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.