New and bigger post card views of High Cross and Colliers End

Multiview post card of High Cross

When this site is mothballed it will still be available online, but higher resolution images will no longer be supplied on request. Anticipating this change all post card images for High Cross (11) and Colliers End (6) now give a 1024 pixel wide image on clicking. Two new view cards have been added.

Links to:   High Cross     Colliers End

I have also added a lengthy press account of the dedication of St Mary's, Colliers End.

Colliers End

More pictures on the Leavesden Pages

Military

Watford

Leavesden was a parish created from part of Watford in the 19th century and I have restructured and augmented the pages with more post card images. There is a master Leavesden entry page with links to separate pages for All Saint's Church, The Grove (and Grove School), Munden, The Metropolitan Asulum (where the Post Office Rifles were billeted in 1914/5), The St Pancras Schools and the local part of the Grand Junction Canal.

Improved Pictures of Hunton Bridge (Abbots Langley)

Langleybury School, Hunton Bridge, circa 1905

Churches

Abbots Langley

I have reorganized the pages for Hunton Bridge (which includes Langleybury) and rescanned all the old postcards images so that they are now available at a higher resolution. This includes pictures of St Paul's Church, Langleybury, the War Memorial (as it was in the 1920s), and the Hunton Bridge Village School.

War Memorials

The War Memorial at Hunton Bridge

Mid-February Quickies

Help Desk

Churches

Over the last couple of weeks I have been busier that ever with emails flying in all directions and I have been spending more time than I should on local and family history - except, of course, that I enjoy it and it helps keep me mentally active. In the January progress report I mentioned I had started to sort out my large collection of post cards to help plan future picture updates and the main activity in the last two weeks has been to launch the new church page and the first associated indexes. This will help me to ensure that all suitable views (and in some cases interior pictures) of parish churches are accessible at an appropriate high resolution. Despite this I have also found time for even more posts on my other blog Trapped by the Box.

So here are some of the short items which didn't justify an individual blog post:

Tring

Mikki and I have both added to the page containing details of the From Rags to Riches story but there is still a problem in identifying Rose Louisa Eley. It is possible she is Rosina Sarah Lewis Ely and if she was a prostitute may have deliberately claimed to be younger than she was, and given an incorrect father's name and place of birth. If anyone can find any evidence that clarifies the situation it would be helpful.

Military

Meg has commented on a picture of young soldiers, undoubtedly in connection with the First World War, who had been photographed at the Australian Studios, Watford.  She says: These soldiers are dressed in the typical AIF uniforms of WW1 - they would have a bandana supporting a belt which held their ammunition when at war. I have no idea who they are. Unfortunately we still not know who they are.

I will be attending a Herts at War meeting at County Hall, Hertford, at the end of the month, and will be posting details of how visitors to this site can help. Other First World War activities relate to pictures of the soldiers who ended up in Napsbury and the school site Hemel at War school site which currently concentrates on the Second World War but which is planning to include more material on the previous conflict.

St Michael's, Watford.

The February issue of The Sword, the parish magazine of St Michael's and All Angel's Church, Watford, includes an article on the history of the church in the early years of the 20th century, illustrated by post card images from this web site.

Post Card by Harradance of Ware

Many shops sold post cards with their name and address on "as publishers." In many cases they will have been approached by a post card printer and selected the design from a pattern book. Kate commented that the post cards of the Dunmow Flitch Factory have the same frame as cards sold by Harradance of Ware. Presumably they were printed by the same printer and have a similar date, possibly around 1908.

Markyate

Geraldine tells me that the Markyate Local History Society as a new URL http://www.markyatehistory.org.uk/

Cycling

Following a request from John I am in the process of adding new material to the "Cycling" page.

Post Card Images of Your Ancestor's church

Churches

When this site started in 2001 the idea was to have one page of information and pictures of every town and village in Hertfordshire. Since then things have grown like topsy and some places have 20 or more pages of information. As a result it is easy to overlook the fact that the site includes 100+ year old pictures of nearly every parish church in the county. I have decided provide a quick access path to church information to make it easy for you to find pictures, and other information, of the church where your ancestor was baptised, married and/or buried.

The long term plan is to have a page for each ancient parish church, with comparatively high resolution picture from old post cards and, in some cases engravings, together with 19th century descriptions of the church, and other relevant information. In many cases this will mean moving church information off the appropriate town or village page, scanning the original post cards at a higher resolution, possibly adding completely new images, and adding appropriate early descriptions from my library. Because of the number of churches this will be an ongoing operation lasting at least a year.

