::''For the similarly named county in the
West Midlands region, see
Herefordshire.''
''
Ltspkr.png
(pronounced [] or [], abbreviated as Herts) is an inland
county in
England and one of the
Home Counties. The
etymological root of the name is the
Anglo-Saxon ''heort ford,'' meaning
deer crossing (of a watercourse). Deer feature prominently in many county emblems.
Hertfordshire has a
history dating back to the
Middle Stone Age. The area was first farmed during the
Neolithic period, and permanent habitation appeared at the beginning of the
Bronze Age. This was followed by tribes settling in the area during the
Iron Age. Following the
Roman conquest of Britain in
AD 43, Hertfordshire adapted quickly to the Roman way of life, and one of the new towns,
Verulamium, became the third largest town in
Roman Britain. After the Romans left Britain, the
Anglo-Saxons occupied the area, creating their own towns, including the county town of
Hertford. After the
Norman conquest of
1066, Hertfordshire was used for some of the new Norman castles at
Bishop's Stortford and
Berkhamsted. As
London grew bigger, Hertfordshire became conveniently close to the English capital, and much of the area was owned by the
nobility and
aristocracy, and this
patronage helped to boost the local economy. However, the biggest boost to Hertfordshire came during the
Industrial Revolution, after which the population rose dramatically. In
1903,
Letchworth became the world's first
Garden City, and
Stevenage became the first Hertfordshire town to redevelop under the
New Towns Act 1946.
Geography
Hertfordshire is located to the north of
Greater London, and much of the county is part of the
London commuter belt. To the east of Hertfordshire is
Essex, to the west is
Buckinghamshire and to the north are
Bedfordshire and
Cambridgeshire.
The highest point in the county is 803 feet (245 m) above sea level, a quarter mile (400 m) from the village of
Hastoe near
Tring. The county motto, is ''"Trust and fear not"''. As part of a 2002 marketing campaign, the plant conservation charity Plantlife chose the
Pasqueflower as Hertfordshire's
county flower.
History
''Main article:
History of Hertfordshire.''
Hertfordshire was originally the area assigned to a fortress constructed at
Hertford under the rule of
Edward the Elder in 913. The name Hertfordshire appears in the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1011.
Most English counties have nicknames for people from that county, such as a
Tyke from
Yorkshire and a
Yellowbelly from
Lincolnshire; the traditional nickname for people from Hertfordshire is 'Hertfordshire Hedgehog' or 'Hertfordshire Hayabout'; although hedgehogs are abundant in the county, the nickname is probably a corruption of 'haycock', a haystack, referring to the county's cornfields, which formed the county's principal Medieval export to the food markets of London.
The
Domesday Book recorded the county as having nine
hundreds.
Tring and
Danais became one, Dacorum. The other seven were
Braughing,
Broadwater,
Cashio,
Edwinstree,
Hertford,
Hitchin and
Odsey.
Hertfordshire is the starting point of the
New River: a man made waterway, opened in 1613 to supply
London with fresh drinking water.
Hertfordshire's only traditional
city,
St Albans, is built by the site of
Verulamium, the third largest city in
Roman Britain. The modern town was named after
Saint Alban, the first
Christian martyr. Hertfordshire is also the location of the UK's first two
Garden Cities,
Welwyn Garden City, and
Letchworth which were both founded by
Ebenezer Howard.
Hatfield House, in
Hatfield, was a former home to
Queen Elizabeth I during her youth. It is said that here, while sat under a large oak tree (which although not alive today, can be viewed at the visitor centre within Hatfield Park), she was told she was to become Queen.
In 1965, under the London Government Act 1963,
Barnet Urban District and
East Barnet Urban District were abolished and their area transferred from Hertfordshire to Greater London to form part of the
London Borough of Barnet.
[1][2] At the same time the
Potters Bar Urban District was directly transferred from
Middlesex to Hertfordshire.
