The Grand Union Canal in the Apsley area 100 years ago

The Grand Junction Canal at Doo Little, Apsley End

Roy kindly supplied the above picture of the Grand Junction Canal (now called the Grand Union Canal) at Doo Little, between Apsley and Kings Langley. I have taken this opportunity to add four more pictures of the Canal in the Apsley Area. 

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..

Dixon's Gap Bridge, Aylesbury Arm of the Grand Union Canal

Bridge No. 2 on the Aylesbury Arm of the Grand Union Canal

The Aylesbury Arm of the Grand Union Canal runs between Tring and the villages of Long Marston and Tring and over the years I have taken many photographs of the historic locks, bridges and houses along its route. Information. At least one picture of each historic feature has been recorded on Geograph and a full list can be found HERE. Howver many of the pictures I have taken are still not online.

The above bridge is vulnerable to damage from passing traffic and is currently under repair. As a result I have posted pictures of the damage, such as the one shown below, and all pictures of the bridge on Geograph (some taken by other people) can be seen HERE.

Repairs in progress - click for other 2015 pictures

Follow the Canal from Cow Roast to Berkhamsted in old (& new) photographs

The Canal and Raiway Station, Berkhamsted, photographed 1903

Dudswell Bottom Lock

I have updated the relevant page on the web site to include a number of 100+ year old pictures of the canal, together with pictures of the historic locks and bridges taken in the 21st century.

See all pictures

I have taken a lot of pictures of the canal in recent years, and will be making more available, with historic images where available, over the coming months.

Books on Tring published in 2014 (including one on WW1)

Tring

Military

During 2014 four new books have appeared on the history of Tring - and if you are looking for a Xmas present for a local historian with an interest in the town all may be purchased from the Tring Local History Museum. 

• Letters to Tring: The Great War 1914-1918 by Wendy Austin
• The Waterway comes to Tring: 1792-2013: The Grand Junction Canal, by Ian Petticrew & Wendy Austin
• A Surprising Walk in Tring Park: The Story from the Ice Age to the Present by Shelly Savage
• A Perspective on Pendley: A History of Pendley Manor , by Bob Little

For pictures of the covers, additional publication information, (and reviews when I have time to write them) see Tring Books 2014.

For details of other books on Tring (some no longer in print) see Tring Books.

Tim Amsden at Tring LHS display for Tring Xmas Festival (held on "Black Friday")
For some years Tring has has a Christmas Festival Evening on the last Friday in November when the High Street is closed to traffic. The Local History Society puts on a poster display in the Victoria Hall. For pictures of earlier Street Festivals see Events in Tring High Street.

Some newly acquired post cards

I have added a varied batch of new Hertfordshire views(all with higher resolution images) as follows:

Military

A View of Batchwood Camp, St Albans, taken by L. L. Christmas in September 1915. It  shows the North Staffordshire Lines, and was in the St Albans area at about the same time as Briton's Camp (location unknown) was in existence.

I have created a page for four early 20th century pictures of New Birklands School, St Albans, two of the exterior, one of the dining room, and one of the garden. Three were taken by a London firm of photographers, Elliott & Fry, who had photographic works in Barnet. The other was taken by Montiville Evans, of St Albans. I have added details of the schoolthen just called Birklands, in the late 20th century, but have not yet researched it foundation.

Marsworth is on the Grand Union Canal on the birder with Hertfordshire, and close to Tring, so of interest despite being in Buckinghamshire. About a dozen post cards (possibly mostly amateur snapshots from about 1905) appeared recently on ebay and I purchased a number - some of which are good enough to justify high resolution scanning. As it is always a pity when a contemporary collection like this gets dispersed I have also included reduced sized thumbs to record those I did not win. 

Also included in the update were two pictures of Chorleywood, a picture of Radlett parish church before the wider nave was added, and a picture of  Nether Hall, at Widford.

Views of Wilstone and Wilstone Reservoir, near Tring

Tring

A week ago I attended a most interesting meeting at Wilstone Village Hall in aid of St Cross, Wistone.  John Painter has taken up the reins, dropped by the local historian, Dick Gomm, who died in 2009, aged 93. Not only has John digitised Dick extensive collection of pictures of Wilstone but added many others, and had also recorded every early map he could find. Unfortunately they are currently not available online but is is always nice to meet an enthusiastic local historian who is systematically recording the past.

As I had some photographs of the Wilstone reservoir that were not in his archive, I have now produced higher resolution images of my Wilstone post cards - passing him copies where appropriate.

Wilstone Reservoir from the South.

This picture shows the reservoir from by the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal and the rough ground in the foreground could be the line of Miswell Lane, an ancient trackway that led from Long Marston through the current village of Wilstone, passing through what is now part of Tring to end up on what was Tring Common, on top of the Chiltern Hills. If this analysis is correct this part of the track is now lost under the former Tring Town rubbish tip, which was in use in the first half of the 20th century.

