Mee's introduction

IT is the countryside that London loves, for Londoners have sought it out for centuries, and in our own time it has received as many new people as would make up a great town. It is country as it should be, unspoiled by the heavy hand of industry. Though there are now great new towns which house a great new growth of population, many of its people are still country folk, loving their small rivers and their little hills.

That was how Charles Lamb felt about this countryside. “I turn my back on thy detested walls, Proud City,” he would say, as he set out to leave London behind him, and though the pull of London was with him as he went it was enough that he would think of it:

And I shall muse on thee, slow journeying an
To the green plains of pleasant Hertfordshire.

It if be true that there is something unique in an Englishman among the races of the world may it not be that he is a mixture of the country and the town?

Certainly Charles Lamb’s pleasant Hertfordshire has contributed its abundant share to the life of the nation. We may wonder if any other small county has such proud boasts to make of its service to great causes. Its fields and lanes, so near the town, have sown seeds that have yielded infinite harvests of happiness and prosperity throughout the world. It is a wide claim to make, but it is true. Where was the great example of the Garden City given to the world? Where did the idea of freedom for the slaves dawn in Thomas Clarkson’s mind? Where was the action taken which blotted witchcraft from the Statute Book? Where were the seeds of scientific agriculture sown? Where was the idea of our great canal system born? The answer to all these questions is Hertfordshire.

We see that it has been a place for pioneers, for the birth of ideas and the rise of great movements. It was the home of Sir Henry Bessemer whose steel revolutionised the Age of Power. It was the home of William Cowper who changed the course of English poetry. It is the only English county which has given a cardinal and a pope to the Church of Rome, and in its county town of Hertford was held the first Synod ever held by the Church in England. Here (in Hertford Castle) Richard II was deposed; from here Charles I set out to raise his standard at Nottingham and to lose his throne; from here Mary Tudor went to take the throne; from here Queen Elizabeth I went to London to put on her crown.

We see that a county full of Nature’s quiet places can have a famous place in history. Perhaps we do not wonder that the first aerial traveller in England chose to come down here, or that it was in this natural English paradise that there was born a man who gave his life to spread the English spirit about the world, beginning with South Africa; it was here that Cecil Rhodes was born. As for the history that goes back to the civilisation before the English arrived in these islands, Hertfordshire has a noble share of it in St Albans, one of our first Roman cities; and the hand of the Roman, the Saxon, and the Norman is seen in many of its villages and towns. In this old town of St Albans lies one of the most famous and perplexing Englishmen, the wisest, brightest, meanest of men, Francis Bacon. This old city, the Roman Verulamium, has been for the student of ancient civilisations one of the richest sources of our knowledge of the life the Romans lived. It was a soldier of Verulamium who became the first English martyr, immortalised in the name of St Albans, where, gathered about his shrine, grew up a monastery with one of the chief libraries of medieval England.

For the most part Hertfordshire drains into the Thames, a few other small streams like the Hiz, the Ivel, and the Rhee making their way to the Great Ouse. The biggest river in the county is the Lea, running for 50 miles and almost dividing the county in two; it enters from Luton’s valley in Bedfordshire and makes its way past Wheathampstead to skirt Hatfield Park and pass in two branches through Hertford. The county town is a veritable gathering place of waters, with three tributaries coming down from three valleys: first the Maran from the Waldens by way of Welwyn, second the Beane from Ardeley by way of Walkern and Watton, and third the Rib which rises near Reed, picks up the Quin from the Barkway Downs at Braughing, and passes Standon, Thunbridge, and Ware Park. The Lea flows on through Ware, and soon turns south having received the River Ash from the Hadhams and the Pelhams. At the Essex border the Lea is joined by the Stort (the first river Cecil Rhodes would know). The Stort itself has formed the boundary with Essex, but the wider and deeper River Lea now becomes the boundary as far as Waltham Abbey, where the river leaves Hertfordshire. But from Amwell, hard by Ware, another river has been keeping the Lea company, the famous New River made by Sir Hugh Myddelton for nearly 40 miles to supply London with drinking water from the clear chalk springs of this countryside.

West of the Lea basin we cross into that of the Colne, which from its beginnings near Hatfield runs to meet its tributary the Ver, the name the Romans took for one of their most famous towns in Britain, Verulamium. The Colne is joined at Watford by the River Gade, and at Rickmansworth by the sparkling River Chess; then it makes south to pour itself into the Thames. The third tributary of the Thames from these downs travels much farther to reach it; it is the River Thame, which has three springs at Tring and only glitters at Puttenham before crossing Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire to join the Thames.

