Harpenden-Redbourn district is that of lavender at Hitchin, where
numerous fields on a spur of the chalk range near Windmill Hill are
devoted to the growth of this fragrant plant. In late summer or early
autumn the terminal spikes of blossom are nipped from their long stems,
and garnered for the sake of their contained oil, which is distilled
into lavender-water in Hitchin itself. Lavender-water has been
produced at Hitchin for a period of fully eighty years. The growing of
lavender as an industry is extremely restricted in England.
[Illustration: A Lavender Field, Hitchin]
12. Industries and Manufactures.
As will be inferred from the statements in earlier chapters with regard
to its essentially agricultural nature, Hertfordshire is in no wise
a manufacturing county like Lancashire or Yorkshire; this being due,
no doubt, in great part to the fact that it possesses no commercially
valuable minerals of its own, or, at all events, none which are at
present accessible to the miner.
During the last quarter of a century or so a certain number of
manufacturing and industrial establishments have been moved from
London and set up in various parts of the county, as at St Albans and
elsewhere; but these cannot be termed Hertfordshire industries in the
proper sense of the term, and do not need further mention.
One of the great industries of the county is the malting business
carried on at Ware, as is indicated by the number of cowls over the
drying-kilns, which form conspicuous objects for miles round. Ware was
the greatest malting place in England. The method of malting is too
well known and the industry too widely spread to call for any special
notes on the subject.
In former years, say up to about 1865, the straw-plait industry
afforded employment to a whole army of workers in north-western Herts
and the neighbouring districts of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire;
and at that date the women and children might be seen in summer
plaiting the straw at almost every cottage-door in each village or
town. As already mentioned, the chalk districts of the county grow
wheat-straw specially well suited for plait. The straws to be used
were selected and pulled one by one from the sheaves before the latter
were threshed; and, after having the corn-ears cut off, were done up
into bundles. The latter were in turn cut into such lengths as could
be obtained free from knots, and tied up into smaller bundles ready
for sale to the workers. Before being employed in plaiting, each straw
was split longitudinally into several strips by means of a brass
instrument, which consisted of a handle and a pointed, star-shaped head
bent down at right angles to the former. The finished plait was sold
at so much per “score” (that is to say twenty yards) for manufacture
into hats and bonnets. Cheap Chinese labour has completely killed the
local plaiting industry; but the manufacture of the finished foreign
plait into hats still constitutes an important trade in St Albans and
elsewhere, as well as at Luton and Dunstable in Bedfordshire; the
sewing of the plait into hats being done mainly, if not entirely, in
large factories. Tring was a great plait centre.
The manufacture of textile fabrics was formerly carried on in several
parts of the county, but in most of these has either completely ceased
or fallen into decline. About 1802 there were mills for the manufacture
both of silk and cloth at Rickmansworth; and the occurrence of the name
“Fuller Street” in the records of St Albans apparently indicates the
existence at some unknown date of the latter industry in that city, and
there were certainly cotton-mills at Sopwell, to the south of it. The
Abbey silk-mills, on the Ver, are still working at St Albans, although
with a much diminished output; but those at the neighbouring village of
Redbourn have been recently closed. Tring had silk-mills, and canvas
was also made there. Lace-making was probably carried on by some of
the cottagers on the Buckinghamshire side of the county, where it
flourishes to a certain extent at the present day, and may even still
here and there survive.
[Illustration: Moor Park, near Rickmansworth]
Nowadays perhaps the most important manufacturing industry in the
county is that carried on at the paper-mills at Abbot’s Langley, where
a large amount of high class paper is turned out. Being on the canal,
these mills have the advantage of water-carriage. Paper, it may be
observed, is made nowadays from wood-pulp and esparto grass, as well as
from linen rags.
[Illustration: Canal and Lock, Rickmansworth]
Brick-making employs a considerable number of hands in various parts
of the county; the glacial and other superficial deposits on the chalk
area frequently yielding excellent brick-earth; while the London
clay may be employed for brick-making anywhere in the south-eastern
districts. Bricks from the London clay, which is naturally blue, turn
yellow or white after burning in consequence of the combustion of the
organic colouring matter; but many of those from the glacial clays are
of a full rich red At Pepperstock, near Caddington, however, there are
manufactured certain very hard, heather-coloured bricks, which are much
favoured for house-building in north-western Hertfordshire, although
their colour compares very unfavourably in the matter of effect when
contrasted with the “brick-red” of the more ordinary kinds.
