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]
[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.
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