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Books > North and East Hertfordshire Photographic Memories
Lilley, the Lilley Arms c1955 (ref. L506001) | The Lilley Arms is the oldest public house in the village and dates from around 1705. Originally called the Sugar Loaf, in 1852 its name was changed to the Sowerby Arms out of respect to the lord of the manor. During the Great War, it changed again to the Lilley Arms. For many years the adjacent building was occupied by the village blacksmith. Lilley was the home of Johan Kellerman, a famous alchemist who boasted that he could change mercury into gold. It is said that he lived in squalor in one room protected by sliding bolts and patent padlocks. Kellerman boasted that 'the world, sir, is in my hands and my power'. Eventually he was chased away and died in poverty in Paris. |  Add your own Memory
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Anstey, Puttocks End c1955 (ref. A156007) | These thatched cottages are on either side of the road to Brent Pelham at the eastern, outer reaches of Anstey. Puttock's End, one of the highest points in Hertfordshire, was the home of the Glasscock, Flack and Catley families, whose local pedigrees go back to the 1500s. The village boasted a good, pure supply of spring water, and the pump was used by all of the local communities. | Add your own Memory
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Ashwell, West End c1951 (ref. A149001) | Little has changed at this junction on the roads to Newnham and Hinxworth, known as West End and Back Street. The first token reference to the growing traffic can be identified in the reflective pillar mounted on the boundary wall (centre). The cottages were owned by Joshua Page, one of the many local brewers, as accommodation for his workers. Later it was the site of a fish and chip shop run by Fred Harris. | Add your own Memory
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Ashwell, Forester's Cottages, High Street 1951 (ref. A149006) | This was clearly a successful village which had made its fortune by the weaving and cloth trade, as well as through agriculture. Later, in the mid 1800s, coprolite extraction brought prosperity to the landowners and inhabitants: phosphotic nodules, mined locally, were washed with dilute sulphuric acid, ground to a powder and sold as a powerful fertilizer. One of the gang-masters of the mining teams was a certain Mr Fison. The Foresters Cottages, in the right foreground, were to be demolished in a few years after the photograph was taken, but were saved and extensively restored in the 1960s through the Hertfordshire Building Preservation Trust and Hertfordshire County Council. | Add your own Memory
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Ashwell, the Museum c1951 (ref. A149009) | This early 16th-century timber-framed house, formerly owned by St John's College, Cambridge and earlier by Westminster Abbey, was used by the village as the Town House for the collection of rents and tithes. In the late 1920s it was in a dilapidated state and about to be demolished, but it was purchased for £25 to house the bygones and objects of local interest collected by Albert Sheldrick and John Bray. As Ashwell Museum, it was opened to the public on 29 November 1930. Over 70 years later, it continues to thrive as one of the best small museums in Hertfordshire. | Add your own Memory
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Ashwell, High Street 1951 (ref. A149017) | St Mary's church, most of which was built in the 14th century, demonstrates the wealth of the village. It also recalls the tragedy wreaked on the countryside by the Black Death and plague in the form of a graffito, '1350, wretched, fierce, violent - the dregs of the people survive to tell the tale'. It is difficult to imagine a devastated village when we look back at this tranquil High Street. Tommy Dennis's butcher's shop (centre right) was renowned for its ornate topiary and for the life-like bull's head mounted on the board across the building. The red, green and gold sign has been an important and attractive feature of the High Street for over 100 years. | Add your own Memory
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Baldock, Hitchin Street c1955 (ref. B9011) | Hitchin Street formed part of the complex of parallel trackways which made up the Icknield Way. Baldock provided a resting place for travellers, and little has changed in the 1000 or so years of its life. Even in the mid 1920s, almost every other building is an inn or a tavern - only the concrete lamp post and the television aerials identify this as the 20th century. | Add your own Memory
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Baldock, George and Dragon Hotel c1955 (ref. B9003) | In the 1920s and 1930s, the George and Dragon Hotel was a popular stopping-place for cyclists and walkers following the route of the Icknield Way. For the more discerning 'Commercials and Motorists' it provided 'wines, spirits and billiards'. The George and Dragon stands opposite the corner of Sun Street and adjacent to the site of the Sun public house (later the Victoria.) Only the 1950s 'Keep Left' sign differs from the view today. | Add your own Memory
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Baldock, White Horse Street 1925 (ref. 77097) | The Icknield Way was a pre-Roman, Iron Age trading route running along the northern border of Hertfordshire. At Baldock it formed the length of White Horse Street and Hitchin Street. Inns and beer houses served the needs of travellers and waggon drivers - the Chequers stands on the left and the George and Dragon faces us in the distance. The photographer stood with his back to the site of the White Horse, which burnt down in the 1860s. Fred Butler, who ran the petrol station on the left, started business in the 1890s as a bicycle retailer. Past Butlers on the left is the Rose and Crown, which provided overnight garaging for motorists and was strongly endorsed by both the AA and the RAC. A far cry from the days when the four-legged horse power ruled and Baldock's annual horse fair took place in White Horse Street. | Add your own Memory
