Harpendia Spring Master 2014

The Spring edition February 2014 Good bye Glen Eagle Manor The end of an era in Harpenden as the once proud Glen Eagle Hotel has come to an end with the demolition completed in February 2014. Building starts soon on new apartment homes. Keep up to date + more photos at www.harpendia.com and good bye Harpenden House Hotel Also in this issue: Harpenden's Hidden Heritage How to keep fit Senses of Sardinia Saving a wedding day Harpenden House Hotel staff Business and Investing were advised on Feb13 that the landlord had sold the site New car launch to a House Developer and it Professional food photography would close on April 3rd. Keep up to date + more Harpenden Mencap photos at www.harpendia.com Gardening Harpenden news updates Check out the Harpendia web site daily www.harpendia.com The Harpenden Sport Relief Mile is back! Sunday 23 March 2014. Are you fit enough to run? See page 22 for details ! Luton Airport expansion From the Editor. What’s Feb 19th 2014. happening? Professional photographer Darrin Jenkins (see page 16) was set a new task recently. Where to go for Normally at home with food Summer as his ‘bread & butter’ he was Sunshine? challenged to portray your editor in a ‘new light’. So what See page 10 do you think of the resulting photograph? Is this the right Life in Harpenden is full of site for the new surprises, some good some secondary school bad. Changes on the High in Harpenden? Street with some closures and Follow the ongoing some new opening, plus a story at new Library with ever www.harpedia.com increasing membership and now open Wed afternoon thanks to The Harpenden Society volunteers. A coffee A big thank you to all the lovers contributors and the writers indoor who have made this edition special. flower garden Ron Taylor. [email protected] Harpenden's Hidden Heritage By Alexander Thomas Alex is a Landscape Archaeologist (like Stewart named after the patron saint of travellers. This Ainsworth, Mick Aston and Alex Langlands on suggests that the Church recognised Harpenden Channel 4's Time Team!) and has just as a lucrative spot where the Church might graduated with an MA in Archaeology from the maximise its wealth by taking advantage of the University of Bristol, where he also received his travellers on their way to St Albans: pilgrims en route to the abbey and traders to the market. undergraduate degree. He is currently working on a PhD proposal exploring Anglo-Saxon Domesday Book tells us that the land was archaeology. Alex has always lived in owned in 1066 and 1086 by the Abbot of St Harpenden and for many years was a member Peter at Westminster, but following a petition by of the St Albans Young Archaeologists' Club, or him to Pope Honorius III (1216 – 1227), a land YAC. He is fascinated by local history and the dispute erupted between the Abbot at archaeology of Harpenden was the subject of Westminster Abbey, William de Humez (1214 – his Masters dissertation and of a Medieval 1222), and the Bishop of Lincoln, Hugh of Wells study. In this article he hopes to summarise (1209 – 1235). This was yet another cause for some of his conclusions and share a few of his the parish split and the establishment of St. theories. Nicholas'. You may think that Harpenden is not an ancient settlement, that it only gained significance in the 1800s with the coming of the railway. However buildings such as St Nicholas' Church and the Cross Keys pub are evidence of earlier occupation, though there is little to suggest within the modern landscape how the settlement of Harpenden began or developed. My work has shown that the origins of Harpenden stretch back into prehistory. There is evidence that the landscape was occupied during the Iron Age (c. 750BC – AD43) and Roman (AD43 – AD410) periods. The modern centre of Harpenden stretches back to at least the 13th century – the time of Henry III (1216 – 1272), but this rich heritage has been hidden away in the archives. Harpenden and Wheathampstead are Anglo- Saxon names from harpe dene meaning path through the valley and a hill or homestead where wheat was grown. Harpenden is not mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as then it was considered part of Wheathampstead. Its separate identity came in 1221 when St Nicholas' Church was established as a chapel- of-ease. Then two separate civil administrative parishes were established. St Nicholas’ location Above: Alex Thomas has a scrape with his trowel at was ideal, not only because it was located near Batford Springs. an ancient pond and stream (just in front of Galloway's shoe shop), but it was also perfectly situated to collect alms from those using the present