| Country: | England |
| Static Image Name: | London Road Apsley 2022.jpg |
| Static Image Width: | 250 |
| Static Image Caption: | London Road, Apsley, looking south. |
| Coordinates: | 51.7378°N -0.4697°W |
| Official Name: | Apsley |
| Shire District: | Dacorum |
| Shire County: | Hertfordshire |
| Region: | East of England |
| Constituency Westminster: | Hemel Hempstead |
| Post Town: | HEMEL HEMPSTEAD |
| Postcode District: | HP3 |
| Postcode Area: | HP |
| Dial Code: | 01442 |
| Os Grid Reference: | TL0505 |
Apsley is a village in Hertfordshire, England, in a valley of the Chiltern Hills below the confluence of the River Gade and Bulbourne. It was the site of water mills serving local agriculture and from the early 19th century became an important centre for papermaking. Today it is a suburb of Hemel Hempstead.
The name Apsley dates from the Anglo-Saxon period and means aspen wood.
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 products to and from the mills.
John Dickinson, the inventor of a new method of continuous papermaking, purchased Apsley Mill in 1809.[1] During the 1930s, Apsley Mill became a vast industrial complex and its owner, John Dickinson Stationery, acquired Shendish Manor for use as its sports and social club.[2]
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 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, Epson, HSBC 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, and Apsley Marina is a thriving location for boaters.[3]
The local parish church is St Mary's, in London Road. There is also a Methodist church.
An important local issue since the summer of 2003 is the proposal to build on land surrounding the Manor Estate in Apsley that had previously been designated as green belt land. A new housing estate, called the Aspen Estate, has since been built on the hills above the Manor Estate.
Frogmore Paper Mill is a working paper mill and visitor centre located in some of the original mill buildings.[4] Paper continued to be made until 2006 a short distance away at Nash Mill by the global Sappi group. This too closed for production in 2006 but continued as a distribution centre for some time.[5]
See main article: Shendish Manor. A large Jacobean style country house, built on the site of an ancient manor house in 1854-56 for Charles Longman of the publishing family. Now a hotel and country club, it is a Grade II listed building.
Built in London Road in 1871 at the instigation of, and largely funded by Charles Longman, to the design of architect Joseph Clarke. It is a Grade II listed building.
A group of cottages in London Road designed by Edwin Lutyens in 1898 in the Arts and Crafts style. They are Grade II* listed.
A Hertfordshire Valley by Scott Hastie photographs by David Spain, Alpine Press Ltd, Kings Langley, 1996,