The first stage has been to create a Parish Church "Home" Page - with links to the pictures already on this site, together with information on where you you can find additional information elsewhere on the web, including modern photographs of the churches. In addition index pages with thumbs for each of the churches have been created and those for the letters A, B, DEF, G, IJK, and T have already been populated. The other letters will be populated over the next couple of weeks.

In many cases the thumbs point to a dedicated page for the church, while in other cases they point to the first pictures of the church on the relevant town or village page. This means that you can quickly find the pictures of the church your ancestor used. Updating the individual church pages will be done on a priority basis - depending on demand. If you look for a church and would like higher resolution pictures, or more information, just tell me, or comment below. (It could help if you mention the nature of your interest as I might be able to find, for instance, a relevant memorial inscription to use as an example.) This will mean that the most popular churches will be given priority, and I don't waste my time updating information on churches no one is interested in. Don't be shy about asking. By asking you will ensure that the upgraded information will be available to other people visiting the site.

Any comments as to how easy you find the new facility is to use, and suggestions for improvement, will be very welcome.

An update of the East Barnet Pages

East Barnet Lane

Barnet

Following a query about a post card of the church, I decided to split the page on East Barnet, adding a lengthy description of the church from 1880 (in addition to the 1863 description of the village) and two new post card views. In addition all pictures now have a higher definition picture if you click on them (and even higher resolution are available on request).

East Barnet "Home" Page

St Mary the Virgin Page

Standon Church with its separate church tower

Standon Church

Standon

St Mary's, Standon, is an interesting church. Like many other Hertfordshire churches the tower is topped by a "Hertfordshire Spike" - a very narrow steeple. However the big difference in that the tower is not part of the main church but is a separate building standing alongside the chancel. I visited the church in 2006 and took some photographs - now I have added three old post cards showing the church as it was about 100 years ago.

St Michael's and All Saints, Watford

Help Desk

Following a query about a post card showing the Church of St Michael and All Angels before the tower was added I have created a page about the church, with two pictures with higher resolution images available on the wen site.

The first post card image, by Coles, shows the church hall, which was built in 1905 and which acted as a church until the church proper was built on the adjacent site. The second picture shows the church as it was when it opened in 1913 without a tower.

Watford

Because of the war the tower was not added until 1926.

Currently I don't have a post card of the church taken in the 1920's or 30s showing the tower to complete the story of the church's construction. Can you help?

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. 

More about Little Berkhampstead

Place Index

Cycling

A major upgrade of the information on Little Berkhampstead (or is it Little Berkhamsted) with separate pages on the Church, the Monument, and the Old Manor House (which catered for cyclists in the early years of the 20th century). However I am still not had anyone asking about ancestors who lived there.

 ...

More about Little Gaddesden

Little Gaddesden Church in about 1830

The earlier reformatting of the pages for Little Gaddesden has made it easier to add new material and I have added details of a very informative church guide from about 1980 and a detail from an enclosure map which names fields as they were in 1838.

Tring Tiles - The Boyhood of Christ

14th Century Tiles from Tring Church

During 19th century restoration work on Tring Parish Church a number of 14th century tiles were found that tell the story of the childhood of Jesus (something the Bible forgot to say anything about). While the story they tell is known from contemporary manuscripts this Medieval "cartoon strip" seems to be unique, as no other tiles, made in the same way, are known to tell the tale. The tiles ended up in the British museum (apart from some fragments now in the Victoria & Albert Museum) where they are currently on display in Room 40 (Medieval Europe). For more pictures and the story of the tiles click here. Modern reproductions can be seen in Tring's Local History Museum.

Major update to Ware pages

Some of the larger towns and village pages are either in need of an restructure, or a restructure has been started and not finished. The problem is that over the last 11 years the amount of information on the site, and waiting to be added to the site has increased significantly, and the original idea of one page per place has proved impractical. Ware ended up with one main page, and one overflow page, plus a few other related pages - such as the one on the Great Bed of Ware.

St Mary's Church, Ware

If you visit the Ware pages you will find there is now a menu - and much more attractive front page - with a 1891 description of the town, and a series of thumb pictures which take you to other pages. The changes will take some time but the first stage will be to add more pictures and to re-scan all the old pictures - so all the post card images will be available in higher resolution simply by clicking on the picture. In addition an index of post card publishers is being built up so allow better dating.

So far the new page for St Mary's (the ancient parish church) is complete with new images and text, and there are new/updated images on some of the other pages. I will report on progress at intervals.