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Herts Memories
Herts Past Policing
Our Dacorum
Our Hatfield
Our Hertford and Ware
Our Oxhey
Our Stevenage
Our Welwyn Garden City
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
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Our Dacorum
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Discover how Dacorum's largest Roman villa evolved
Dacorum has the sites of several Roman villas within its boundaries but the largest of them was discovered in 1963 when the new Leighton Buzzard Road cut through its outer walls. The villa is located on the slopes of the hill above the river Gade near Galley Hill. It covered an extensive area of about 900 square metres with a large bathing pool lying off on its east side, part of it lying under the modern road. Excavations were carried out under ...
Hemel Hempstead cricket club's tale of long innings
... Sheridan Hayter Hi Does anyone have any old photos of the pavilion that was at the cricket club in the 1800’s as I believe it was moved and now stands in Cookham as a friends holiday house. It would be great to see photos...
Airfield was a second home for US Pilots during the war
... Deborah My great grandfather was working for Laings building to runway when he had a fatal accident at the Bovingdon Aerodrome. I have the coroners report on what happened. The steam roller that he was driving was hit by a propeller blade from one of the aircraft as it was taxiing along the runway. Please contact me if you have any other information ...
The exciting life and times of the boxing hero of Hemel
Edgar Charles Collett was born in Hertford in 1921, the only son of William and Hannah Collett. The family moved to Redbourn and then settled in Wood Lane, Hemel Hempstead. At the age of 14, Charlie began an apprenticeship at John Dickinson’s in the Engineering Department. He worked there for the rest of his life. Charlie’s interest in boxing began at the age of 16 when he joined the local boxing club at the Drill Hall, Hemel Hempstead. By the ...
Just four out of 24 pubs still pull pints in the High Street
At one time there were 24 licensed premises in the High Street, Hemel Hempstead, but now only four remain. It is difficult to trace exactly where all the best known pubs were located over such a large time span as five centuries, especially as the High Street was not numbered until the later nineteenth century. Some disappeared altogether and others become private houses or other businesses. Also, many were squalid beer houses, which did not appe...
How drinkers got The Boot and ended up Legge-less
As we go in search of the lost inns, it is best to begin at the bottom of the High Street on the east side, move to the top of the street and return down the west side. One pub, the Boot, photographed in 1881, is shown at the entrance to the High Street at what is now No.9. As it did not have stables, it was merely a lodging house with a bar. The Boot, as with so many beer houses in the High Street, is an example where the landlord needed another...
The inns and outs of town's public houses
The Coach and Horses was once situated at No. 86, on the west side of the High Street. This beer house, mainly patronised by tramps and labourers, managed to keep trading until 1914. Further on, the Brewers Arms, was situated at Nos. 76-78 and continued trading as a common lodging house well into the twentieth century. The Old Kings Head, another beer house, was at No. 66 and according to Kelly’s Directory it was still operating in 1882. However,...
Memories of Hemel Hempstead
... Beryl Pellett My schoolfriend Margaret Blair lived at the Mayflower Pub where her parents were landlords and I stayed there at sleepovers many times in about 1962. We were horse mad and used to go horse riding at Miss Denchfields stables on a Saturday morning, until the land she used was taken for building houses....
Memories of Hemel Hempstead
... Debbie ‘The site of the old Cupid public house?’ The Cupid, (now known as Green Acres ll) is still there - I am confused!...
Great Gaddesden
St. Margarets Camp School From 1939 to 1984, there was a school at St. Margarets. In 1939, the site was purchased from a private seller by the National Camp Schools Corporation and it became known as ‘St.Margarets Camp School’ Second world war Certainly during the Second World War evacuees came up from London to live at the Camp School. In a BBC documentary ‘WW2 People’s War,’ one of the evacuees recorded that he stayed at St. Margarets for som...
Boxmoor cricketeers rack up score of 154, not out
Over 150 years ago, the Box Moor Trust allowed a piece of ground to be enclosed with posts and rails for the purpose of cricket. That was in 1857 and the Boxmoor Cricket Club has been playing on Blackbirds’ Moor ever since then. In fact, the ground, still leased from the Trust, is referred to as the ‘Boxmoor Oval’. The game of cricket began in Elizabethan times and the first recorded match involving Hertfordshire was in Epping Forest in July 1732...
Changing Face of Hemel Hempstead Number 14
... David Nixon I moved to Hemel in 1979, moved to MK as my parents moved away. Loved Hemel, but boy has it changed. Haven't ruled out a return. Thanks for the memories....
Changing Face of Hemel Hempstead Number 13
Marlowes 1968 In the early 1990’s Hemel Hempstead’s Marlowes shopping mall was opened and the street became pedestrianised, but when I and my young family moved to Hemel in July 1968, Marlowes was simply the name of the busy main thoroughfare. Cars were parked on both sides of the road with a central reservation running its entire length from The Wagon and Horses pub at the southern end to The Pavilion at the northern end. The reservation was pun...