As we approach the Gault plain of Bedfordshire numerous cement works
may be seen at the edge of the chalk-marl near the northern borders of
the county, some of which may be within the county itself. Chalk is
much worked, as at Hitchin and elsewhere, for lime; and, as already
mentioned, is dug largely by the farmers for “chalking” their fields.
It is to such diggings that the deep circular pits (now generally
ploughed over) to be seen in many arable fields are due. The Totternhoe
stone has been, and perhaps still is, quarried locally for building in
some parts of the northern districts of the county.
13. Minerals--An Exhausted Industry.
Having referred in the last section to brick-making, lime, cement, and
Totternhoe stone, very little remains for mention in the present one;
as the absence of mines is one of the features of Hertfordshire and the
adjacent counties.
Reference may, however, again be made to the so-called coprolite beds
of the chalk-marl which were worked in the neighbourhood of Hitchin
in the early part of the first half of last century as a source of
phosphoric acid for agricultural manure. The irregularly shaped black
nodules of phosphate of lime occur crowded together in a comparatively
thin bed. They were dug out, and washed from the marl in which they
were embedded on the spot in large circular tanks through which a
wheel was made to revolve by horse-labour; and then carted away to
be converted by a chemical process into superphosphate. After the
excavation of the coprolite bed from one strip of a field, the marl
from the next was thrown in, and the top soil replaced, so that the
land was left in as good, or even better, condition than previously.
The industry was continued till all the beds situated at or above a
level which it paid to work were exhausted.
In winter there is a considerable local trade in gravel and shingle,
dug mainly in the valleys. Twenty years ago this trade was much more
extensive in some districts than is at present the case; this being due
partly to the exhaustion of the deposits, partly to the fact that in
districts served by the Midland Railway the use of syenite from Mount
Sorrel and Charnwood Forest, in Leicestershire, has to a considerable
extent replaced flint-gravel as road-metal on the main highways of
the county and in the metropolitan districts. Formerly, very large
quantities of gravel were sent from St Albans and Harpenden to the
northern metropolitan suburbs such as Hendon and Child’s Hill; but
most of that now dug is employed for road-metal on the local by-roads.
Here it should be mentioned that in Hertfordshire phraseology the term
“gravel” is used exclusively to denote the coarse big-stoned material
used as road-metal; what is ordinarily denoted as “gravel”--that is
to say the material employed for garden-paths--being locally known as
“hoggin.” Flints picked from the fields of the chalk area have a higher
value as road-metal than dug gravel, owing to their superior hardness;
the so-called “quarry-water,” which is present in all dug gravel,
having been long since dried out.
“Facing” flints for building purposes is an art much less commonly
practised in the county than was the case in earlier days; and when
buildings of faced flint are contemplated it is generally necessary to
send to a distance in order to secure the services of an expert in the
facing process.
14. History of Hertfordshire.
The history of Hertfordshire includes such a number of events of
primary importance that it is somewhat difficult to make a selection
of those most fitted to appear in the limited space available. It was
in this county that the offer of the crown of England was made to
William the Conqueror, and it was from here that the first petition for
the redress of grievances was forwarded to Charles I; while several
important battles have been fought within its limits.
To the two British tribes who inhabited this part of England previous
to the Roman invasion, reference has been made in an earlier section.
The first landing of Julius Caesar took place (in Kent) in 55 B.C.,
and the second and more successful in 54 B.C.; while a third Roman
invasion took place under Claudius in 43 A.D., from which date the
Roman legions held possession of the whole country till about the year
410 A.D. Whether Caesar himself ever visited Verulam does not appear
to be definitely ascertained, but it was early in the history of that
great city that the encounter between the British Queen Boadicea and
the Romans took place. During the Roman period Hertfordshire, which
then appears to have been a well-populated and wealthy district, formed
a part of the province of Flavia Caesariensis.
