. The village probably owes its name, first, to its length, "Langley" signifying a long land; second, to the fact that in the days of Edward the Confessor it was given to the Abbots of St. Albans by Egelwine the Black and Wincelfled[f] his wife. An entry in _Domesday_ records that there were two mills on this manor, yielding 30s. rent yearly, and wood to feed 300 hogs. The Church of St. Lawrence has nave, aisles and clerestory; a chancel with S. aisle, and square embattled tower. The windows are mostly Perp., but those of the S. aisle are Dec.

Note (1) the monument to Lord Chief Justice Raymond, died 1732; (2) the bra.s.ses in nave to Thos. Cogdell and his two wives, 1607, and to Ralph Horwode and family, 1478. Late in the reign of Henry VIII. the vicarage was rated at 10 per annum. An inscription in the chancel, copied in Chauncy, reads "Here lieth Robert Nevil and Elizabeth his wife, which Robert deceased the 28th of April in the year of our Lord G.o.d 1475. This World is but a Vanity, to Day a man, to Morrow none." Prince Charles held a Court at Abbots Langley during the Reign of James I.

ALBURY (3 miles E. of Braughing Station) is a village near the river Ash. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, dates from the fourteenth century; it was recently restored. There was an earlier structure so far back as the days of Stephen, in whose reign Robert de Sigillo gave the profits of the church at _Eldeberei_ to Geoffery, first Treasurer of St.

Paul's Church, London. An interesting will, dated 4th November, 1589, records that Marmaduke Bickerdy, Vicar of Aldebury, gave an acre of land in the neighbourhood to provide a sum for distribution among the poor on every Good Friday. In the chancel the mutilated effigies of a man and woman are said to represent Sir Walter de la Lee and his wife. Sir Walter sat in nine Parliaments in the interests of the county--at Westminster, Northampton and Cambridge, and was Sheriff of Herts and Ess.e.x. He died during the reign of Richard II. _Albury Hall_, close by, is a fine old mansion, where the "Religeous, Just and Charitable" Sir Edward Atkins, Knight, and Baron of the Exchequer, died in 1669. The village is usually a quiet spot, with little business, but it is pleasantly situated; the proximity of the river and some scattered cottages and farms enhance its attractiveness.

_Albury End_ is a small hamlet about 1 mile S.W. of Albury.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PARISH CHURCH, ALDBURY]

ALDBURY (1 mile E. from Tring Station) is a village on the Buckinghams.h.i.+re border, nestled in a beautiful valley close to Ashridge Park (_q.v._). It is the "Clinton Magna" of _Bessie Costrell_, and the author of that story, Mrs. Humphrey Ward, lived at _Stocks_, a few minutes' walk from the village. On the Tring side Aldbury is sheltered by swelling fields and to the E. beech woods cover the hillside, which is topped by the "Aldbury Monument," a granite column about 100 feet high erected to the memory of Francis, third Duke of Bridgewater, whose labours and enterprise for the extension of ca.n.a.ls earned for him the well-known t.i.tle "the father of inland navigation". As a village of the Old English type Aldbury has perhaps no equal in the county. In the centre is the green and pond, under the shadow of an enormous elm; close by stand the stocks and whipping-post, recently in excellent preservation. The Church of St. John the Baptist is E.E.; it was restored in 1867. Visitors should notice the old sundial on a pedestal in the churchyard, and the Verney Chapel, which is separated from the nave by a screen of stone, and contains a monument to Sir Robert Whittingham, who was slain at the battle of Tewkesbury. The church also contains memorials of the Hides and Harcourts, families who left several charities to the poor of the parish. In the days of Edward the Confessor the manor of _Aldeberie_[g] was held by one Alwin, the king's thane. The ascent of the wooded slope towards the Bridgewater monument takes the visitor through one of the most beautiful districts in the county, and a n.o.ble prospect stretches before him as he looks back through the beeches towards the village in the valley beneath.