[3]
From the
1920s until the late
1980s, the town of
Borehamwood was home to one of the major British
film studio complexes, including the
MGM-British Studios. Many well known films were made here, including '' and the original ''
Star Wars'' and
Indiana Jones trilogies. Television productions are still made at the nearby
Elstree Studios, which were taken over by the
BBC. All the Harry Potter films were made at Leavesden Studios near Watford.
A few minutes after 6am on
11 December 2005, a
large explosion and fire occurred at a
petroleum fuel depot near
Hemel Hempstead, in
Buncefield. Forty three people were injured, and considerable damage was caused. Only the timing, on early Sunday morning, meant that nobody was killed. The two day fire was the largest in peacetime Europe, and a pall of smoke darkened London and much of South East England.
In the book
Pride and Prejudice by
Jane Austen, Hertfordshire is the location of Longbourn where the Bennet family lives and of Netherfield Hall where Mr. Bingley stays.
In
2012, the Hertfordshire town of
Broxbourne will host the canoe and kayak slalom events of the
2012 Summer Olympic Games.
Economy
This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Hertfordshire at current basic prices
published (pp.240-253) by ''Office for National Statistics'' with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.
| Year | Regional Gross Value Added[4] | Agriculture[5] | Industry[6] | Services[7] |
|---|
| 1995 | '11,742' | 96 | 3,292 | 8,354 |
| 2000 | '18,370' | 77 | 4,138 | 14,155 |
| 2003 | '20,937' | 82 | 4,348 | 16,507 |
Hertfordshire has headquarters of many large well-known UK companies.
Hemel Hempstead is home to
DSG International.
Tesco are based in
Cheshunt.
Pure Digital the
DAB radio maker is based in
Kings Langley.
JD Wetherspoon is in Watford.
Shredded Wheat and
Shreddies are made in
Welwyn Garden City.
Comet and
Skanska are in
Rickmansworth. Hatfield used to be connected with the aircraft industry, as it was where
de Havilland developed the first commercial jet liner, the Comet. Now the site is a business park and new campus for the University of Hertfordshire. This major new employment site is home to, among others,
T-Mobile,
Computacenter and
Ocado. A subsidiary of
BAE Systems,
EADS and
Finmeccanica in
Stevenage,
MBDA, develops
missiles. In the same town
EADS Astrium produces satellites.
The loss of aircraft manufacture at Hatfield is just one of a number of industrial losses as companies capitalise on land values and move to regions where land is cheaper and recruitment is easier. Examples include
Scammell, (formerly of Watford),
DRG (Hemel Hempstead) and
Lucas (also Hemel). In general, the land thus freed has been used for housing or service industries.
Transport
Hertfordshire lies across routes between London and the North, the North-West and the Midlands and as a consequence it is well-served by road and rail routes and, in the past, by canals.
Road
The county has always been traversed by some of the principle roads in England, originally the
A1 to Yorkshire and Scotland,
A5 to North Wales,
A6 to north-west England and the
A41 to the Midlands and now the
M1,
M11,
A1(M) and the
M25.
Rail
Principle rail routes lie through Stevenage to Yorkshire and Scotland, and through Watford to the Midlands, Wales, the north-west and Glasgow. Lesser routes serve St Albans (and the East Midlands) and Royston (to Cambridge and Norwich). Commuter routes supplement the through routes and the
London Underground extends to Watford.
Air
There is an international airport at
Stansted and another just outside the county at
Luton. At Elstree, there is a busy airfield for light aircraft.
Canals
The
Grand Union Canal passes west Hertfordshire, through Watford, Hemel Hempstead and Berkhamsted.
Natural resouces
Despite the spread of built areas, much of the county is given over to agriculture, mainly arable. One product, now largely defunct, was
water-cress, supported by reliable, clean rivers.
Some quarrying of sand and gravel occurs in the St Albans area. In the past, clay has supplied local brick-making.
Fresh water is supplied to London from Ware, using the
New River built by
Hugh Myddleton. Most of the county's own supply comes from the chalk
aquifer. Local rivers, although small, supported developing industries such as paper production at
Nash Mills.