Pre-Roman finds proved a fascinating school project
In early September 1943, during the Second World War, Miss G B K Harris, then Headmistress of the school at Aldbury, reported the finding of small fragments of pottery in the village to Percy Westall. He was the Curator of Letchworth Museum at the time. This material had been shown to her by a Mr Wright during a nature ramble by class IB Boys, who were trying to locate a special plant – the Great Henbane – on Mr Wright’s smallholding. Following t...
Water way to live through centuries at Toovey's Mill
Two mills were recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 for Kings Langley, one for corn and the other for “fulling cloths”, worth 16 shillings at the time. Two water- driven mills were still in existence over two hundred years later. In 1587, the flour mill was leased from Queen Elizabeth I by Nicholas King and for a further two hundred years the King and the Surrey families carried out the work at the mill. A new name appeared in 1780 when Thomas T...
Bikers motoring on after reaching the ton-up mark
During the early part of the 20th century, citizens of towns and cities throughout the United Kingdom noticed new sounds and smells as they went about their daily lives. Gradually, combustion engines in cars and motorcycles began to replace the familiar sounds of hooves on cobbles. The smell of burnt oil and the roar of accelerating engines heralded the arrival of the combustion engine. Berkhamsted provided a rare, although small, manufacturing b...
Victorian tourists snapped up this continental crockery
The expansion of the railways in the nineteenth century made travel more and more available to ordinary people and introduced the concept of travel for pleasure. It became possible to visit relatives who lived more than a few miles away, and even to have holidays at the developing seaside resorts. Inevitably leisure travel, which was given a huge boost by the Great Exhibition of 1851, was soon followed by a tourist industry and that industry incl...
The trials and tribulations that led Ashridge to today
The name Bridgewater is familiar not only to local people, but in the wider world also. It was Francis, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, who outshone all his predecessors and ensured that the name would not be forgotten. Born in 1736, he was the second surviving son of Scroop Egerton, 1st Duke of Bridgewater. Francis was a dull-witted and sickly lad, mostly left to the company of the servants. His elder brother John inherited the title in 1745 but died o...
The annals of Ashridge
From WW1 practice trenches to Roman settlements, Ashridge is brimming with history. The estate has ancient origins dating back to the Neolithic period and encompasses a large and diverse area. The nearby Ivinghoe Hills form part of the Ridgeway, described as Britain’s oldest road, which has been in use for at least 5000 years. The remains of a late bronze/iron age hill fort are still visible at Ivinghoe Beacon. These settlements along the Chilter...
History of Hastoe Hall tells tale of 'mini welfare state'
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Lady Emma Rothschild created, in the words of one author, “a mini welfare state’ around Tring”, and Hastoe Village Hall was amongst the endowments she bestowed. Built on the site of John Batchelor’s Black Horse pub and brewery and William Wright’s mill, the Hall was opened in 1898 to serve as a social and recreational centre in the midst of an estate bounded by Tring, Wigginton, Buckland Common and Chole...
All set for 14th festival celebrating Greene's life
Graham Greene was born in St John’s, Chesham Road, Berkhamsted on 2 June 1904. He was the third son and fourth child of Charles and Marion Greene. His father was a master of Berkhamsted School and housemaster of St John’s, one of the School boarding houses. In 1910, Charles Greene was appointed Headmaster of Berkhamsted School and the family moved into the School House in Castle Street. Later, at the age of 13, Graham Greene returned to St John’s...
Postcards saw romance blossom for photographer
... mike rippingale hendelayk was in meadow way. demolished for the a41 bypass....
My Daughter's Birth
The Midwife had come to visit my wife in the evening. She said ‘if you’re having this baby have it tonight, or wait till after the weekend, cos I’m off’. Then she left. Just after midnight my wife went into labour, so I took her to bed and realised we needed the Midwife. I put on my coat over my pajamas, and headed out on foot for the public telephone. I went along the embankment, and down Roughdown road by the Greengrocer. At that time the stree...
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Memories of the chestnuts
Photo of climbing frame with myself Katja and sisters (twins) in 1956 to 1957 at the chestnuts! Does anyone remember ...
Book Release: Tring Rural Villages in the Twentieth Century
Our website – tringruralhistory.co.uk – was created in the summer of 2021 after the Chairman of our Parish Council asked ...
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Recent comments
Laraine Gordon
on
Photos of Chestnuts Home, Hemel Hempstead
David Morgan you have a good memory. I definitely remember you and a few others on the photo. A reunion...
Ruth
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Photos of Chestnuts Home, Hemel Hempstead
I was there in 1943 and what is described here is heaven whereas when I was there it was hell....
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