Redbourn
| Redbourn | |
| Hertfordshire | |
|---|---|
 High Street, Redbourn | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TL105125 |
| Location: | 51°48’1"N, 0°23’47"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 6,000 |
| Post town: | St Albans |
| Postcode: | AL3 |
| Dialling code: | 01582 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | St Albans |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Hitchin and Harpenden |
Redbourn is a village in Hertfordshire standing on Watling Street, three miles from Harpenden, four miles from St Albans and five miles from Hemel Hempstead.
Parish church
The parish church is St Mary's, a fine church with parts of its structure dating form the 12th century.
In 2010, St Marys Church celebrated its 900th Anniversary.[1] with village events and street parties.
There is also a Methodist Church.
History
The village has been settled at least since Anglo-Saxon times and it is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Redborne.
Around fifty years after its Norman Church was built, a small priory was founded half a mile away on Redbourn Common, after the abbot of St Albans Abbey decided to hallow the ground: some bones had been found on the spot, reputed to be those from the shrine of St Amphibalus, the priest who converted Saint Alban to Christianity.[2]
To the south-west of the town just beyond the motorway is the site of an Iron Age hill fort called The Aubreys.[2]
Industry and business
Redbourn was, for a long time, the centre of a farming community and for a time had a successful watercress business on the River Ver's water meadows. Just south of the village, Redbournbury Mill, a recently restored watermill, produces flour.
Silk throwing was carried out at the steam driven Woollam's Mill near Redbourn Common. The mill was taken over by John Mangrove & Son and closed in 1938. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Brooke Bond took over the silk mill. Whilst the factory was still open, a young gentleman in the village fell into a vat of jam and died. After a successful lobbying campaign by several school children in 2003, a memorial bench was unveiled to 'Sticky Joe'. After closing their factory in 1996 the old silk mill manager's house (the Grade II listed Silk Mill House) was donated as the village museum, which opened in May 2000. The former silk mill site is now a housing estate. Local grocer Russell Harborough set up a jam making factory, which in 1956 was bought by Thomas Mercer Ltd, the marine chronometer manufacturer. The site, just off the High Street, is now an industrial estate.
Old industries in the village included making straw plait and hat making — Redbourn Village Hall was formerly a straw-hat factory.[2]
Coaching and other transport
During the coaching era, Redbourn was known as the Street of Inns, boasting at least 25 pubs and inns at its peak, but in 1838 the opening of the railway from London to Birmingham, sounded the death knell of stage-coaching.
A branch railway line - known as the Nicky Line - from Hemel Hempstead to Harpenden, passed through Redbourn. The line opened on 16 July 1877 and closed in 1979. The route is now a public footpath and cycle path. The first bus service through the village started in 1908 though buses took some years to become established.
Cricket in Redbourn
Redbourn Cricket Club was formed about 1823, but records show organised cricket was played on Redbourn Common some eighty years earlier. Some Hertfordshire County histories record cricket being played on the Common in 1666. This makes the village one of the oldest recorded cricketing locations in England.[3]
Miscellany
- In 1903 Mr Boucher, the local dentist, owned the first private car in the village, (a 6 HP Gladiator). Several motor rallies were centred in Redbourn in the 1900s using The Bull Pub. The three garages, Walkers & Hardings in the High Street, Bylands on Dunstable Road and Stathams at Church End have all closed leaving only a filling station next to The Chequers Pub on the St Albans Road.
- The first proposal for a Redbourn by-pass was in 1935 and when one was eventually built in 1984, the High Street was closed for a day of celebrations.
- Redbourn Care Group, a local charity, was a 2003 Queen's Golden Jubilee Award Winner.
References
- ↑ Redbourn900
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Hertfordshire Federation of Women's Institutes
- ↑ "Club Information". Redbourne Cricket Club. http://www.redbourncricketclub.org.uk/club/club.html. Retrieved 7 December 2009.
- Alan Featherstone, Redbourn's History, 1981, ISBN 0-9541948-0-2
- Hertfordshire Federation of Women's Institutes; Ann Roxburgh (Forward) (1986). The Hertfordshire Village Book. Countyside Books. Section on Redbourn ISBN 090539271X.
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Redbourn) |