Apsley

Apsley
Hertfordshire
Apsley Marina
Location
Grid reference:	TL0505
Location:	51°44’16"N, 0°28’11"W
Data
Post town:	Hemel Hempstead
Postcode:	HP3
Dialling code:	01442
Local Government
Council:	Dacorum
Parliamentary constituency:	Hemel Hempstead

Apsley is a 19th century mill town in Hertfordshire. It is a historic industrial site situated in a valley of the Chiltern Hills. It is positioned on the Grand Union Canal and below the meeting of two natural rivers, the Gade and Bulbourne. In an area of little surface water this was an obvious site for the location of water mills serving local agriculture. Today it is a district of the larger town of Hemel Hempstead.

The name Apsley is from the Old English for aspen (wood) ley.

Brief history

It was the construction of the trunk canal (later to be called the Grand Union Canal) between London and the Midlands through the valley in 1798 that began its industrial rise at the start of the 19th century. The canal gave an easy way of transporting the raw and manufactured goods to and from the mills.

Frogmore Mill, Apsley, Hertfordshire. The only surviving member of a number of nineteenth century paper mills located in the town. It is now a museum, The Paper Trail.

John Dickinson (1782-1869), the inventor of a new method of continuous papermaking, purchased an existing mill in the area in 1809. Dickinson is famed for his mills at Croxley Green in Hertfordshire. There are records of paper-making being undertaking nearby already at this time. Dickinson's business expanded throughout the Victorian age coming to occupy large parts of the flat land in the valley bottom. Streets of mill workers' terraced houses grew up adjacent to the mills. Housing for managers was built on the old Manor Farm, higher up the hill towards Felden, in the grounds of the Manor Estate, today known as Shendish Manor Hotel. Production peaked during the Second World War. The site was however not ideal for large scale papermaking in the 20th century and later became a warehouse and distribution centre for wares made elsewhere.

In 1871 a new parish church, St Mary's, was built in a commanding position to serve and inspire the workers of the paper mill. It remains the parish church.

The last John Dickinson warehouse closed in 1999. There is a National Paper Museum called the Paper Trail in some remaining mill buildings. Paper continued to be made until 2006 a short distance away at Nash Mills by the global Sappi group at a former John Dickinson mill. This ceased manufacture in 2006 but continued as a distribution centre for some time. In 2011, the Sappi site was redeveloped for canal-side housing, preserving some of the historic structures at the site.

In the 1950s the adjacent town of Hemel Hempstead was designated a New Town as part of the provision of new residential areas surrounding London and Apsley became a part of the development, also giving its name to the new school of Apsley Grammar School at Bennetts End.

Apsley today

St Mary's Church

Today, Apsley is an outer district of Hemel Hempstead and is still a busy commercial centre. The Victorian shops that grew up when it was a mill town now house newsagents, public houses, restaurants, and a range of small businesses. The former mill sites are taken up with supermarkets, retail parks and offices (including large offices on the Dolittle Meadows site occupied by Hertfordshire County Council and until recently, British Telecom). Housing developments combining the canal side location with the ease of access to Apsley railway station have been very successful.

The local parish church is St. Mary's, in London Road. There is also a Methodist church.

Apsley timeline

13th cent	Ralf de Chenduit was granted land in the area. The local manor is still called Shendish manor today.
1803	First record of paper making in the area at nearby Frogmore.
1809	John Dickinson, the inventor of a continuous mechanised papermaking process, purchased a corn mill in the valley and started making paper.
1811	The Grand Junction Canal, later to form part of the Grand Union Canal, opened to through traffic. The original route of part of the canal was higher up the side of the valley passing north of the George and the Three Tuns pubs on Belswains Lane. It put Apsley on the principal trade route from London to the north.
1836	John Dickinson built his country house in nearby Nash Mills and called it Abbot's Hill. It is now a private school.
1838	The London and Birmingham Railway passed through the valley adjacent to the site but no station was built. Canals continued to be the primary commercial means of transport for Apsley's mills.
1853	Charles Longman, heir to the publisher Longman's and partner to John Dickinson, bought the Shendish estate and built an impressive manor house.
1871	St. Mary's Church at Apsley End was opened for public worship; its construction was funded by Charles Longman.
1938	Apsley railway station was built with backing from John Dickinson Ltd as a way to bring more people to work at the mills.
1939-1945	John Dickinson's was at its peak, and employed more than 7,000 workers. It made munitions as well as paper and paper products.
1999	The last paper mills owned by John Dickinson were finally shut.
2003	A national paper museum was built to celebrate the links between the industry and the town.
2011	Local Football Club Apsley Athetic FC was formed.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Apsley)

• Apsley (A Guide to Old Hertfordshire)
• Official Website of The Paper Trail project
• Information on The National Paper Museum Project
• Apsley Local History and pictures from Hemelonline
• Shendish Manor today with its history
• Manor Estate Residents' Association and their battle to prevent development on green-belt land in Apsley

References

A Hertfordshire Valley by Scott Hastie photographs by David Spain, Alpine Press Ltd, Kings Langley, 1996, ISBN 0-9528631-0-3