Hertfordshire should not be confused with Herefordshire.
| Official Name: | Hertfordshire |
| Arms Link: | Coat of arms of Hertfordshire |
| Coordinates: | 51.8167°N -13°W |
| Region: | East |
| Largest Town: | Watford |
| Established Date: | Likely 10th century |
| Lord Lieutenant Office: | Lord Lieutenant of Hertfordshire |
| Lord Lieutenant Name: | Robert Voss |
| High Sheriff Office: | High Sheriff of Hertfordshire |
| High Sheriff Name: | Anne Patricia Brewster (2024-25) |
| Area Total Km2: | 1643 |
| Area Total Rank: | 36th |
| County Council: | Hertfordshire County Council |
| Admin Hq: | Hertford |
| Area Council Km2: | 1643 |
| Area Council Rank: | 26th |
| Iso Code: | GB-HRT |
| Ons Code: | 26 |
| Gss Code: | E10000015 |
| Nuts Code: | UKH23 |
| Districts List: | |
| Mps: | List of MPs |
| Police: | Hertfordshire Constabulary |
| Ambulance: | East of England Ambulance Service |
Hertfordshire (or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south and Buckinghamshire to the west. The largest settlement is Watford, and the county town is Hertford.
The county has an area of 634sqmi and had a population of 1,198,800 at the 2021 census.[1] After Watford (131,325), the largest settlements are Hemel Hempstead (95,985), Stevenage (94,470) and the city of St Albans (75,540).[2] For local government purposes Hertfordshire is a non-metropolitan county with ten districts beneath Hertfordshire County Council.
Elevations are higher in the north and west, reaching more than in the Chilterns near Tring. The county centres on the headwaters and upper valleys of the rivers Lea and the Colne; both flow south and each is accompanied by a canal. Hertfordshire's undeveloped land is mainly agricultural and much of the county is covered by the Metropolitan green belt.
Since 1903, Letchworth has served as the prototype garden city while Stevenage became the first town to expand under post-war Britain's New Towns Act 1946 (9 & 10 Geo. 6. c. 68). Services have become the largest sector of the county's economy.
See main article: History of Hertfordshire. The county's landmarks span many centuries, ranging from the Six Hills in Stevenage built by local inhabitants during the Roman period, to Leavesden Film Studios. The volume of intact medieval and Tudor buildings surpasses London, in places in well-preserved conservation areas, especially in St Albans, which includes remains of the Roman town of Verulamium.
In 913, Hertfordshire was the area assigned to a fortress constructed at Hertford under the rule of Edward the Elder. Hertford is derived from the Anglo-Saxon heort ford, meaning deer crossing (of a watercourse). The name Hertfordshire is first recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1011. Deer feature in many county emblems. Many of the names of the current settlements date back to the Anglo-Saxon period, with many featuring standard placename suffixes attributed to the Anglo-Saxons: "ford", "ton", "den", "bourn", "ley", "stead", "ing", "lett", "wood", and "worth", are represented in this county by Hertford, Royston, Harpenden, Redbourn, Cuffley, Wheathampstead, Tring, Radlett, Borehamwood and Rickmansworth.
There is evidence of human life in Hertfordshire from the Mesolithic period. It was first farmed during the Neolithic period and permanent habitation appeared at the beginning of the Bronze Age. This was followed by tribes settling in the area during the Iron Age.
Following the Roman conquest of Britain in AD 43, the Catuvellauni tribe accepted peace and adapted to the Roman life; resulting in the development of several new towns, including Verulamium (St Albans) where in the first recorded British martyrdom is traditionally believed to have taken place. Saint Alban, a Romano-British soldier, took the place of a Christian priest and was beheaded on Holywell Hill. His martyr's cross of a yellow saltire on a blue field is reflected in the flag and coat of arms of Hertfordshire as the yellow field to the stag or Hart representing the county. He is the Patron Saint of Hertfordshire.
With the departure of the Roman Legions in the early 5th century, the now-unprotected territory was invaded and colonised by the Anglo-Saxons. By the 6th century, the majority of the modern county was part of the East Saxon kingdom. This relatively short-lived kingdom collapsed in the 9th century, ceding the territory of Hertfordshire to the control of the West Anglians of Mercia. The region finally became an English shire in the 10th century, on the merger of the West Saxon and Mercian kingdoms.
In the midst of the Norse invasions, Hertfordshire was on the front lines of much of the fighting. King Edward the Elder, in his reconquest of Norse-held lands in what was to become England, established a "burh" or fort in Hertford, which was to curb Norse activities in the area. His father, King Alfred the Great, established the River Lea as a boundary between his kingdom and that of the Norse lord Guthrum, with the north and eastern parts of the county being within the Danelaw. There is little evidence however of Norse placenames within this region, and many of the Anglo-Saxon features remained intact to this day. The county however suffered from renewed Norse raids in the late 10th to early 11th centuries, as armies led by Danish kings Swein Forkbeard and Cnut the Great harried the country as part of their attempts to undermine and overthrow English king Athelred the Unready.
A century later, William of Normandy received the surrender of some senior English Lords and Clergy at Berkhamsted, before entering London unopposed and being crowned at Westminster. Hertfordshire was used for some of the new Norman castles at Bishop's Stortford, and at King's Langley, a staging post between London and the royal residence of Berkhamsted.
The Domesday Book recorded the county as having nine hundreds. Tring and Danais became oneDacorumfrom Danis Corum or Danish rule harking back to a Viking not Saxon past. The other seven were Braughing, Stevenage, Cashio, Buntingford, Hertford, Hitchin and Odsey.
