Visit Hertfordshire Places

Welcome to Visit Hertfordshire Places
The Walkfo guide to things to do & explore in Hertfordshire

  

Hertfordshire Places Overview: History, Culture & Facts about Hertfordshire

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Hertfordshire history

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The county’s landmarks span many centuries, ranging from the Six Hills in the new town of Stevenage built by local inhabitants during the Roman period, to Leavesden Film Studios. The volume of intact medieval and Tudor buildings surpasses London, in places in well-preserved conservation areas, especially in St Albans which includes remains of the Roman town of Verulamium. In 913, Hertfordshire was the area assigned to a fortress constructed at Hertford under the rule of Edward the Elder. Hertford is derived from the Anglo-Saxon heort ford, meaning deer crossing (of a watercourse). The name Hertfordshire is first recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1011. Deer feature in many county emblems. Many of the names of the current settlements date back to the Anglo-Saxon period, with many featuring standard placename suffixes attributed to the Anglo-Saxons: “ford”, “ton”, “den”, “bourn”, “ley”, “stead”, “ing”, “lett”, “wood”, and “worth”, are represented in this county by Hertford, Royston, Harpenden, Redbourn, Cuffley, Wheathampstead, Tring, Radlett, Borehamwood and Rickmansworth. There is evidence of human life in Hertfordshire from the Mesolithic period. It was first farmed during the Neolithic period and permanent habitation appeared at the beginning of the Bronze Age. This was followed by tribes settling in the area during the Iron Age. Following the Roman conquest of Britain in AD 43, the aboriginal Catuvellauni quickly submitted and adapted to the Roman life; resulting in the development of several new towns, including Verulamium (St Albans) where in c. 293 the first recorded British martyrdom is traditionally believed to have taken place. Saint Alban, a Romano-British soldier, took the place of a Christian priest and was beheaded on Holywell Hill. His martyr’s cross of a yellow saltire on a blue field is reflected in the flag and coat of arms of Hertfordshire as the yellow field to the stag or Hart representing the county. He is the Patron Saint of Hertfordshire. With the departure of the Roman Legions in the early 5th century, the now-unprotected territory was invaded and colonised by the Anglo-Saxons. By the 6th century, the majority of the modern county was part of the East Saxon kingdom. This relatively short-lived kingdom collapsed in the 9th century, ceding the territory of Hertfordshire to the control of the West Anglians of Mercia. The region finally became an English shire in the 10th century, on the merger of the West Saxon and Mercian kingdoms. In the midst of the Norse invasions, Hertfordshire was on the front lines of much of the fighting. King Edward the Elder, in his reconquest of Norse-held lands in what was to become England, established a “burh” or fort in Hertford, which was to curb Norse activities in the area. His father, King Alfred the Great, established the River Lea as a boundary between his kingdom and that of the Norse lord Guthrum, with the north and eastern parts of the county being within the Danelaw. There is little evidence however of Norse placenames within this region, and many of the Anglo-Saxon features remained intact to this day. The county however suffered from renewed Norse raids in the late 10th to early 11th centuries, as armies led by Danish kings Swein Forkbeard and Cnut the Great harried the country as part of their attempts to undermine and overthrow English king Athelred the Unready. A century later, William of Normandy received the surrender of the surviving senior English Lords and Clergy at Berkhamsted, resulting in a new Anglicised title of William the Conqueror, before entering London unopposed and being crowned at Westminster. Hertfordshire was used for some of the new Norman castles at Bishop’s Stortford, and at King’s Langley, a staging post between London and the royal residence of Berkhamsted. The Domesday Book recorded the county as having nine hundreds. Tring and Danais became one—Dacorum—from Danis Corum or Danish rule harking back to a Viking not Saxon past. The other seven were Braughing, Broadwater, Cashio, Edwinstree, Hertford, Hitchin and Odsey. In the later Plantagenet period, St. Albans Abbey was an initial drafting place of what was to become the Magna Carta. And in the later Wars of the Roses, St. Albans was the scene of two major battles between the Lancastrians and the Yorkists. In Tudor times, Hatfield House was often frequented by Queen Elizabeth I. Stuart King James I used the locale for hunting and facilitated the construction of a waterway, the New River, supplying drinking water to London. As London grew, Hertfordshire became conveniently close to the English capital; much of the area was owned by the nobility and aristocracy, this patronage helped to boost the local economy. However, the greatest boost to Hertfordshire came during the Industrial Revolution, after which the population rose dramatically. In 1903, Letchworth became the world’s first garden city and Stevenage became the first town to redevelop under the New Towns Act 1946. The first shooting-down of a zeppelin over Great Britain during WW1 happened in Cuffley. From the 1920s until the late 1980s, the town of Borehamwood was home to one of the major British film studio complexes, including the MGM-British Studios. Many well-known films were made here including the first three Star Wars movies (IV, V, & VI). The studios generally used the name of Elstree. American director Stanley Kubrick not only used to shoot in those studios but also lived in the area until his death. Big Brother UK and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? have been filmed there. EastEnders is filmed at Elstree. Hertfordshire has seen development at Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden; the Harry Potter series was filmed here and the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye. On 17 October 2000, the Hatfield rail crash killed four people with over 70 injured. The crash exposed the shortcomings of Railtrack, which consequently saw speed restrictions and major track replacement. On 10 May 2002, the second of the Potters Bar rail accidents occurred killing seven people; the train was at high speed when it derailed and flipped into the air when one of the carriages slid along the platform where it came to rest. In early December 2005, the 2005 Hemel Hempstead fuel depot explosions occurred at the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal.