As in the east, so in the west it is an artificial river which impresses us more than Nature’s little streams. At Tring the Grand Union Canal has a reservoir and many locks marking the end of its rise of 4.00 feet from the level of the sea, so that the canal here is higher than the dome of St Paul’s. The canal links London with Birmingham and other Midland towns, and if the railways had not come would have been of even greater importance to the county. Actually the two great railways to the North and some of the most important commercial roads in England run through Hertfordshire, and there was a great road here before the Romans came. Made before the Romans made anything we know of was the Icknield Way which runs across the northern hills, coming from the Wash by way of Cambridgeshire, passing through Royston, Baldock, Letchworth, and Hitchin, crossing Bedfordshire and touching Hertfordshire again near Tring before making its way over the Thames. It was the trade route of the ancient Britons, and some of their camps are beside it - Ravensburgh, for example.

Crossing this ancient route are the great Roman roads of Ermine Street at Royston and Akeman Street at Tring. Akeman Street comes from St Albans and is a continuation of the Stane Street which linked Colchester with that Roman town, through which also passes Watling Street. Even more important than these old roads is the Great North Road through Hatfield, Stevenage, and Baldock; it is the A1 of our Transport Board.

Though these great roads carry mighty streams of traffic there are byways and lanes and grass tracks innumerable, the constant delight of cyclist and walker passing up and down this countryside so pleasantly undulating, with ample shade and many a fine common: most people know Harpenden’s and Wheathampstead’s and Chipperfield’s.

The fact that the county has such magnificent highways, railways, and waterways has attracted certain industries, and brick-making and quarrying have long flourished here. The red-brick tower of St Albans Cathedral is an eloquent witness of these age-old industries, for its materials were made by the Romans hereabouts; they fashioned millions of their dark-red tiles from the glacial clays of Hertfordshire. These glacial deposits rest in places on the chalk which forms most of the bed-rock of the county, almost all the rest being London clay, with gravel beds spreading across the south. In the extreme north are patches of strata older than the chalk, and, like the clay, providing the oak and other vegetation not found on the downs. Yet the chalk country of Hertfordshire is not so bare as downlands usually are. Such bareness is found here only in the extreme north where the Chilterns throw up such heights as Hastoe Hill near Tring, 709 feet; Butts Hill overlooking Hexton, and hills of 400 to 500 feet looking down on Royston. The downs continue to maintain a height of about 300 feet over half the eastern boundary of Essex, but they drop steadily as they come southward towards Middlesex. We see that five other counties touch this, Essex, Middlesex, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, and Cambridgeshire, and a very long boundary line Hertfordshire has for its size. We have found in our tour of England that one of the surprises of our coast is Poole Harbour with so many creeks and inlets that its shore is about 90 miles, and Hertfordshire has a surprise something like it, for to walk round the county would mean a 130-mile journey, so deep are its projections into its neighbours. There are only seven smaller counties in England than this. It has an area of only 632 square miles, and it is striking that it should be so rich in ways of getting about — so much beauty so accessible.

We do not wonder that the county is becoming more and more the Londoner’s playground, with London’s Green Belt running between Greater London and the North Orbital Road. Much of it is open to us all (as at Knebworth and Tring), and delightful are the parks, with glorious trees and lakes made by widening the rivers. Hertfordshire has about a hundred parks, and it is not to be wondered at that a county so richly endowed should have led the way in solving the pressing problem of our crowded cities. It is Hertfordshire which has seen the fulfilling of Ebenezer Howard’s dream.

It must lift up the hearts of every country-planner to see what Letchworth and Welwyn have done; they are among the social triumphs of our time, and Letchworth is a veritable delight. The marvellous harvest that has sprung from the seeds sown by John Bennet Lawes at Harpenden has impressed itself upon agriculturists all over the world, for on his Rothamsted estate has been laid the foundation of scientific agriculture. In one field wheat has been grown continuously for about 120 years, and it is beyond all doubt that Rothamsted has increased the supply of the world’s daily bread. Two great schools have come to Hertfordshire from London, Christ’s Hospital School for Girls, housed in a magnificent block of buildings at Hertford, and the Foundling Hospital, which is carrying on its work at Berkhamsted, having brought Handel’s organ with it.

The fine educational work of the Natural History Museum built up by the Rothschilds goes on at Tring, where the park is open for us all, as is Lord Lytton’s park at Knebworth. All these are interesting places playing their part in the nation’s life.