Low Water at Startops Reservoir - Picture of the Day on Geograph

Low Water at Startops Reservoir, near Tring, in 2012

It seems somewhat ironic that on January 23rd Geograph selected one of my pictures of the effects of drought on the Tring Reservoirs to be  "Picture of the Day" when a visit I made a few days earlier had shown that all the reservoirs in the area were filled to capacity, much as I reported in a Rural Relaxation note in April last year. This picture shows (not very clearly) part of the medieval ridge and furrow area I reported here on December 3rd 2011 and March 11th 2012.

One of the frustrating things about Geograph's "Picture of the Day" is that the photographer is not told when one of his pictures has been selected and it sometimes appears years after the picture had been added to the web site. (I posted the above picture on January 24th 2012)  I know two other pictures of mine have been selected in the past - but there may have been others.

The first was this picture of tulips round a war grave in the churchyard at Halton, Bucks, near Tring, which I took in 2009, together with other pictures of the church and village.

The other was this view of  barges moored on the Grand Union Canal at Marsworth on a frosty winter morning in December 2012.

By the Grand Union Canal At Bulbourne (near Tring)

The Former Canal Workshops at Bulbourne

Grand Junction Canal

In recent years, particularly when I still had Franci, I have been walking along the many rural footpaths near Tring taking photographs. Many of these have been (and when I have time, still are) posted on Geograph including many taken from the towpath of the Grand Union Canal. 

Recently someone (I am withholding the name to avoid embarrassment) found the above picture on the internet and sent me the following message:

> Re: image for SP9313 (Grand Union Canal: The Bulbourne Workshops)
> Hi, Would like to know if you have any mooring available at present. My boat is 18 meters ?
> Thanks
> Look forward to hearing from you
> regards
> XXXXX XXXXX

When I had stopped laughing all I could do was to reply as follows:

Dear XXXXX,
I am glad you found my picture interesting - but all your can assume from the picture is that on 8th March 2009 I happened to be at Bulbourne with a camera.
I am afraid my camera is much too small for you to moor your boat inside.
All the best along the canal
Chris Reynolds

A Major New Publication about the Grand Junction Canal

Books

The Grand Junction Canal

The book "The Grand Junction Canal" by Ian Pettigrew and Wendy Austin has just appeared - and is a very significant document recording the history of the canal (now normally referred to as the Grand Union Canal). In addition to a detailed history of the canal it contains many old photographs, maps, and extracts from original documents and newspaper articles - together with references and footnotes. I have created my normal reference page, to help people to discover the book - but will not be writing a detailed review at the present time - because the book (340 packed pages of A4 text) is available online - and you can see what a valuable reference work it is by looking at it yourself.

Canals

When I find time to complete the canal pages on this web site, and to post even more modern photographs of the Canal and its branches in within 10 miles or so of Tring, I am sure I will be including many references to this work.

Rural Relaxation: Ancient & Modern on New Year's Day

I decided to spend News Year's Day afternoon visiting parts of Aylesbury Vale near where I live. I started by driving through Drayton Beauchamps where this old barn has seen better days. When I was small, some 70 years ago, every farm seemed to have a barn like this, still in active use. Now seeing one, even in this tumbling down state, is rare. Almost every disused barn has been converted to expensive housing.

I next went through the Village of Buckland and from the bridge over the Aston Clinton bypass I took a picture of what had been excellent farming land - as green belt as you could find anywhere - only last year. (See Google satellite view - which still shows the site before development.) The ARLA plant is still being built and will be a massive milk processing centre. Things have moved on since I first saw cows being milked directly into a pail, the milker sitting on a three legged stool. The milk was put into churns which were left outside the farm gate to be picked up by the local dairy.

The ARLA works lie between the bypass and the canal and I next visited Broughton, a couple of miles nearer to Aylesbury and took this photograph of the partly flooded fields by the canal.  Some time ago I posted some photographs of the medieval field systems that had been exposed in Wilstone and Starttops Reservoirs during the 2011/12 drought. The old medieval field at Broughton is one of the best preserved examples in the area, the furrows being highlighted by flooding in the foreground. Its original shape can clearly be seen on Google satellite views. The only significant change is that the canal, built 200 years ago, cuts diagonally across the field.

Rural Relaxation: A Spectacular Canal Walk

Frost-covered Trees at Marsworth Reservoir
Adjoining the Grand Union Canal, near Tring.

By the Canal near Startops Reservoir, near Tring

On Wednesday last week my car was due for service at Lower End Garage. Marsworth, and I planned to drop the car off when it opened and walk back to Tring along the canal, having breakfast at the Garden Centre at Bulbourne. Very low temperatures and freezing fog had been forecast so I dressed warmly and took my camera. When I arrived at the garage the fog had gone and the countryside had been converted into a winter wonderland - with everything covered by a thick layer of hoar frost.

