A Destructive Fire at Watford

In 1853 the Illustrated London News reported that the corn exchange and ancient market house at Watford had been destroyed by fire. Read the Full Report to see details of who was affected.

I have appended to the report an engraving showing the old market house, from Hassell's Picturesque Rides and Walks with Excursions by Water, Thirty Miles round the British Metropolis, published in 1817/18.

The History of the Sawbridgeworth Fire Brigade

Suzanne has drawn my attention to the extremely interesting web site which deals with the History of the Sawbridgeworth Fire Brigade - which includes extensive information (including images of original manuscript log books, etc). It is an excellent example of a specialised local history site, which concentrates on a single organisation.A link has been added to the main Sawbridgeworth page.

Susanne also mentioned another interesting web site - Wartime Airfields of East Hertfordshire and West Essex - although as this site does not deal with the Second World War I have not indexed it on the main web site.

A Flaming Boxing Day Surprise.

WARE Hertfordshire postmark 1907 on a faded interesting RP but untitled

The above advert appeared on ebay just before Christmas. Just because the card was posted in Ware doesn't mean that the picture was local to the Ware area or even from Hertfordshire. While the RP (real photograph) was very faded the architecture was clear and there appeared to be some people milling around. I thought it might make a possible mystery photograph for this web site - as some of you might recognise the building. So I put in a bid and won it for less than £2 (including postage). 

     The card arrived with the last batch of Christmas cards before the holiday. During a break in activities I slipped back to the computer to give it a quick scan - and put the digital image through the Paint Shop treatment. 

     And I became really excited when I discovered what the people were looking at ...

To find out what I found look below the fold.