[Illustration: The Monastery Gateway, St Albans]
The next great event was the Saxon Conquest, which in Kent was ushered
in by the landing of a force in the year 449 A.D. During this part of
its history the western, or larger portion of our county was included,
as already mentioned, in the kingdom of Mercia, while the eastern and
smaller section belonged to that of Essex. Of the numerous Mercian
kings, the most renowned and most powerful was Offa, whose name
survives in Offley, where he had a palace, and where he died about the
year 796, while still engaged in building the Monastery and Abbey of St
Alban. Mercia at this time made a bid for the supremacy of the petty
kingdoms of this part of England, but was eventually beaten by Wessex
under the able rule of Egbert.
It was in the reign of the last-mentioned sovereign that invaders of
another nationality--namely the Danes--began to make their presence
seriously felt in the south; but it was not till the time of his son
and successor Aethelwulf that they landed on the east coast. Early in
his reign a council of Mercians and West Saxons was held at Kingsbury,
near St Albans, to devise means for repelling the invaders; while a
second assembly was called for the same purpose at Bennington in the
year 850. Neither seems to have resulted in effectual measures, for in
851 we find a large Danish fleet which had sailed up the Thames beating
off one of the Saxon kings, who had marched to stop its progress; and
after this event the county was harried and raided time after time,
till it was eventually divided about the year 880 by a treaty executed
at Wedmore between the Saxon sovereign Alfred and Guthrum the Dane by
a boundary line running from the mouth of the Lea to its source, and
thence straight across country to Bedford. A few years later, however,
namely in 894, the Danish fleet sailed up the Lea to Hertford, where
Alfred crippled it by cutting into the banks of the river, so that by
loss of water the vessels became stranded, and the Danish force had to
fight its way to the west of England. After numerous skirmishes and
fights, and the building of forts at Hertford and on a small island
near Bishop’s Stortford, the Danish invasion was practically crushed
by King Edward, who died in 925. Much, however, still remained to be
done by his son Aethelstan, who stoutly attacked the invaders after
they had made a raid on St Albans in 930. A memorial of the Danish
sojourn still exists in Dacorum, the name of the western hundred in
which Tring is situated; there is also evidence to the same effect in
the records of gifts to St Albans Abbey by Danes who had settled in the
neighbourhood. The Mercian shire-system, which was probably instituted
as an aid against the Danes, is known to have come into force by 957;
but in place of Hertfordshire having a sheriff of its own, it shared
one with Essex; an arrangement which remained in force till the reign
of Elizabeth. This was in Edgar’s reign (957–975); but even then we do
not reach the end of the Danish trouble, which did not cease till after
Sweyn’s invasions between the years 1011 and 1014, which were worse
than their predecessors, and included the pillage of Canterbury. About
this time occurs the first mention of “Heorotford” as the name of the
county.
Scarcely had the country recovered, in greater or less degree, from the
Danish raids than it was conquered by the Normans under William I, who
soon after the battle of Hastings marched through the country south
of the Thames till he reached Berkhampstead in this county, where he
built the castle whose foundations and earthworks remain to this day.
By relentless severity against all who stood in his way on the march,
William had succeeded in instilling a wholesome fear into the Saxon
(or, as we now say, English) inhabitants of the country; and, although
he is reported to have been successfully opposed by Frederic, Abbot of
St Albans, he was finally tendered the submission of the people and the
English crown at Berkhampstead.
To follow in detail the events of the troublous times which succeeded
the conquest is here impossible; and it must suffice to state that at
Christmas, 1116, Henry I paid a visit to St Albans for the purpose
apparently of quelling trouble among the turbulent Norman barons who
had now become the paramount lords. Stephen also held a court at St
Albans in 1143 in connection with other troubles. With the bare mention
that several Hertfordshire barons accompanied Richard I in his crusade
to the Holy Land, we may pass on to the quarrel between King John and
his barons, which has a very intimate connection with our county; among
the opposing noblemen being Robert Fitzwalter, their leader, and the
Earls of Essex and of Hertford. The barons advanced from Northampton to
Bedford, while the main body of their army marched to Ware and thence
to London. The signing of Magna Charta produced temporary peace; but
this was soon succeeded by fiercer fighting than ever in this county.
