Bell Bar

Bell Bar
Hertfordshire
Location
Grid reference:	TL252052
Location:	51°43’56"N, 0°11’14"W
Data
Postcode:	AL9 6NA
Local Government
Council:	Welwyn and Hatfield

Bell Bar is a hamlet in Hertfordshire north of Brookmans Park and east of Welham Green.

Bell Bar (often spelt as "Bell Barr" on old maps) is thought to be named after the ancient Bell Inn, a coaching inn on the Great North Road here, for the road passed through along what is now called Bell Lane. The hamlet began as a cluster of dwellings around the inn.

The nature of the village changed considerably in 1851 when the route of the Great North Road (now the A1000) was altered to avoid the steep hill to the south of the hamlet and to avoid cutting through the grounds of Hatfield House. The considerable amount expended on the diversion was a commercial investment though the return hoped for never materialised because within a few years the opening of the Great Northern Railway put an end to toll-paying long distance traffic. It was this diversion that explains the apparent discrepancy in Charles Dickens' account of Bill Sykes, on the run from London after murdering Nancy, whom Dickens describes coming down the hill from the London road and finding the welcome sight of the Eight Bells Inn in Hatfield. Nowadays the Eight Bells is on a quiet cul-de-sac.

These days Bell Bar has a petrol station, a few garden centres (notably the Dutch Nursery, established by immigrants Hans and Anna Henn in 1957, which moved to its present site in 1963 after a cucumber nursery had been ruined during the previous severe winter), a pub, a restaurant and other public facilities. A public footpath across fields and a narrow country road lead to the village of Welham Green, situated about a mile away on the East Coast main line.