Step into a little history: Walking through Lower Chess, Loudwater and Rickmansworth

10:06am Wednesday 23rd April 2003

THE original Christ Church at Chorleywood was built in 1845 but only lasted 25 years when, due its dilapidated state, it had to be demolished, except for the tower, and rebuilt. Nearby, on the busy A404 a turnpike was once located by The Gate public house. Times change, and so does fashion: the turnpike has long gone, and the pub is now the Jenny Wren.

A road through time

4:04pm Monday 4th February 2002

EARLY records show the name as "Bissei", meaning a wooded place but Bushey has long been a busy place - the village stood astride the road from London to Kings Langley, where royalty lived and hunted the king's deer, and Berkhamsted Castle, scene of the Saxons' surrender after 1066.

Walk where stars flew

5:40pm Monday 4th February 2002

BOXMOOR would do any town proud, in 1574, this land was presented by Elizabeth I to her favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and in the 1790s the Grand Junction Canal was driven through it, followed by the London to Birmingham railway.

Absolute silence

5:38pm Monday 4th February 2002

POTTEN End has retained its village status, despite the ever-encroaching tentacles of Hemel Hempstead, the name derives from "pottern", a building used for the storage of pots and jars.

An orbit around history

5:28pm Monday 4th February 2002

THE goodly township of Hemel Hempstead is to be swollen to satellite proportions': so someone wrote, meaning, of course, a satellite new town to swallow the overspill population of Greater London.

A place to be proud of

5:25pm Monday 4th February 2002

WATFORD is mentioned as far back as the 10th Century, when the Saxon queen Ethelgifu left "the lands of Watford" to Leofrune, the origin of the name is obscure, but the town grew as Watford Street, simply a row of buildings leading up from the River Colne along what we now know as High Street

Nightingales sang

5:20pm Monday 4th February 2002

USUALLY, towns developed and grew before a railway station was built, not so Northwood, where the station was built before the town, as The Watford Observer observed in 1887: "The station is in the midst of very pretty country, where 250 persons arrive on Sundays."

A hill full of history

5:12pm Monday 4th February 2002

HARROW is first recorded in 767, when King Offa made a grant of land, its name then was Gum Eninga Hergae, but the Normans called it Harwo, more recognisable to modern-day citizens, although "Herga" lives on in the names of streets and organisations.

Layers of history

5:06pm Monday 4th February 2002

AROUND AD61, Boudicca and her Iceni tribe destroyed the city of Verulamium, which the indefatigable Romans rebuilt in even grander style, with a basilica, or town hall (now the site of St Michael's Church) and a forum, or marketplace.

Canals and highwaymen

4:27pm Friday 1st February 2002

CLOSE to the M25, Iver is a busy, yet unmistakably rural place, its best features are the timber-framed Swan Inn and St Peter's Church, which stand close together, as though defying so-called progress.