At the commencement of 1215 John himself was in St Albans, and also had
possession of Hertford and Berkhampstead castles. In May of the same
year Louis landed from France, and in due course besieged Hertford and
Berkhampstead till they surrendered, and then proceeded to St Albans,
where he was for some time defied by the abbot. At the departure of
Louis the castles were restored to the king.
The next event is the looting of St Albans by Fulke de Breauté and his
band in 1217.
The trouble with the barons continued into the reign of Henry III; and
in the year 1261 the autumn parliament was held at St Albans. Up to
1295 the shires alone sent representatives to parliament but in the
session held at St Albans in that year the cities, boroughs, and chief
towns were each permitted to elect two parliamentary burgesses. During
the reign of Edward II the county was considerably involved in the
affairs of Sir Piers de Gaveston, who spent much of his time at King’s
Langley, where Edward had a palace, and where Gaveston was buried after
his execution in 1312. During that year the papal envoy met the barons
at St Albans with a view to the settlement of their differences with
the king; and in July, 1321, the barons marched through that city on
their way to London. During the fourteenth century the county suffered
severely from plague; but in spite of this Edward III spent much time
at Langley; and in 1361 the king and queen came to Berkhampstead to
take leave of the Black Prince (to whom the castle had been given)
previous to his departure for Aquitaine.
In 1381, owing to exactions on the part of the king and the abbot of St
Albans, there broke out the peasants’ revolt, in which Hertfordshire
men took a large share. Indeed after the execution of Wat Tyler the
king proposed to go himself to St Albans to punish the insurgents, but
was persuaded to send a commission in his stead; although a short time
later, after another riot, his majesty appeared in person in that city
at the head of an armed force.
With the bare mention that in the second year of his reign King
Henry IV visited the abbey, we pass on to the Wars of the Roses, and
especially the first battle of St Albans, which was fought in May,
1455. The Lancastrians, or royalists, held the main street of the city
till the Yorkists, under the leadership of the Duke of Warwick, burst
through the defences from the direction of Sopwell and cut the royalist
position in half. In less than an hour they had the city in their own
hands, after a great carnage, during which King Henry VI himself was
wounded. In 1458 the king visited Berkhampstead with the object of
quelling the strife, but to no purpose; and in February, 1461, the
two factions again fought an engagement at St Albans, this time at
Bernard’s Heath, to the northward of St Peter’s Church. This second
battle of St Albans ended in a victory for the king. On 14th April,
1471, Edward defeated Warwick in the great battle of Barnet, on the
south-east border of the county.
[Illustration: The Staircase, Hatfield House]
Hertfordshire had much to do with royalty during the reign of King
Henry VIII, the palace at King’s Langley being bestowed on Queen
Catherine, while the king himself spent much time at Hunsdon House, and
also had a residence at Tittenhanger. There is, moreover, a tradition
that he was married to Anne Boleyn at Sopwell. The Princess Mary lived
for a time at Hertford Castle previous to her removal to Hunsdon, where
Princess Elizabeth also lived before her long sojourn at Hatfield, in
which beautiful park she was informed of her accession to the throne.
When queen, Elizabeth continued to be a frequent visitor to the county;
and in her reign, owing to plague in London, the law courts were held
for a time at St Albans, while, for the same reason, Parliament sat
at Hertford in 1564 and 1581. The sovereign herself came as a guest
to Lord Burleigh at Theobalds, to the Earl of Essex at Cassiobury,
and to Sir Nicholas Bacon at Gorhambury. James I likewise spent much
time in the county, having an establishment at Royston, and dying at
Theobalds. During the civil wars Hertfordshire men played an important
part in connection with what was known as the Eastern Association; and
in 1643, when the High Sheriff ventured to read a royal proclamation
in the market-place at St Albans, he was arrested by Cromwell himself.
To follow the fortunes of Hertfordshire during the conflict between
Charles I and Parliament would occupy too much space; and it must
suffice to mention that in 1660 Sir Harbottle Grimston of Gorhambury
was Speaker of the House of Commons and took a leading part in the
restoration of King Charles II.