ALDENHAM (2 miles S.W. from Radlett Station M.R.) is a village pleasantly situated near the river Colne, reached by way of Berry Grove at the W. end of the village. The churchyard is locally famous for the tombs of a man and woman named Hutchinson, which, singularly enough, have been riven apart and almost destroyed by three sycamore trees about a century old. The Church of St. John the Baptist is largely Perp. with earlier portions, and is worth a visit, if only for the oaken nave-roof, believed to date from about 1480, and for the font of Purbeck marble, probably 750 years old. An object of greater interest in some eyes is the fine parish chest, formed from one ma.s.sive piece of oak nearly ten feet in length, and furnished with iron clamps and hinges of great size; there are few finer old parish chests in England. Note also (1) the triple sedilia in chancel; (2) the many bra.s.ses dating from 1450, several of which are to the Cary family; (3) two palimpsest bra.s.ses in the vestry, one of which bears a portion of a mutilated inscription to one Long, an alderman of London, who died in 1536. The church was restored in 1882 by Sir A. W. Blomfield, F.S.A. _Aldenham House_, property of Lord Aldenham, dates from the days of Charles II., and stands in a park of about 300 acres.

_Aldenham Abbey_, once known as Wall Hall, stands close to the parish church; it is about a century old, and belongs to the Stuart family.

_Aldwick Farm_ is 1 mile N.E. from Marston Gate Station, L.&N.W.R.

_Allen's Green_, a hamlet 2 miles N.W. from Sawbridgeworth, contains little of interest.

_Alms...o...b..ry_ (1 mile W. of Stevenage Station, G.N.R.) is about fifteen minutes' walk from the ruins of _Minsden Chapel_ (_q.v._).

AMWELL is a tiny hamlet 1 mile S.W. of Wheathampstead Station, G.N.R.

AMWELL, GREAT, a parish and village 1 mile S.E. of Ware Station, G.E.R., is very prettily situated near the New River, and is known by name to many who have never visited the neighbourhood, for the village is frequently mentioned in the essays and letters of Charles Lamb. The church stands on a wooded slope; near by are the village stocks, the tiny island upon which stands a monument to Sir Hugh Myddelton, the projector of the New River, and the stone bearing some lines written by John Scott, the Quaker. The grotto constructed by the poet may still be seen near the railway station at Ware. The church is an architectural conglomeration, with several stained windows, one of which was contributed by the children of the parish as an Easter offering nearly seventy years ago. The structure was restored in 1866. There is a piscina in the chancel, and one in the S. wall of the nave; there are also two hagioscopes. "The chancel arch," writes Canon Benham, "seems to me Anglo-Saxon, and the chancel is a most curious apse." Thomas Warner, a friend of Shakespeare, and Isaac Reed, a Shakespearian commentator, were both buried here.

_Amwell End_, once at the N.W. extremity of the parish of Great Amwell, is now a part of Ware (_q.v._).

_Amwell, Little_ (about 1 mile S.W. from Great Amwell), was formerly a liberty in the parish of All Saints, Hertford; it has formed a separate civil and ecclesiastical parish since 1864. The Church of Holy Trinity is E.E. in style; it was erected in 1863. The district is now usually called Hertford Heath. An interesting, pleasant ramble may be enjoyed by walking from Hertford to Little Amwell, Great Amwell, and thence to Ware, or _vice versa_.

ANSTEY (about 4 miles N.E. from Buntingford Station, G.E.R.) has a cruciform church of mixed styles: the nave is Dec., the transepts E.E., the S. porch Perp. The tower rests upon four Norman arches; the font also is Norman. The church was restored in 1871; many features of architectural interest being wisely retained. The rec.u.mbent effigy in the recess in S. transept is thought to be that of Richard de Anestie, who founded the church in the fourteenth century. We learn from _Domesday Book_ that at the time of the Great Survey there was "pannage"

(_i.e._ acorn woods) at _Anestie_ sufficient to feed fifty hogs, and that the manor was worth fourteen pounds a year. There was once a castle here, built soon after the Conquest, the site of which is supposed to be marked by the remains of a moat still to be traced in the grounds of _Anstey Hall_. The churchyard is entered by a covered lich-gate.

_Appleby Street_ is a hamlet 3 miles N.W. from Cheshunt Station, S.E.R., and about 2 miles N.W. from the village.

APSLEY END (about 1 mile S. from Hemel Hempstead Station, M.R., and 1 mile S.E. from Boxmoor Station, L.&N.W.R.) is an ecclesiastical parish near the river Gade. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, was built in E.

Dec. style in 1871, and is well furnished and decorated. One of the prettiest prospects in the neighbourhood is that from Abbot's Hill, a fine private residence, flanked by woods. The Gade and Bulbourne Rivers unite, a little N.W. from the village, at a place called _Two Waters_ (_q.v._).