Dacorum Hundred

The Dacorum Hundred highlighted in Hertfordshire

The Dacorum Hundred is one of the hundreds of Hertfordshire. It encompasses the whole western side of the county excepting those parishes belonging to the Cashio Hundred; the latter was created from the scattered holdings of St Albans Abbey (the Liberty of St Albans) interjecting themselves across the county. This leaves the Dacorum Hundred in six pieces; a main contiguous piece across the north-western parts of the shire, including the whole Tring Salient, three separated parts in the south of the county and the detached parish of Coleshill, locally situate in Buckinghamshire.

In the Domesday Book there were two hundreds where today there is one; the Dacorum Hundred and the Tring Hundred, which appear to have merged in the Middle Ages.

The name "Dacorum" appears also as Danais. It is Latin, meaning "Of the Danes" (a mediaeval form; the usual word would be Danorum). It has been proposed that the original Dacorum Hundred comprised parts inhabited by Danes or falling within the Danelaw, whose boundary was once drawn through Hertfordshire along the River Lea as far as Luton, albeit that the Treaty boundary may have been brief as a reality, and the hundred is in fact west of the Lea.

Parishes

The hundred comprises the following ancient parishes:

• Aldbury
• Aldenham (Theobald Street hamlet)^*
• Bushey
• Caddington (part)^†
• Flamstead
• Great Berkhampstead
• Great Gaddesden
• Harpenden
• Hemel Hempstead
• Kensworth
• King's Langley
• Little Gaddesden
• Northchurch
• North Mymms
• Puttenham
• Shenley
• Studham (part)^†
• Tring
• Wheathampstead
• Wigginton

^*: Remainder in Cashio hundred.
^†: Partly in Bedfordshire.
Additionally the hamlet of Coleshill forms a detached part of the hundred and county locally in Buckinghamshire.