[Illustration: Cassiobury]
The last event in the history of the county to which space admits
allusion is the Rye House Plot. “In the spring of 1683,” to quote the
words of a well-known local writer, “Charles II and James Duke of York
went to see the races at Newmarket. Just opposite to the Rye House Inn
there stood then a castle, built in the days of Henry VI, and in that
castle lived one Rumbold, formerly an officer in the parliamentary
army. Rumbold and about a score of equally reckless malcontents put
their heads together over their tankards, and, so far as can be
gathered from many rather contradictory narratives, they formed a
plot to delay the royal party on the return journey from Newmarket to
London, by placing an overturned cart in the road-way, in order that
they might shoot the King and the Duke of York in the confusion. The
conspiracy was frustrated, for the royal party returned earlier than
Rumbold had been led to expect, and presently the plot leaked out.
The Rye House was searched, incriminating papers were discovered, and
the affair culminated in the arrest of those nobler patriots who, in
concert with Argyle, had been planning the overthrow of what they
honestly regarded as a corrupt government.”
[Illustration: The Rye House. Portions of the Servants Quarters]
The Rye House, it may be added, is situated in the south-eastern border
of the county, a short distance north-east of Hoddesdon.
15. Antiquities--Prehistoric, Roman, Saxon.
The earliest evidence of the presence of man in Hertfordshire is
afforded, as elsewhere in this country, not by written or sculptured
records, but by stone implements of various shapes and types. The very
earliest of these implements, at any rate, belong to a time when the
mammoth inhabited this country, which was then united to the continent;
and their age must be reckoned by thousands, if not by tens of
thousands, of years. The period to which all these implements belong,
being before all human records, is known as the Prehistoric; and it is
important to mention that this term should be restricted to the epoch
intervening between the time of the formation of the uppermost portion
of the Tertiary beds and the first dawn of history. We often find the
term “prehistoric monsters” applied to the great reptiles of the Chalk
and Oolites; but such a usage, although etymologically justifiable, is
technically wrong.
The Prehistoric period for lack of all other means of dating has
been divided by antiquarians, according to the material of which man
formed his implements, into the Stone, the Bronze, and the late-Celtic
or Iron Ages; the Stone age being further divided into an older, or
Palaeolithic, section, in which all the so-called “celts,” or flint
implements, were formed simply by chipping, and a newer Neolithic
section, in which they were often ground and polished. In connection
with these implements attention may be directed to some of the
ancient earthworks in the county, although the age of many of these is
unknown, and in some cases may be later than the Roman occupation. The
antiquities newer than the late-Celtic age are described as referable
to the Roman or the Saxon period, as the case may be. These correspond
with the history of England from 55 B.C. to 1066 A.D.
Palaeolithic implements are found locally in certain parts of the
county, although from the gravels of a very considerable area,
especially the Harpenden district, they appear to be absent. The larger
implements, or “celts,” which are often six or seven inches in length,
seem to have been employed for all purposes, and to have been held in
the hand, without handle or shaft, although some of them might easily
be used as spear-heads. The first discovery of an implement of this
type in the county was made near Bedmond, Abbot’s Langley, in 1861. A
few specimens have been obtained in other parts of the Colne basin;
but in the district round Kensworth and Caddington vast numbers have
been discovered, although for the most part just outside the county
boundary. In fact, near Caddington the Stone-age men had a great
manufactory of these implements:--a kind of Palaeolithic Sheffield. In
the basin of the Lea a few flakes, etc., have been found at or near
Ayot St Peter, Welwyn, Hertford, Bengeo, Ware, Amwell, Hoddesdon,
Ippolits, Stocking Pelham, and elsewhere. Much more important is a
“find” at Hitchin, near the source of the Hiz, and thus situated, in
part at any rate, in the Ouse basin. These implements, which were first
brought to notice in 1877, occur in clay-pits worked for brick-earth,
and are accompanied by bones of the mammoth, hippopotamus, and
rhinoceros.
[Illustration: Palaeolithic Flint Implement
(_From Kent’s Cavern, Torquay_)]