It was at Much Hadham that there was born the child whose son became our first Tudor king, and at Theobalds Park in Cheshunt that our first Stuart king brought up his sons, one of whom was to set out from here to begin a war against his people and to lose his crown.

It is interesting to remember an odd distinction that Hertfordshire has in the history of flight. It was here that the first Zeppelin was brought down in England, and it was here that the first aerial traveller landed in England long ago; he landed at Standon, having called at North Mimms on the way and startled a country woman by dropping a cat for her to take care of.

We have become familiar in our tour of England with churches taking us back to Saxon and Roman days, but nowhere else have we come upon so much visible Roman material in church walls. The Roman bricks in the tower of St Albans Cathedral are, of course, a wonder of all time, but we found a chancel arch of Roman tiles at Sandridge and the handiwork of the Romans is to be found at Welwyn, Sarratt, Great Wymondley, and Hemel Hempstead. It is odd that with so much Roman there is so little Saxon, almost none, but there are fine examples of Norman and abundant examples of medieval architecture.

Hemel Hempstead Church is a majestic Norman monument, Redbourn has a fine Norman arcade, Hormead has a Norman chancel arch and a treasure not to be equalled by more than one or two places in England — a Norman door. The county is remarkable for its old doors, for Bengeo has a 14th-century door still in a Norman doorway, Pirton has two 14th-century doors, Kelshall has a 15th-century door, and there is another of the same age in the spacious medieval church of Sawbridgeworth. Little Berkhamsted has a bell which has been ringing for 600 years, and Braughing and Flaunden have bells which rang in the good news that the Spanish Armada was beaten. Flamstead has medieval frescoes, brasses, and sculptures; Sarratt has wall-paintings 700 years old; Digswell has 24 children on brass, and Ashwell has an ancient drawing of Old St Paul’s engraved on its 14th-century tower.

Bishop Ken, whose hymns are sung around the world, was born at Little Berkhamsted, Cardinal Manning was born at Totteridge, and Nicholas Breakspear began life at Abbots Langley and ended it in the papal chair as Adrian the Fourth. Macaulay was at school at Aspenden and Cowper at Markyate, he having been born at Berkhamsted. At Anstey was born Thomas Campion, whose poem The Man of Life Upright every Englishman‘ should know. At St Albans, in St Michael’s Church, sleeps Francis Bacon, and at Stanstead St Margaret lies Henry Lawrence, Cromwell’s kinsman and Milton’s friend. At Hitchin was born that George Chapman whose translation of Homer opened a new world for Keats (Much have I travelled in the realms of gold). At Lilley lived and wrote James Janeway, the only rival to John Bunyan in the nurseries of his day, writer of books for children terrible almost beyond belief. At Welwyn lies Edward Young, the poet of Night Thoughts. At Bushey lies Barry Pain, a humorist of the last generation and a poet of no mean order; he lies with two artists near him — Sir Hubert Herkomer and Thomas Heame, the painter who inspired Turner. Harry Bates (sculptor of the beautiful Socrates talking to his pupils) lies at Stevenage, and the delicate artist Claud Lovat Fraser lies at Buntingford. Nicholas Hawksmoor, the right-hand man of Sir Christopher Wren, who helped in the building of St Paul’s and of the Abbey, lies at Shenley. At Charlton, near Hitchin, was born Sir Henry Bessemer, whose discoveries added new resources to engineering all over the world. Cottered has the grave of the great surgeon Sir James Cantlie, and at Cheshunt sleeps Nehemiah Grew, the botanist who gave the world new knowledge of trees and flowers.

All these have contributed to the high place that Hertfordshire has in our history, and there are many more; such men as Thomas Dimsdale, pioneer of inoculation; William Yarrell, whose books on birds and fishes were the best of their kind 100 years ago; and Mrs Humphry Ward should not be overlooked. Yet when they are all mentioned who else among them counts like Charles Lamb? Of all our counties, this is his. He loved it as a boy and never forgot its fields and lanes and houses, or its people. His life would have been changed could he have married his beloved Ann Simmons, whose memory all his life was linked with Hertfordshire for him.

Since 1945 modern development has effected considerable changes in parts of the county, and the establishment of large new towns at Hatfield, Hemel Hempstead, and Stevenage (the first started some years before the late war) has destroyed much pleasant rural country and brought in many thousands of new dwellers from the London area. Fortunately, each has retained its old town centre with its ancient church and other features of interest. There has also been a large increase of building and population all over the southern portion of the county, so that the rural character of this area is yearly being more and more obliterated.

