About

Having completed Essex I intend to visit and record, both digitally and with the use of Nicholas Pevsner and Arthur Mee, 240 mainly CoE churches in Hertfordshire. I'm excluding pretty much any built post c. 1930 but this will vary if a new build catches my eye - if you want an overview of the churches I've ignored, and the ones I've visited from a different viewpoint (325 listed last time I checked), click on the Hertfordshire Churches in Photographs link to the right or here.

This is a spin off from my original challenge, begun in 2010, to visit all of the 718 churches within a 50 minute drive from home.

So far I've visited 236 with 4 remaining as at 14/02/15.

For the record the percentage of accessible churches - either open, keyholder listed*, or redundant/ruined - stands at 59%; in comparison Suffolk churches, with only 117 visited churches out of 693, stands at almost 85%.

* Having a keyholder listed does not mean that you'll definitely gain access and I often haven't; you run the risk that they may be out or unfindable - it's amazing how many keyholder phone numbers are listed without an area code - but to be fair I think that if a church lists keyholders it is technically accessible.

Simon Jenkins, in his England's Thousand Best Churches, gives Hertfordshire the following ratings:

Anstey ** 
Ashwell * 
Ayot St Lawrence *
Ayot St Peter **
Hatfield ***
Hitchin  **
Knebworth:
     St Martin *
     St Mary ***
St Paul’s Walden *
South Mimms *
Stanstead Abbots *
Watford:
     Holy Rood RC **