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Baldock, White Horse Street c1955 (ref. B9016) | The centre of Baldock, at the junction of the market place and the Icknield Way, is dominated by the imposing Town Hall and Old Fire Station, opened on 25 November 1897 to commemorate Queen Victoria's jubilee. The Town Hall now houses Baldock's fascinating museum. The lonely Vauxhall E Series (centre) drives towards Letchworth along Hitchin Street past the shops and inns. Today the traffic is a solid, almost immovable mass, and few cyclists risk their lives shopping at Wilsons, the tobacconists (left), or at Pattersons (centre right), who were once saddlers and leather workers. This is a marked contrast to a now busy town soon to be subdued by the construction of a by-pass. | Add your own Memory
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Baldock, High Street 1925 (ref. 77096) | The market town of Baldock developed at the junction of a Roman road and the ancient Icknield Way in the mid 1100s. It is said that the Knights Templar named the town 'Baudacum' - a Latinised from of Baghdad - and that this evolved into Baldock. The market still meets on the original site each week, but on a non-market day in the 1920s, Baldock has an air of almost desertion. On the right, in the background, is Quenby's garage with its 'swing-arm' petrol pump. On the opposite side of the road, almost obscured by the dark shadow of the Town Hall, stands a Great War gun carriage. | Add your own Memory
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Barkway, High Street c1965 (ref. B281015) | The school (left) was built in 1840, and provided education for the children of Barkway and Reed. This fine building is remarkably original, and stands on the site of the old Market Square. The white building (right) was the village butcher's shop - joints of meat were hung from the trees; beyond it is the three-gabled Town House. It is said that the ornate staircase in the Town House came from Standon Lordship. The white shed on the left stands next to the village pond where the villagers skated in winter. | Add your own Memory
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Barkway, High Street c1965 (ref. B281019) | Barkway spanned the main route from London to Cambridge, and it was only the coming of the railways in the 1850s that transformed it into a countryside backwater. The building on the right with the tall brick chimneys is the Reading Room, erected in the 1860s to provide a respectable meeting place for the young men of the village. On the left, the Chaise and Pair, one of five inns still functioning in the village in 1965, offered fine beer and accommodation. It closed for business in 1993. | Add your own Memory
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Barley, the Fox and Hounds c1955 (ref. B405022) | One of two Hertfordshire inns with cross-street signs (the other is the Four Swans at Waltham Cross), the Fox and Hounds moved to its present site in 1955 after a disastrous fire at the old building in the High Street in August 1950. The present pub was previously known as the Waggon and Horses. In the distance, under the sign, stands the church of St Margaret of Antioch. The unusual lantern and spire were erected in 1872 to a design by Butterfield. | Add your own Memory
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Bengeo, St Leonard's Church 1922 (ref. 71877) | St Leonard's church at Bengeo, probably the oldest building in the Hertford area, dates from the 12th century. It appears to have been built in 1120 to replace a wooden church, which was probably destroyed by the Danes. There is an anchorite's cell behind the panelling in the north wall, and a fine replacement tiled roof over the semicircular apsidal east end. | Add your own Memory
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Bengeo, St Leonard's Church 1929 (ref. 81779) | This fine example of Norman architecture was in a derelict state, and the church of Holy Trinity in New Road, consecrated in June 1855, took over as the place of regular worship. An inappropriate gabled roof had been built over the semicircular apsidal east end. Fortunately the church was restored both externally and internally, and now offers a fine view across the site of the present Gosselin Road. | Add your own Memory
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Benington, St Peter's Church c1960 (ref. B406011) | Records suggest that a church stood on this site in the early 9th century. This present building dates from the 13th century. One of the tombs inside the church commemorates the Caesar family, whose most famous member, Julius Caesar, once held the Great Seal of England. He was born Caesar Aldemar, and Queen Mary allowed the family to adopt the name Julius in perpetuity. A fine carving on the tower appears to depict Josef Stalin, but it is actually the likeness of David Warner, one-time sexton. | Add your own Memory
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Bishop's Stortford, The Meads 1899 (ref. 44282) | The spire of St Michael's church dominates the skyline. When the tower was found to be unstable, it was strengthened and the spire raised to 182 feet. The roofs of four maltings mark the towpath of the River Stort. Some of these maltings have now been converted into dwellings. | Add your own Memory
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Bishop's Stortford, the Maltings on the River Stort 1903 (ref. 49765) | By 1940, only 6 out of the 17 maltings in the town were in operation. Barley and fuel for the furnaces were brought to Stortford by water, and latterly by rail. Processing of the barley into malt took place from September to June; during this time the furnaces were never extinguished, and a sweet-smelling pall covered the town. The sacks of malt and barley husks, for cattle feed, were loaded onto barges and transported to London. | Add your own Memory
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Bishop's Stortford, Bridge Street 1922 (ref. 71842) | A ballad of 1843 refers to the building on the left as 'the Ugly Black Lion'. In the late 1890s, the Black Lion public house was extensively altered and restored by Mr Glasscock; by removing the plaster and exposing the windows, he attempted to return the building to its original 1600s style. On the opposite side of Bridge Street stands the Star Tavern, which was first recorded in 1616. A nice 1920 Ford Model T stands outside the tobacconist (left), and the lady in the foreground prepares to rest her bicycle against a cast iron gas lamp standard. | Add your own Memory
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