Education
Hertfordshire has an entirely comprehensive system in its state schools, with 26 independent schools. The state schools do well, but performance of schools is far from uniform, and barely looks 'comprehensive' ''per se'' in some districts, specifically Watford, Hertsmere and St Albans. Watford's separate Grammar Schools for Girls and
Boys although comprehensive get results very similar to their namesake grammar schools, with the other two schools in the district being low performing. Overall, Hertfordshire gets 53.7% of pupils achieving 5 GCSEs at grades A-C including English and Maths. The average for England is 45.8%. St Albans has the highest school population, with Watford the lowest (four schools). The best performing schools at GCSE are the two non-selective Watford Grammar Schools, followed by
Dame Alice Owen's School in
Potters Bar, Loreto College in St Albans,
Parmiter's School in
Garston,
St. George's School, Harpenden,
Rickmansworth School,
Hitchin Girls' School,
The Hertfordshire and Essex High School in
Bishop's Stortford and
St Albans Girls' School. The worst performing school is Bushey Hall School. There are no bad schools in the Three Rivers district, and overall at GCSE, Hertfordshire does much better than many parts of England. At A-level, it has some good schools with the top three being
Hockerill Anglo-European College in Bishop's Stortford,
Sir John Lawes School in Harpenden, and
The Broxbourne School. Although at GCSE, Hertfordshire is much better than many areas, at A level if looked at overall, it performs under the England average.
Average score at GCSE by council district (%)
★ Three Rivers 76.1
★ East Hertfordshire 64.9
★ St Albans 62.6
★ Watford 58.0
★ North Hertfordshire 56.0
★ Hertsmere 49.6
★ Dacorum 48.1
★ Welwyn Hatfield 46.3
★ Broxbourne 45.1
★ Stevenage 41.0
Geology
''Main article:
Geology of Hertfordshire.''
The rocks of Hertfordshire belong to the great shallow
syncline known as the
London basin. The beds dip in a south-easterly direction towards the syncline's lowest point roughly under the
River Thames. The most important formations are the
Cretaceous Chalk, which is exposed as the high ground in the north and west of the county and the younger
Palaeocene,
Reading Beds and
Eocene,
London Clay which occupy the remaining southern part. The eastern half of the county was covered by glaciers during the
Ice Age and has a superficial layer of glacial
boulder clays.
Urban areas
These are the 'main' towns in Hertfordshire. For a complete list of settlements see '
list of places in Hertfordshire'.
★
Abbots Langley
★
Berkhamsted
★
Bishop's Stortford
★
Borehamwood
★
Broxbourne
★
Bushey
★
Cheshunt
★
Croxley Green
★
Harpenden
★
Hatfield
★
Hemel Hempstead
★
Hertford
★
Hitchin
★
Hoddesdon
★
Letchworth Garden City
★
Potters Bar
★
Rickmansworth
★
Royston
★
South Oxhey
★
Stevenage
★
St Albans
★
Tring
★
Ware
★
Watford
★
Welwyn Garden City
References
1. http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/relationships.jsp?u_id=10042082 ''Visionofbritain.org'' Retrieved on 04-27-07
2. http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/relationships.jsp?u_id=10001699 ''Visionofbritain.org'' Retrieved on 04-27-07
3. http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/relationships.jsp?u_id=10135590&c_id=10001043 ''Visionofbritain.org'' Retrieved on 04-27-07
4. Components may not sum to totals due to rounding
5. includes hunting and forestry
6. includes energy and construction
7. includes financial intermediation services indirectly measured
External links
★
For places in Hertfordshire
★
Hertfordshire County Council website
★
Population of Hertfordshire Settlements - from census 2001
★
Ask Watson - Hertford - Events in and around the town of Hertford
★
Hertfordshire, by Herbert W Tompkins, 1922, from
Project Gutenberg
★
Hertbeat FM- Local Radio Station
★
For researching the History and Genealogy of Hertfordshire
★
Flickr Hertfordshire Photo Group
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