As a result I ended up with a large number of photographs of the Grand Union Canal, Startops and Marsworth Reservoirs, plus some other views. There were close-ups of frosted leaves - rimed with ice crystals, and the birds were not ignored. The best pictures can now be seen, in high resolution, on Geograph. One of the pictures, "Its warm inside - and bitterly cold outside," was selected as the picture of the day on December 16th.

Lock 44, Grand Union Canal

The pictures were all taken with my new camera, a Canon Powershot SX40 HS camera, and in view of the interest in my earlier First and Second impressions of using it, I provide a Third impression, after using it for three months - below the fold.

Some more about Halton

Halton is just over the county boundary into Buckinghamshire, and paid an important role in the First World War as it hosted a military camp which trained pilots - and the camp is now RAF Halton. I have now added two new post cards. The first shows the Wendover arm of the Grand Union Canal  at Halton which records the fact that Lord Kitchener's New Army is based on Alfred Rothschild's estate - so must have been published circa 1915. 

The same view in 2009

The second is a view of part of Wendover Woods (where I regularly used to take my dog Franci for a walk) in which some of the camp huts can be seen between the trees.

Old News from Jackson's Oxford Journal, 1800

The number of early newspapers which cover Hertfordshire is low so I decided to look at the Jackson's Oxford Journal for 1800 on the British Newspaper Archive and quickly found three items (and there may be many more).

Opening of the Grand Junction Canal through Tring

Highway Robbery of Watford Couple

Hertford Assizes

The last of these involves house breaking, sheep steeling and highway robbery and in a number of cases the transportation records are given to provide extra details

The Aylesbury Arm of the Grand Union Canal

The Grand Junction Canal, and its branches to Wendover and Aylesbury, played a significant role in the development of the towns and villages through which it ran. In addition much of the relevant industrial archaeology is still visible. However early post cards and other pictures are hard to come by it is impossible to illustrate many of the historically interesting features with 100+ year old pictures.

On the other hand in recent years I have spent much time relaxing by walking the canal  (initially with Franci). recording the surviving features photographically. Selected pictures have already been posted on Geograph to form a connected record with many more waiting to be posted. Some of these pictures will be available as high resolution images, and will link to other views of the same feature, often with added historical notes.

Bridge 3 at Wilstone

I have decided the best way forward is to continue to post modern photographs on Geograph but include feature lists for various lengths of the canal on this web site - starting with the locks and bridges. Once I have covered the basic framework I can then link old pictures to the relevant key features, and include special pages on specific aspects of the history of the canal system and the associated reservoirs.

You may start the exploration of the canal system on Geograph here.

Lock 15 at Aylesbury

The following feature lists have so far been added to this site in outline form

The Aylesbury Arm

Bridge 166 on the Grand Union Canal

Steve asked me if I knew the age of Bridge 166 over the Grand Union Canal. (It is the bridge south of Grove Mill, Watford. I need to do more work on the Canal pages and as yet don't have a picture (old or modern) of this bridge.

   However a look at a map from the 1880s, and a comparison with a modern satellite view, shows  the the bridge was built to switch the tow path from one side to the other. A cross over bridge has probably been at the spot since the canal was built over 200 years ago.

The Reservoirs and Canals around Tring

Guide to Grand Union Canal near Tring

Over two years ago I posted a linked series of pictures of the Grand Union Canal in the Tring Area, taken while walking my dog, Franki (who appears in many of the older photos). The idea was to allow people to photographically explore the main canal, the Wendover Arm, the Aylesbury Arm, and the reservoirs near Tring (Startops, Marsworth, Tringford and Wilstone). This was done by posting pictures on the Geograph web site and linking them together. The idea was also to link them with the Canal pages of this site (still incomplete). However Geograph introduced a better way to link photographs and now allow bigger images to be archived, and rather than edit several hundred pictures already posted I abandoned the process. (In fact pictures of many other subjects - mainly around Tring - were also posted on Geograph by  me as "Chris Reynolds")

Low Water at Startops Reservoir, January 2012

     Recently I have been taking more pictures during my relaxation walks - including the impact of the lack of rain on the local reservoirs and the ones I have posted showing the Medieval field systems (Medieval Field System exposed in Wilstone Reservoir  and  More Evidence of Medieval Fields at Tring Reservoirs) have attracted a lot of attention. In addition I have offered to prepare a talk on the Industrial Archaeology of the Canal to the archaeology group of our local U3A.

     As I am already committed to doing more work I have decided that I will go through my large collection of photographs and post suitable ones on Geograph, and report my activities here, even if they are not directly linked to Hertfordshire. I also plan to update the Canal pages on this site, with cross links to the Geograph pictures. However this will all take some time