Hertfordshire landmarks

Aldenham Country Park Ashridge – the estate surrounding the neo-Gothic house by James Wyatt is National Trust land. Bridgewater Monument, built in 1832 in memory of Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, is 108 feet (33 m) tall and open to the public to ascend to the top.

Main footpaths

The Ridgeway Icknield Way Grand Union Canal Walk . Harcamlow Way Hertfordshire Way Hertsants Way is a popular way to get around Herts County .

Hertfordshire geography / climate

Hertfordshire is the county immediately north of London and is part of the East of England region. To the east is Essex, to the west is Buckinghamshire and to the north are Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. The highest point in the county is at 244 m (801 ft) on the Ridgeway long distance national path, on the border of Hastoe near Tring with Drayton Beauchamp, Buckinghamshire.

Geology

The rocks of Hertfordshire belong to the great shallow syncline known as the London Basin . The beds dip in a south-easterly direction towards the Syncline’s lowest point roughly under the River Thames . The eastern half of the county was covered by glaciers during the Ice Age .

Natural resources and environment

Much of the west – and much more in the east have richly diverse countryside . The county has sweeping panoramas of chalklands near Royston, Baldock, Hexton and Tring . Large parts of the county are used for agriculture and some quarrying of sand and gravel occurs around St Albans .

You can visit Hertfordshire places with Walkfo Hertfordshire to hear history at Hertfordshire’s places whilst walking around using the free digital tour app. Walkfo Hertfordshire has 46 places to visit in our interactive Hertfordshire map, with amazing history, culture & travel facts you can explore the same way you would at a museum or art gallery with information audio headset. With Walkfo, you can travel by foot, bike or bus throughout Hertfordshire, being in the moment, without digital distraction or limits to a specific walking route. Our historic audio walks, National Trust interactive audio experiences, digital tour guides for English Heritage locations are available at Hertfordshire places, with a AI tour guide to help you get the best from a visit to Hertfordshire & the surrounding areas.

“Curated content for millions of locations across the UK, with 46 audio facts unique to Hertfordshire places in an interactive Hertfordshire map you can explore.”

Walkfo: Visit Hertfordshire Places Map
46 tourist, history, culture & geography spots

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Hertfordshire historic spots	Hertfordshire tourist destinations	Hertfordshire plaques	Hertfordshire geographic features
Walkfo Hertfordshire tourism map key: places to see & visit like National Trust sites, Blue Plaques, English Heritage locations & top tourist destinations in Hertfordshire

  

Best Hertfordshire places to visit

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Hertfordshire has places to explore by foot, bike or bus. Below are a selection of the varied Hertfordshire’s destinations you can visit with additional content available at the Walkfo Hertfordshire’s information audio spots:

Digswell House Digswell House was built c. 1805–07 by Samuel Wyatt for the Honourable Edward Spencer Cowper, who lived there for some years. It is now in the Knightsfield area of Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire. A portico, with four massive Ionic columns, is its most impressive external feature.

Howard Centre The Howard Centre is a shopping centre in Welwyn Garden City. It is named after Sir Ebenezer Howard, founder of the garden city movement.

Welwyn Garden City railway station Welwyn Garden City is 20 miles 25 chains (32.69 km) from London King’s Cross on the East Coast Main Line. Train services are currently provided by Thameslink and Great Northern.

Lemsford Lemsford is a village and parish in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire. It was created in 1858 out of Hatfield parish. It is nearly 3 miles north of the town, on the southeast side of Brocket Hall Park. The yearly Lemford Fete garners thousands of visitors.

Visit Hertfordshire plaques