Tring, Hertfordshire

Childhood memories of my Aunt Claire and Uncle Jim Webster

I used to spend happy holidays with my aunt and uncle and cousin Barry who have all now sadly died. They used to own the bakers shop, and I can remember the delicious smell of baked bread and being able to have sweets and pop while watching the TV at night.

MY GRANDMOTHER

My grandmother was born in Tring in the late 1800s and was married in Tring Church on Christmas Day in 1909.  Her grandfather was a very peculiar character and had to be taken to the village pump for his weekly wash and he used to sit on the wall to jeer at  the churchgoers.  He was known as Grampy Rodwell.  Once... [more]

Tring Parish Church

My brother Colin Lyall was christened in this beautiful church at the end of the summer of 1963. My parents, Val and Frank emmigrated to South Africa in 1967, with 3 small children. Robert (Rob) Jane and Colin. I wonder if anyone remembers us. We lived in Fantail Lane. My grandparents Kitty and Bob Lyall lived at the top of Chrischurch... [more]

Entertaining the Tring Christmas Shoppers with morris dancing

Tring hosts a lovely Christmas shopping evening each year when the High Street is decorated, the shop windows have illuminated Christmas displays and stay open late and the place is transformed into a fairyland of old-fashioned entertainment and street traders.  There are hot chestnut vendors, roundabouts, fairground organs, traction engines, musicians and dancers.

The lovely Whitethorn Morris dancers... [more]

Aylesbury Photographic Memories

Our brief tour now crosses into Hertfordshire to Tring, a market town at the base of a salient of the county that projects into Buckinghamshire from the Chilterns along the valley of the River Bulbourne. Immediately south-east of the town is Tring Park, its park now bisected by the A41. The mansion incorporates a house designed by Sir Christopher Wren in the 1680s;... [more]

Hertfordshire Photographic Memories

This imposing 17th-century mansion was originally designed by Sir Christopher Wren for Henry Guy, and was formerly a home of the Gore family, before being purchased by the Rothschild banking family in 1873. The upper storey was added in 1890, and the old walls encased with red brick and pediments in 1915. The second Lord Rothschild was an enthusiastic, if eccentric, collector of birds and animals and... [more]

Aylesbury Photographic Memories

The town is a little disappointing - it is a mix of Rothschild fake timber-framing and earlier buildings. In this view the town is en fete for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Much has gone, including the old Rose and Crown, which was replaced around 1900 by the present mock timber-framed one set back from the road: a townscape disaster. The building on the right... [more]