A1081, and which may be why it was Article continues on next page... Article continues... Wheathampstead’s wealth was increasing during this to life! Maps from the 1700s show the the 13th century, evident by the rector’s tithes for shadows of the old river, but by this time some the lands, mills and labour which were worth £23 considerable silting up had taken place and 10s 0d. This was a sizable amount and was areas closer to the banks of the modern river created mostly through wheat production. Within were already built on. Domesday Book listed the above mentioned petition sent to the Pope, four mills on this part of the river and these the Abbot claimed ownership of St Helen’s would have been a focus for trade. The mills Church, not just to provide help for the poor and were positioned where the drove ways meet the sick, and provide a range of other pious needs, river and include Pickford Mill, Batford Mill, but also to lay claim to the lion's share of the Leasey Bridge Mill and Wheathampstead Mill; wheat profits! He based his claim on the fact further upstream Hyde Mill was likely also part of that two twelfth century Popes had granted the the group. Pickford Mill is now demolished but land to Westminster Abbey. The Bishop of once stood on today's Lea Industrial Estate at Lincoln objected to the claim as it seems he saw the junction of Pickford Hill and Cold Harbour. himself as the patron of the living and therefore Batford Mill, which was rebuilt in the 1850s, still the most suitable owner of the land; he was also stands and is situated near the ford where interested in profits. The dispute was settled in a Crabtree Lane crosses the river. Leasey Bridge Papal Bull of 1221 which gave to the Abbot of Mill was situated close to the site of today's Westminster half the rector’s tithes, some land Leasey Bridge farmhouse, which dates to the and a house near St Nicholas' Church in 16th century. Last of all, there is the mill at Harpenden. The Bishop of Lincoln acquired the Wheathampstead and today the buildings are still rest, but only in 1859 did Harpenden become a the focus of the village's historic centre separate parish from Wheathampstead. Historic maps and the topography of the area show that during the Medieval period there were a series of drove ways or tracks connecting the modern centre (and the present A1081), the Common to the river. Many older residents remember that sheep farmers would drive their flocks down Crabtree Lane (formerly known as Top Street) from the Common to the Ford. However what is not commonly known is that Stakers Lane (now Station Road), Dark Lane/ Piggotshill Lane, Ox Lane and Leasey Bridge Lane were also drove ways and all still exhibit some of these characteristics: elevated sides and a flat bottomed U-shaped profile. The U-shape was more pronounced before many of the roads were filled in, and was still visible in Crabtree Lane before it was re-developed in the 1960s around Gilpin Green and the Crabtree Schools. Ancient hedgerows lined the tracks, and as can still be seen in Leasey Bridge Lane and some parts of Crabtree Lane. These tracks were rights of way through the Harpenden farmland, farmed in strips during the Medieval period, and much of which was devoted to the production of wheat. The ancient centre of Harpenden is on the River Lea, linking the settlement to Wheathampstead, Above: Alex Thomas at the Ford on the River Lea and London. The river was likely navigable at Batford. during the Roman period and perhaps even during Medieval times. The recent flooding brings Article continues on next page... Article concludes... The mills may have earlier origins, in particular at Batford. We know from the Domesday Book survey that the Abbot of Westminster Abbey had owned the land around the mill in King Edward the Confessor's day (1042 - 1066), and the implication of this is that the mill was in use during the early-Medieval and Anglo Saxon periods. The area around Batford also has a number of Iron Age and Roman archaeological sites which show that not only was the area settled, but the people living there were iron smelting and possibly processing wheat. So if wheat was being grown and ground for flour much earlier than Domesday, Batford Mill may have a longer history. The proximity of the Lea's five mills and their positions at the ends of the drove ways raises another interesting hypothesis. Was wheat being processed in Harpenden on a mass scale before Domesday? Certainly, bread would have been required for the local population but perhaps also for the population of the Roman city of Londinium (London).

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