Introduction

I find the general lack of interest in Hertfordshire rather perplexing; admittedly most people travel through, and past it, on the M25, A1, or A10 but get off the throughways and the county has a wealth of interest beyond the obvious attractions of St Albans, Knebworth and Hatfield House.

With about 630 square miles Hertfordshire is among the six smallest counties of England. In population it is the fourteenth from the top (1951); that means it is remarkably densely populated. This is due to its proximity to London, a fact which one’s eyes are hardly ever allowed to forget. The landscape of Hertfordshire is naturally friendly, green, gently rolling, with no large river, uneventful but lovable. It possesses no grandeur, except perhaps occasionally on the height of the Chilterns, and it tends to be dull towards the NE. It has long been under intense cultivation, and one cannot count on much solitude. London’s Green Line buses are likely to appear everywhere, and even the familiar red buses cruise as far as Watford and St Albans. At Barnet and Waltham Cross, London reaches solidly into the county. Still separate, but likewise obviously part of London, is the whole Bushey-Oxhey-Watford neighbourhood. The great number of large hospitals (especially mental hospitals) is also connected with nearness to the metropolis. Negatively the effect of this nearness is the absence of any big city (Watford with 73,000 is the biggest town) and of an old cathedral (St Albans was made a cathedral only in 1877).

In its industries Hertfordshire looks to London too. Paper mills and printing works are as characteristic as market gardening and watercress growing, the latter two chiefly in the E of the county.

More conspicuous than the rivers - the longest of which is the Lea running E from somewhere near Luton past Wheathampstead, Hertford, and Ware and then turning S by Broxbourne and Waltham and so into the Thames - are the ancient roads. The Icknield Way is a pre-Roman track. It comes from Ivinghoe and Luton and crosses the county mainly between Hitchin, Baldock, and Royston. The chief Roman roads are: (1) Watling Street, which enters Hertfordshire at Elstree. Passing through Radlett, St Stephen’s, Verulam and Gorhambury Drive it leads across the fields to Bow Bridge and Dunstable, and leaves the county at Markyate. (2) Akeman Street, of which only a small part is traceable, on its route from Aylesbury to Boxmoor, through Tring and Berkhamsted. (3) Ermine Street which enters the county at the hamlet of Ball Cross (in the parish of Cheshunt) and follows the present road to Harnstead End. Thence it proceeds via Cold Hall, Elbow Lane, Hertford Heath, Little Amwell, and Rush Green Farm to Ware Vicarage, Braughing (where it crosses Stane Street), Buntingford and Royston, where it leaves the county. (4) Stane Street, which enters Hertfordshire at Bishops Stortford, passes through Little Hadham to Braughing, crosses Ermine Street, and there leads through Hare Street, Clothall, and Baldock. There are, in addition, traces of a road from Verulam to Colchester, crossing Hertfordshire at Sandridge, Ayot, and Welwyn. Hertfordshire is also crossed by two important canals, the New River built as early as 1609-13 as a conduit from Great Amwell to London, and the Grand Junction (now Grand Union) Canal begun in 1792 and completed in 1805. It connects the Midlands with London and runs through Hertfordshire from Tring by Berkhamsted, Boxmoor, Watford, and Rickmansworth. The railway arrived in 1838. It is in several places conspicuous by fire brick viaducts.

Brick became the accepted building material in Hertfordshire only during the first half of the Tudor Age, although the Romans had used brick extensively, and early medieval builders had made ample use of Roman bricks (see St Albans). But brick-making was not taken up for centuries in Hertfordshire, as indeed in the whole of England. Details of the reappearance of brick in the C15 and C16 will be given later. Before then cottages were universally timber-framed, and for churches and large houses flint was extensively used.[1] The most usual local stone is clunch; the best local stone is the chalk from Totternhoe across the Bedfordshire border, but oolitic limestone from Northamptonshire also appears. Geologically Hertfordshire is all young rocks, chiefly chalk on top of gault and London clay. The only more elevated land is the parts of the Chilterns which lie in the W of the county, NE of Tring. They are continued NE as a less conspicuous escarpment towards Royston.

The most important prehistoric evidence of Hertfordshire belongs to the area SE of the Chilterns and to as late a period as the Iron Age. Of the Stone and Bronze Ages there is no visible evidence except in museums, and what there is in these needs no special comment here. Cassivelaunus, the Belgic king who defied Caesar in 54 B.C., had his capital near Wheathampstead. His grandson moved it on to Verulamium. A third sizeable Iron Age settlement was at Welwyn, NW of the present road from Stevenage to Hatfield. Verulamium became one of the outstanding cities of Roman Britain, in fact the only municipium in the country. Much of the plan has been ascertained by excavations. The Museum possesses a most interesting collection. In situ, however, are only the theatre and one mosaic pavement. Roman stations were at Braughing, Reed, Thirfield, Clothall, and Wilbury Hill.

