Homewood, Knebworth - A house designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens

Homewood, Knebworth

It is always nice to get messages when the answer to one question provides an answer to someone else's question and they contact me to give details. Four years ago Chris sent me a post card of a house in Knebworth and asked if I could identify it. 

Now Stephen, whose family has lived in the house since 1973, has written to say that when the house was built one of Lutyens' plans showed an orchard. While there are still two ancient apple trees Stephen was delighted to note that if you look carefully at the above picture you can see a number of what are almost certainly young fruit trees.

I have taken the opportunity to update the Homewood page by adding a brief reference to the flowers in the garden in 1931 and the description of this architecturally important house by Pevsner.

Spring Issue of Herts Past and Present

The Spring 2017 issue of Herts Past and Present has just been published by the Hertfordshire Association for Local History.

As always it contains an interesting collection of articles

Hertfordshire men at Passchendale, 1917, by John Cox
In search of "My Lord" Salisbury, by Nicky Webster (about researching and publishing the life of James Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquis of Salisbury)
William Cecil, 2nd Earl of Salisbury - The Education of a nobleman, by Alan Thomson
'Plenty of Punch and Good Company' - Bringing local history to life about a theatrical production dramatizing the life of John Carrington, farmer of Bramfield
The Enclosure of the Manor of Barnet, 1818, by Susan Flood
Local History Essay Competition - with details of essays on Knebworth, Lemsford and Croxley Green
Report of the 2016 HALH Symposium on Hertfordshire at war through the centuries.
Book Reviews: Watford : A History, by Mary Forsyth; St Albans: Life on the Home Front, 1914-18, edited by Jonathan Mein, Anne Wares and Sue Mann; On Hertford and its Environs: A Portrait in verse of Hertford and the Surrounding Countryside, by Thomas Green (1719-91), edited by Jean Purkis and Philip Sheail.

Dates for the Diary

13 May  - HALH Spring Meeting and AGM, Ware

24 June - Summer Visit, Benington Lordship, Benington

11 November - Symposium: Women of Hertfordshire, Hitchin

Charles Dickens, Bleak House and Abbots Hill, Abbots Langley

Abbots Langley

Abbot's Hill, Abbot's Langley

The Dacorum Heritage Trust Winter 2014 Newsletter has an interesting article suggesting that John Dickinson, of Abbots Hill, and Charles Dickens had an important mutual acquaintance in Sir Edward Bulmer-Lytton, of Knebworth House. It also brings together other evidence - and in particular a BBC interview Could this be the setting of Dickins' Bleak House? reveals some very relevant facts. So will this end the arguments over which house in Hertfordshire, supposedly near St Albans, was the model for the house described in the novel Bleak House?

More Hertfordshire Church and School Pictures

Post Cards

I have added the following post card images (a click on each gives a higher resolution image) to the main web site:

• Bushey Heath Church - posted in 1907
• St Mary's Church, Essendon. - The picture was clearly taken after the First World War, when the chancel was badly damages by a German bomb. It was published by C. T. Oliver, who ran The Cyclist' Rest

St Mary's, Old Knebworth

• St Mary's Church, Old Knebworth - an interior shot to complement earlier exterior shots.
• St John's Church, Widford - published by J H Robertson, of Widford Stores
• Caldecote Towers School - At Aldenham / Bushey Heath. A veiw of the gardens published by P. A. Buchanan
• Christ's Hospital, Hertford - Interior of the Chapel by P. A. Buchanan. 

While adding these pictures I also took the opportunity to reorganise the Widford pages. 

Homewood, Knebworth, an interesting house designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens

Help Desk

Homewood, Knebworth

Chris has a post card of Homewood - and wanted to know something of the house's history - so I have provided a page of information, with many external links on what was built as a dower house for Dowager Lady Lytton, of Knebworth House.

Knebworth Village Upgrade

Knebworth Cottage Home (1890)

I have carried out a major update of the Knebworth pages - including examples of how different publishers have presented views of Knebworth House.

Knebworth House, by Rush and Warwick

I have also added another picture of St Mary's Church and a description from an old guidebook.

All the post card images are available at a higher resolution on the Knebworth Pages

Hertfordshire Countryside - April 2012

This month's issue of the Hertfordshire Countryside contained a number of items that I found interesting - but one major disappointment. The six page article on Knebworth There's a great choice at Knebworth - A special welcome to village shopping looked from the title as if it would be weighed down with advertising - but actually had a historically interesting text by Ann Judge. Attenborough's fields was an interesting piece by John Sear about an area of grassland habitat to the west of Bushey village - much in the tradition of articles in the early editions of the magazine.  The two pages of Life and Times of Easter Bunny by Ivan Broadhead included some interesting medieval references to rabbit warrens in the county while the three page Village of Antiquity by Peter Etteridge had some nice photographs of Pirton to support a reasonable historical text. Two reader's letters caught my eye - and there was a full page on the Great Bed of Ware at Ware Museum.

So perhaps this was the best issue so far this year. So why am I bitterly disappointed. The front cover said "Spotlight Harpenden 8 page special feature" and if I had brought the magazine because of this I would have been robbed.  There was a picture of a named pond, and another of an unidentified footpath (both provided by the town council - so could be seen as promotional), and there was a 150 word blurb ending "Harpenden is a great place for young and old". The remaining pages consist of a two page spread detailing a competition for a free meal in a Harpenden restaurant, a two page advertising feature on a firm of audiologists, a one page advertising feature on a firm of accountants, a one page estate agent's advert featuring houses over £1,000,000 each, and three smaller advertisements. Maybe there are some people who would buy the magazine because they needed a hearing air so that they could hear their accountant advice as to whether they could afford a meal out. However I suspect that the majority of people who purchased because of the words on the cover would have been bitterly disappointed and some might justifiably ask for their money back because of blatent misrepresentation under the Trades Description Act.

I know that such magazines need advertising to survive - but this is just not good enough. The magazine must include a reasonable amount of genuine information about the county if people are to read it. Boasting of special features which are only advertisements and editorial puff which is clearly anything but impartial will drive what used to be a great magazine out of business.