Book Review - Notes on Old Chipperfield

The Two Brewers (Locke & Smith)

Helen Gordon Liddle was a suffragette who wrote The Prisoner: A Sketch. An Experience of Forceable Feeding by a Suffragette. Some time later (if you have details please comment below) it seems she moved to Chipperfield, near Kings Langley, and wrote a most interesting local History Notes on Old Chipperfield. 

Illustrated review of book.

Three New Local Books from the Tring Local History Museum

The Story of Wilstone - by John Painter

The Rothschilds of Tring
by Tim Amsden

In November I brought two newly published books The Story of Wilstone by John Painter and Three Tring Industries by Wendy Austin at Tring's Local History Museum, and a small but informative booklet about The Rothschilds of Tring by Tim Amsden. I had intended to review them before Christmas. The web pages and sample illustrations are ready but the review texts will have to follow next year.

Three Tring Industries by Wendy Austin

Book: A Place in the Country: Three Counties Asylum 1860-1999

I few months ago I mentioned that this book had been published, and having now read and enjoyed it I have published a review on the main web site.

REVIEW

This is one of my Hertfordshire History Books for Christmas

More about Hertfordshire Asylums

Booklet: Ashridge in World War II

During the Second World War troops were camped in the woods of the Ashridge Estate and a hospital was opened at Ashridge. This little booklet, Ashridge in World War II is based on the memories of people who knew Ashridge during the war and gives details of the regiments that were billeted there. The hospital not only took casualties from Dunkirk but also victims from the German bombing raids. In addition many women from London were taken there just before they were due, and some 3000 births were recorded there between 1940 and 1946.

While this delightful little booklet was published in 2009/10 I noticed that copies were still for sale at the National Trust shop at Ashridge a few months ago. 

This is one of my Hertfordshire History Books for Christmas

More Information about Ashridge

Booklet: The Story of Harpenden from Village to Town

There are already a good number of books about Harpenden, including booklets produced by the Harpenden & District Local History Society. The recently published booklet by Jean Gardner is an ideal introduction to the history of the town. 

It typically covers the main areas of interest with about a page of text and a small illustration, and there are two good maps.  Topics covered include the coming of the railways, early schooling, John Bennet Lawes and Rothamsted, the growth of the town, the churches, the world wars, and entertainment. It ends with a very useful bibliography. 

If you are just visiting the town, or have just discovered your ancestor came from Harpenden, this booklet will be a good place to start looking into the town's history.

Available from the Society

More about Harpenden

This is one of my Hertfordshire History Books for Christmas

Book: Pitstone Windmill: The Rescue of an Ancient Landmark

Pitstone Windmill is now managed by the National Trust and is of interest because there were many similar post mills in Hertfordshire. David Wray and Roger Hillier's book, Pitstone Windmill, published in 2016, describes the history and restoration of the mill in detail - and also contains an excellent illustrated account of how an ancient post mill worked.

REVIEW

More about Pitstone

More about Windmills

This is one of my Hertfordshire History Books for Christmas

Book: The Peaceful Path- Building Garden Cities and New Towns

When the Genealogy in Hertfordshire web site started the idea was not to cover the more recent history of Hertfordshire - concentrating on the 1901 census and earlier. This automatically excluded any serious look at the history of Letchworth Garden City and the later development of new towns in Hertfordshire. 

Time moves on and the site now covers to the end of the First World War and before the site finally goes into "archive mode" I felt it would be useful to include some links to books which deal with the very significant changes which affected significant parts of Hertfordshire. The book The Peaceful Path, by Stephen V Ward provides an excellent introduction as is strongly recommended. It was published in 2014 by Hertfordshire Publications, and is still available.

REVIEW

My Letchworth Page

This is one of my Hertfordshire History Books for Christmas

Book: With Cheerful Zeal - Dagnall Street Baptist Church, St Albans

As some of my Gibbs relatives were associated with this church in the 19th century I was delighted to get a copy of this 1999 book, which has been out of print for some time. While the current church was built in 1885 and earlier one was build in 1720 and records go back to 1675.

REVIEW

Other Hertfordshire books on Religion

One of my Hertfordshire Books for Christmas

There was at least one second hand copy advertised online when I posted this blog

WW1 Book: We're Going Right There (Hertfordshire Regiment)

"We're Going Right There" by Duckboard

I got this well-written book some time ago, and when I read it I forgot to post a review on the Genealogy in Hertfordshire web site. As copies are still available on ebay it could make an excellent present for anyone whose ancestor fought with the first wave of the Hertfordshire Regiment to go the France during the Great War.

