Bushey Heath
| Bushey Heath | |
| Hertfordshire, Middlesex | |
|---|---|
 Warren Lake, Bushey Heath | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ149940 |
| Location: | 51°37’59"N, 0°20’25"W |
| Data | |
| Post town: | Bushey |
| Postcode: | WD23 |
| Dialling code: | 020 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Hertsmere |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Hertsmere |
Bushey Heath is a village on the border of Hertfordshire with Middlesex, forming an extension of the town of Bushey, from which it sprang. It is to the south-east of Bushey, it has its own town centre along the High Road but is all along the same road and with unbroken housing all between the two.
Once this was all heath and common land dividing Hertfordshire from Middlesex, and much green landscape remains on all sides, but Bushey Heath has grown greatly from the little agricultural settlement with which it began.
The village runs right up to the Middlesex border and the last yards of the High Road and its little roads trespass over into Middlesex. The very end of the village, at the very top of the road at the cross-roads beyond which are the woods, is in Middlesex. It is the county top of Middlesex; its highest point.
History
Bushey Heath was created during the Napoleonic Wars, which had created a cruel shortage of food. To help solve the problem, the government awarded the waste land to the east of Bushey to Bushey landowners to be used as farming; this land was more generally known as Bushey Common. It is doubtful that any of it was actually used to produce food due to the poor, clayey soil conditions, but being 500 feet above the sea and having beautiful and broad views was to give birth to the attractive neighbourhood we know today.
Sights about the village
Bushey Heath is known to nearby places for its duck pond (Warren Lake) off the main road, which was restored in 1992 after falling into dereliction.
On each side of Bushey Heath are the green lungs that detract from the urban landscape found to the north and to the south. On the Middlesex side to the south-east are Stanmore Common and Harrow Weald Common, and eastwards Calidcot Hill on the Hertfordshire side of the border. Merry Hill and farmland separate Bushey and Bushey Heath from Carpenders Park westwards. The Aldenham Country Park lies to the east, beyond the scar of the M1 and A41 corridor.