Saxon evidence is minor but not without interest. St Michael’s at St Albans has its nave and chancel walls preserved, with window surrounds of Roman brick. Long-and-short work can be seen at Reed and Westmill.

Norman evidence is far more impressive. St Albans, one of the most powerful monasteries of Britain, is of course the prime monument. It was begun about 1078 and built very quickly. Much of the long nave, crossing, crossing tower, transepts, and chancel survives. Originally the E end was of seven stepped apses, two on the E side of each transept, two to the chancel aisles, and one to the chancel. Roman brick was extensively used where strength was required. The details are of the rawest and most severe. The church is specially remarkable for never having possessed a gallery like all the other major Norman churches of England, but only a triforium. Smaller English Norman parish churches have apses only rarely and as a rule only in the SE of the country. Hertfordshire examples are at Wheathampstead (excavation results), Bengeo, Great Amwell, Great Wymondley, and Weston.  Weston also has a Norman crossing tower and seems to have possessed a transept with apsidal chapels as well. Hemel Hempstead is an exceptionally complete later C12 town church. It has a square chancel with rib-vaults - the only example of Norman rib-vaulting in the county [2] - transepts, a crossing tower, and a nave with Norman clerestory and aisles. Sarratt is a small Norman church on the very unusual Greek cross plan. Other Norman crossing towers exist or can be reconstructed at Anstey and Pirton. Norman W towers are preserved at Barley, Flamstead, Redbourn, and Stevenage; Norman arcades, e.g. at Abbots Langley, Redbourn, and Walkern. Interesting overlaps of Norman and E.E. forms, proving how long into the C13 Norman detail was still used locally, can be seen at Kimpton and Kings Walden.

The paramount example of the E.E. style in Hertfordshire is, of course, the W parts of the nave and the retrochoir of St Albans. The former were begun in 1195 and are thus amongst the earliest examples of pure Gothic design in Britain. Most of the work, however, belongs to c.1215-35. It is exceptional for its date in having deep W porches and a triforium instead of a gallery. The retrochoir was begun in 1257. At Royston is an interesting fragment of a C13 parish church, much obscured by later alterations. Surprisingly sumptuous chancel arches survive at Eastwick and Standon. In parish churches E.E. chancels are more frequent than E.E. nave; for the chancels were for the clergy, and there was no reason to enlarge them later, whereas naves grow with congregations in the later Middle Ages. The finest E.E. chancel is at Anstey. Here the transepts are also of the C13. The same is true of Hatfield with odd W chapels attached to its transepts. A rare central plan survives at Flaunden – a Greek cross like Norman Sarratt. Examples of C13 crossing towers are Northchurch and Wheathampstead.

Those attracted by the fantasies of the Dec style of the first half of the C14 will be disappointed with what Hertfordshire has to offer. The Lady Chapel of St Albans, though of c. 1300-20, has nothing of the lavishness of Ely or Bristol, and the restoration of part of the nave after 1323 is far from original. The only places showing a more fanciful treatment are the transepts of Wheathampstead. Chancel chapels with Dec details are at Aldbury, Abbots Langley, and Benington. Tracery on the whole is unimaginative. So-called Kentish tracery, that is tracery with a motif of a quatrefoil with spikes between the lobes, can be seen at Ayot St Lawrence and St Paul’s Walden. Designers need not have gone to Kent for patterns. They appear as near Herts as, for example, Waltham Abbey.

As in so many parts of England, the later C14 and the C15 and early C16 were the high-watermark of prosperity in wool or cloth towns and villages. Baldock and Ashwell churches are two comparatively early examples of this (early C14 and c. 1340-80). The majority of medieval work in Herts churches is of the Perp style and chiefly the C15. Important buildings are at Hitchin, Ware, and Watford. Work in the village churches is not on the whole very inspired. Tracery is of no special merit. There are, however, a number of stately W towers, the most beautiful, still of the C14, at Ashwell. This and that at Baldock are crowned by a recessed octagonal storey and then a thin spire. Extremely thin recessed spikes are a peculiarity of the county. They are known as Hertfordshire spikes.