REVIEW

Additional information on the Hertfordshire Territorials

One of my Hertfordshire Books for Christmas

BooK: The Toll Roads of Buckinghamshire (and into Hertfordshire)

Part 1 of this newly published volume contains a detailed history of turnpikes while Part 2 gives detailed histories of the 24 turnpikes that existed in Buckinghamshire, including sections that ran into other counties. Of particular interest are two which penetrated deep into Hertfordshire - The Sparrows Herne turnpike (from Bushy, via Berkhamsted and Tring, to Aylesbury) and the Reading to Hatfield turnpike which ran through Rickmansworth and St Albans.

REVIEW

I have also updated the subject page on Turnpikes

One of my Hertfordshire Books for Christmas

Book Review: Hertfordshire's Historic Inland Waterway

Full Review

I am currently sorting through my library and have come across a pile of recent books which were waiting for review and somehow got overlooked. I feel that it would be useful to review these books and include them in the main book index. in preparation for the site becoming an online archive. 

As they are mainly still in print I feel it will ne more useful to try and get the reviews online in the next two or three months - as some of them could make useful Christmas presents.

I have decided to start with John Cooper's book:

Hertfordshire's Historic Indland Waterway

It is a picture book with modern and early 20th century pictures, and a brief historic introduction to each.

In addition my web site contains many other reviews relating to the Grand Union Canal in Hertfordshire. You will find them on the

Grand Junction Canal home page..

Review of "A History of Preston in Hertfordshire"

Philip Wray has done an excellent job in bringing together different aspects of the history of Preston, a tiny village near Hitchin. He first became interested when researching his ancestors and as his family tree grew he discovered he was a blood relative to almost half the villagers listed in the 1881 census. For this reason he expanded his interests to cover the whole village, and in 2007 he launched the History of Preston in Hertfordshire web site. He then ventured into on-paper publishing and has now ended up writing this book.

MORE

Birds of Hertfordshire Book Launch

On Tuesday evening I went to the book launch of an exciting new book produced by the Hertfordshire Natural History Society held in the Verulamium Museum at St Albans.  For anyone in interested in the county's wonderful countryside, and particularly its wild life the book The Birds of Hertfordshire is a must. There are excellent colour pictures of all the recorded species - and where appropriate these are supported by distribution maps, information on changes in population numbers, etc. In addition there are valuable supporting chapters on the Hertfordshire landscape, the history of ornithology in the county, bird survey, and conservation.

The launch and book signing I attended was the first of three, in different parts of the county and the next two are on February 27 (tomorrow) and March 7th. So it is still not too late to get a signed copy at a reduced price.

How to get your copy

The London to Birmingham Railway comes to Tring 1835-1846

by Ian Petticrew & Wendy Austin

Books

This online book, which has just been published, is the kind of well-written local history I have come to expect from Ian Petticrew and Wendy Austin. It is a very detailed account of the building of the London and Birmingham Railway from Euston to Tring, with an emphasis of the Tring area. In addition to making extensive use of the readily accessible sources it also reprints the text written in about 1890 by Arthur MacDonald Brown (1861-1951, son of the Tring estate agent William Brown) for a book on the history of Tring which was never published. As a result it contains some useful detail of the building of the Harcourt Arms (later the Royal Hotel) at Tring Station by the Brown family.

President George Washington's Tring Ancestry

by Murray Neil

Tring

Anyone interested in the ancestry of President George Washington should welcome this newly published booklet about the Washington family's brief stay in Tring in the mid 17th century. It explains the political difficulties of the time which led to Amphyllis Twigden Washington and her children living with her step-father at Frogmore End, Tring.  [MORE]

Hawkswick - A typical Victorian Gentleman's Residence

Hawksbury, St Michaels, St Albans circa 1900

Hawkswick, St Michaels parish, St Albans, was built around 1870 and was the home of four well-to-do businessmen and a Countess, and their live-in domestic staff. It is a good example of the kind of country home that successful businessmen were building or living in, within an hour's train journey into London. After the First World War, followed by the 1920's depression, such houses became uneconomical, which may be the reason why Hawkswick was demolished in 1931. The owners, or later tenants, were:

George Fernley Whittingstall,   c1870 - 1873

George Checkland,   1873 - 1879

John Sherriff Hill,   1881- 1897

Dowger Countess of Limerick,   1898-1900

Walter Reynolds,  1900 - 1924

I have updated the biographical information about the families who lived there, including additional press coverage. Further information about the house, with an emphasis on its description based on  several surviving sales brochures is available in Christine Aitken's excellent book on Childwickbury - which I have just reviewed. Christine and I used very different sources, and as a result our two accounts nicely complement each other.

St Michaels

St Albans

In addition I have taken the opportunity to restructure the pages on the parish of St Michael, part of which was in the borough of St Albans and the rest (including Childwickbury, Hawksbury and Gorhambury) were in the rural part of the parish.