Piers have a variety of sections. To return for a moment to earlier centuries Norman arcades had circular piers, the C 13 usually octagonal ones (e.g. Ardeley, Flamstead, Great Gaddesden, Much Hadham, Offley, Walkern). This latter form was continued into the early C14 (Aldenham, Hitchin, Wheathampstead, etc.). The W parts of St Albans of c. 1200 have a variation on this theme with four attached shafts in the main axes. Quatrefoil sections of the piers are to be found at Berkhamsted, Anstey, Gilston, and Sawbridgeworth. St Albans c. 1257 added to these four slimmer shafts in the diagonals. Royston Priory did the same, but keeled the diagonal shafts - not an unusual profile, also without the keeling. Without capitals to the diagonal shafts the same profile continues at Baldock and Ashwell, Albury and Benington. Later at Ashwell the main shafts turn 3/8 in section instead of semicircular, and at Clothall, also in the C14, the diagonal shafts are also of 3/8 section. The most usual C15 profile is four attached shafts and four hollows in the diagonals (Cheshunt 1418-48, Barnet c. 1440-50, Bishops Stortford, etc.). With 3/8 shafts instead of semi-circular ones, the same section appears at Barkway, Furneaux Pelham, St Paul’s Walden, and as late as 1532 at Wyddial. More complex late medieval forms are at Tring and Standon with double hollows in the diagonals, at Hatfield with treble shafts in the four main axes, and at Watton and Ware. Perp piers have often capitals only to some shafts. In Herts this characteristic habit is fully developed already at Buckland (1348?).

With the exception of St Albans and Royston all the churches so far mentioned were parochial. Herts was, in fact, not rich in important monastic foundations. The power of St Albans overshadowed all. To its liberty belonged Abbots Langley, Aldenham, Barnet, Codicote, Elstree, Hexton, Northaw, Northchurch, Rickmansworth, Watford, and divers other parishes, going across the border into Bucks. The other monastic houses in the county of which remains survive above ground were the Augustinian priories of Royston (founded C12) and Little Wymondley (founded C13), the Benedictine nunneries at Sopwell and Markyate (both cells of St Albans), the Carmelite house at Hitchin, the house of the Bonshommes at Ashridge, the Dominican friary at Kings Langley, and the Franciscan friary at Ware.

There is no important medieval sculpture in Herts. The shrines of St Albans Abbey are in a sadly fragmentary state. Tomb-recesses and decorated tomb-chests are at Anstey (c. 1300), Benington (c. 1330?, c. 1358?), Little Munden (late C14), Aldenham (late C14), and Aldbury (1471). More ambitious are the three chantry chapels of St Albans, dating from 1447, c. 1460, and c. 1520. Of stone effigies the best of the C1I3 are at Eastwick and Brent Pelham. A Purbeck marble effigy is at Walkern, a Purbeck slab with incised effigy at Sawbridgeworth, the former C13, the latter early C14. Alabaster effigies are rare, brasses extremely frequent. The earliest are of c. 1340 (Albury) and of 1356 (Berkhamsted); the best are the de la Mare brass at St Albans, c. 1396, of Flemish workmanship, and of English workmanship those at North Mimms c. 1360, Hemel Hempstead late C14, Furneaux Pelham early C15, Digswell 1415, Watford 1415, Sawbridgeworth c. 1433, Wheathampstead c. 1436, Watton-at-Stone mid C15, Standon 1474, Broxbourne 1474, a group of c. 1475-80 at Albury, Little Hadham, and Sandon, and Hinxworth 1487(?).

For medieval wall painting St Albans is of national importance, especially the late C13 paintings of the Crucifixion on five nave piers, but also what survives in the chancel. Apart from St Albans only Flamstead with its C13 and C15 fragments, and smaller fragments at Bengeo (C13) and Widford have to be mentioned. Regarding medieval stained glass the figure of the Virgin at St Paul’s Walden (early C14) and the Jesse tree at Barkway (late C15) are the best examples.

In church furnishings also outstanding works are lacking. There are plenty of preserved screens, but none of them first-rate. Of special historic interest is the one at Gilston, because it is clearly of before 1300 - a very early date. The stone pulpitum at St Albans is of the late C14, the stone reredos with its Victorian figures later C15. The best C15 timber screens are those of Hitchin. The coving of the rood loft is preserved at Redbourn and Kimpton. A great rarity is the Feretrar’s Watching Loft at St Albans (c. 1500). Stall-work might be mentioned at Stevenage, misericords at Bishops Stortford, and a C15 font with carved figures at Ware. Decorated iron door-hinges survive at Little Hormead of a Norman date, at St Albans of the late C13. Also of the late C13 is the exquisite iron railing round the Gloucester Chantry at St Albans.[3]

The proof that brick had become equal in social status to stone is provided by its acceptance for church architecture. In Herts this is marked by the N aisle and N chancel chapel at Wyddial (1532) and the S porch at Meesden (c. 1530). The chancel chapels at Hunsdon and Stanstead Abbots (1577), and the tower top at Sarratt followed. They take us into the Elizabethan Age.

The foundation of schools and almshouses took the place, after the Reformation, of the foundation of chantry chapels in churches. Church architecture between the middle of the C16 and the middle of the C17 was stagnant. The only complete church built during the century is St Peter at Buntingford (1614-26), a Greek cross in plan. The chapel at Oxhey (1612) is still entirely Perp in character and details. The N transept at Little Hadham has intersected tracery dating apparently from the late C16, the chancel chapel at Aspenden octagonal piers of 1622. However, these carry semicircular arches decorated with strapwork, and the Morrison Chapel at Watford of 1595 and the Salisbury Chapel at Hatfield of c. 1610 replace Perp piers by Tuscan columns.[4] The same development can be followed in much greater detail in the monuments of c.1550 to c. 1660. Again in connexion with the Reformation they tended to grow more and more self-confident and worldly. It is hard to choose out of three dozen and more major examples what is to be regarded as outstanding or specially characteristic. The first sign of dissatisfaction with the Perp motifs of decoration appears in a tomb-chest of alabaster at Wheathampstead, which is dated 1558. Strapwork, the new abstract art of ornament which the Elizabethan style took over from the Netherlands, appears in full maturity at Aldbury in 1570, but the majority of the more ambitious monuments belong to the C17. Some are good enough to be in Westminster Abbey, first and foremost that of the Earl of Salisbury at Hatfield, by Colt, a large free-standing composition with kneeling allegorical figures at the angles and the effigy of the Earl above and as a cadaver below. At least as good Nicholas Stone’s moving figure of Sir Richard Cyrle d. 1617, in a shroud. This is also at Hatfield. Works like these would hold their own in any county. Many others are cruder in style and showier in decoration. The chief types are one with kneeling figures facing each other across a prayer-desk, usual mostly for epitaphs on a smaller scale but occurring also in standing wall-monuments, and another with a recumbent effigy (or two, one being placed behind and a little above the other) or a semi-reclining effigy, under an arch, shallow or deeper and coffered, between columns carrying an entablature with an achievement. Particularly good are the examples at Bayford (1612) and Hunsdon (1617). Others at Braughing (1625), Broxbourne (1609), Hatfield (1612), Hertingfordbury (1622, c. 1650), Hunsdon (1612), Sawbridgeworth (1625), Standon (1587, 1606), Watford (1599, 1628), and Wheathampstead (c. 1630-5). An odd case of Gothic survival is the canopy of the Ravenscroft Monument at High Barnet of 1630. Rarer types are those with busts (an early example at Braughing, 1597, wider popularity during the reign of Charles I: Hadley, by Nicholas Stone, 1616, then Berkhamsted 1627 or 1634, Aspenden 1634 or 1623, Meesden 1626, Buckland 1634, Sawbridgeworth 1637, Willian 1656, those with seated and those with standing figures. The most famous seated effigy is Sir Francis Bacon at St Michael’s St Albans, 1626 (an earlier example 1605 at Radwell); the only standing figure is Bridget Gore d. 1659. She is in her shroud, a type made popular by the Donne Monument in St Paul’s Cathedral.

The Restoration brought a noticeable change in the style of monuments. It is clearly indicated in the beautiful epitaph of Judith Strode at Knebworth (1662) with its purely Italian, nobly handled bust and extremely restrained detail. One type specially favoured shortly after the Restoration has no effigy, though often two mournful putti, and Italian detail in a grand Baroque manner (several examples at Little Gaddesden, also Cheshunt). Busts remain in fashion. (Ardeley 1673, Barnet 1680, 1689, Wyddial 1687, etc.) Semi-reclining figures occur even more frequently than before and their style now becomes more spectacular. Roman costume appears, and the proudly carried wigs of an extremely self-assured age. One of the earlier displays of this self-importance of the prosperous nobleman at the time of William of Orange is the Viscount Hewyt Memorial at Sawbridgeworth (1689). He is portrayed standing in front of us in an attitude as if he were Louis XIV himself. A standing statue also Mr Lytton d. 1710 at Knebworth (by Thomas Green?). The Lytton Chapel at Knebworth contains the most sumptuous series of monuments in the county. The large monuments to Sir William Lytton d. 1705 and Sir George Strode d.1707 by Edward Stanton have stately semi-reclining figures wearing wigs and big reredos backgrounds. Two semi-reclining effigies (arranged a la Guglielmo della Porta’s tomb of Pope Paul III) at Tring (by Nost, 1707). As the C18 progressed, the composition of monuments became more varied. The sources are Italy and France; the style moves from a somewhat ponderous Baroque to a remarkably elegant Rococo. Herts is rich in many types and examples by many hands. Reclining figures with assistant allegories at Offley 1699, at Abbots Langley (by Cheere) 1732; two standing figures with a tree in the background at Offley (by Nollekens) 1777; allegories singly or in pairs, seated or in other attitudes, without effigies at North Mimms 1716, Offley (by Taylor) 1752, Abbots Langley (by Scheemakers) 1756, Throcking (by Nollekens) 1770, Flamstead (by Flaxman) 1782. Of other sculptors Rysbrack is represented by four or five works, none amongst his most important, Roubiliac by one extremely charming but minor piece (Hertingfordbury 1727), Bacon by two (Sawbridgeworth; Watton 1793). The Stantons appear at Flamstead (1690) and Barkway, Scheemakers made the Freeman Monument at Braughing to Athenian Stuart’s design (1772). Lesser sculptors of monuments are T. Bull (Redbourn), B. Palmer (Graveley), John Richards (Buckland), and W. Woodman (Cheshunt). The last Georgian decades have produced less interesting monuments (two more Flaxmans, at Great Gaddesden 1782 and Sacombe 1815, one Thorwaldsen at Wheathampstead, an excellent Westmacott at Little Gaddesden 1823, more Westmacott at Kings Langley, Chenu 1796 and 1820 at Barkway, Kendrick at Barkway and Great Hormead). Not all the best monuments are signed. There are, for example, in various places, a number of delicate epitaphs of c. 1760-80 in white, pink, and biscuit-coloured marbles with portrait medallions, cherubs’ heads, etc., whose authors are unknown.

The only church building of a comparably representational character is Nicholas Revett’s at Ayot St Lawrence 1778-9, on an unusual plan and with a severe Greek Doric portico. Church work before 1800 otherwise is negligible (St Paul’s Walden Chancel 1727, Offley Chancel c.1750, Totteridge 1790). Several village churches have their box pews and three-decker pulpits (Stanstead Abbots) preserved. The most remarkable font is that at Essendon, of Wedgwood black-basalt earthenware. Excellent early C18 ironwork is at Hatfield churchyard (from St Paul’s Cathedral) and in Hatfield church (from Amiens) and Knebworth church.

Early C19 churches are of no special architectural merit, some classical, some of that starved Gothic which characterizes the period of the so-called Commissioners’ Churches. A number are Neo-Norman, and London Colney of 1825 by G. Smith must be one of the earliest examples of a Norman Revival in Britain.

Several of the leading Victorian church architects are represented in Herts: Pugin with the ambitious chapel at Old Hall Green 1845, Butterfield with Holy Saviour Hitchin 1865 and the successful re-modelling and enlarging of the High Barnet Parish Church 1876, Bentley with the outstandingly fine HolyRood Watford 1883, etc., and so on. Pritchett’s High Wych of 1861 deserves to be specially mentioned as an eminently typical example of High Victorian design at its most revolting, Seddon’s Ayot St Peter of 1875 as a work by an early adherent of the Morris reform. Other churches by Blomfield (Stevenage), Jekyll (Lilley), Norman Shaw (Boxmoor), Carpenter & Ingelow (Long Marston), and so on to Lutyens’s remarkably original and forceful but unfinished St Martin’s Knebworth 1914.[5]

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[1] Shenley church in 1424, etc., is of flint with brick dressings.

[2] The E aisles of the Berkhamsted transepts are also rib-vaulted.They are, however, of the C13.

[3] As in previous volumes of this series, church bells are not recorded.

[4] Elizabethan and Jacobean CHURCH FURNISHINGS are of no great interest. It is sufficient here to mention the Early Renaissance decoration (the earliest in the county) of the screen of c. 1540 at Digswell, the early C17 screen at Wyddial, and the screen and family pews at Hunsdon of about the same date. The style remained unaltered for a long time. The pulpit of 1658 at Bishops Stortford is still wholly in the Elizabethan tradition.

[5] The best Victorian Stained Glass is that of William Morris at Furneaux Pelham 1866, 1873, Kings Walden 1867, Rickmansworth 1891, and Hatfield 1894, of Kempe in his early years at High Cross 1876 and Bishops Stortford 1877, and of Selwyn Image at High Cross 1893.