In the later Plantagenet period, St. Albans Abbey was an initial drafting place of what was to become Magna Carta. And in the later Wars of the Roses, St. Albans was the scene of two major battles between the Lancastrians and the Yorkists.
In Tudor times, Hatfield House was often frequented by Queen Elizabeth I. Stuart King James I used the locale for hunting and facilitated the construction of a waterway, the New River, supplying drinking water to London.
As London grew, Hertfordshire became conveniently close to the English capital; much of the area was owned by the nobility and aristocracy, this patronage helped to boost the local economy. However, the greatest boost to Hertfordshire came during the Industrial Revolution, after which the population rose dramatically. In 1903, Letchworth became the world's first garden city and Stevenage became the first town to redevelop under the New Towns Act 1946 (9 & 10 Geo. 6. c. 68).The first shooting-down of a zeppelin over Great Britain during WW1 happened in Cuffley.[3]
From the 1920s until the late 1980s, the town of Borehamwood was home to one of the major British film studio complexes, including the MGM-British Studios. Many well-known films were made here including the first three Star Wars movies (IV, V, & VI). The studios generally used the name of Elstree. American director Stanley Kubrick not only used to shoot in those studios but also lived in the area until his death. Big Brother UK and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? have been filmed there. EastEnders is filmed at Elstree. Hertfordshire has seen development at Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden; the Harry Potter series was filmed here and the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye.[4]
On 17 October 2000, the Hatfield rail crash killed four people with over 70 injured.[5] The crash exposed the shortcomings of Railtrack, which consequently saw speed restrictions and major track replacement. On 10 May 2002, the fourth of the Potters Bar rail accidents occurred killing seven people; the train was travelling at high speed when it derailed and flipped into the air when one of the carriages slid along the platform where it came to rest.
In early December 2005, the 2005 Hemel Hempstead fuel depot explosions occurred at the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal at Buncefield on the edge of Hemel Hempstead.[6] [7] [8]
Hertfordshire is located in the south-eastern part of England and is the county immediately north of London. It is officially part of the East of England region, a mainly statistical unit.[9] To the east is Essex, to the west is Buckinghamshire and to the north are Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. A significant minority of the population across all districts commute to Central London.
The county's boundaries were roughly fixed by the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844 which eliminated exclaves; amended when, in 1965 under the London Government Act 1963, East Barnet Urban District and Barnet Urban District were abolished, their area was transferred to form part of the present-day London Borough of Barnet and the Potters Bar Urban District of Middlesex was transferred to Hertfordshire.
The highest point in the county is at 244m (801feet) (AOD) on the Ridgeway long distance national path, on the border of Hastoe near Tring with Drayton Beauchamp, Buckinghamshire.[10]
At the 2011 census, among the county's ten districts, East Hertfordshire had the lowest population density (290 people per km2) and Watford the highest (4210 per km2). Compared with neighbouring Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire lacks large towns or cities on the scale of Luton or Milton Keynes, whose populations exceed 200,000, but its overall population (1.2 million in 2021) is greater than those of the two aforementioned counties.
The River Lea near Harpenden runs through Wheathampstead, Welwyn Garden City, Hertford, Ware, and Broxbourne before reaching Cheshunt and ultimately the River Thames. The far west of the county is the most hilly, with the Chiltern Hills surrounding Tring, Berkhamsted and the Ashridge estate. This Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty runs from near Hitchin in the north to Berkshire and Oxfordshire.
Many of the county's major settlements are in the central, northern and southern areas, such as Watford, Hemel Hempstead, Kings Langley, Rickmansworth, St. Albans, Harpenden, Redbourn, Radlett, Borehamwood, Potters Bar, Stevenage, Hatfield, Welwyn and Welwyn Garden City, Hitchin, Letchworth and Baldock. These are all small to medium-sized locations, featuring a mix of post-WWII new towns and older/more historical locales. The City of St. Albans is an example of a historical settlement, as its cathedral and abbey date to the Norman period, and there are ruins from the Roman settlement of Verulamium nearby the current city centre. Stevenage is a mix of post-WWII new town planning amidst its prior incarnation as a smaller town. The Old Town in Stevenage represents this historic core and has many shops and buildings reflecting its pre-WWII heritage. Hitchin also has a historic centre, with many Tudor and Stuart era buildings interspersed amongst more contemporary structures.
Hertfordshire's eastern regions are predominantly rural and arable, intermixed with villages and small to medium-sized towns. Royston, Buntingford and Bishop's Stortford, along with Ware and the county town of Hertford are major settlements in this regard. The physical geography of eastern Hertfordshire is less elevated than the far west, but with lower rising hills and prominent rivers such as the Stort. This river rises in Essex and terminates via a confluence with the Lea near to Ware. Apart from the Lea and Stort, the River Colne is the major watercourse in the county's west. This runs near Watford and Radlett, and has a complex system/drainage area running south into both Greater London and Buckinghamshire.
An unofficial status, the purple star-shaped flower with yellow stamens, the Pasqueflower is among endemic county flowers.[11]
See main article: Geology of Hertfordshire.
The rocks of Hertfordshire belong to the great shallow syncline known as the London Basin. The beds dip in a south-easterly direction towards the syncline's lowest point roughly under the River Thames. The most important formations are the Cretaceous Chalk, exposed as the high ground in the north and west of the county, forming the Chiltern Hills and the younger Palaeocene, Reading Beds and Eocene, London Clay which occupy the remaining southern part. The eastern half of the county was covered by glaciers during the Ice Age and has a superficial layer of glacial boulder clays.
Much of the west - and much more in the east - have richly diverse countryside.[12] These range from beech woods of the Chilterns, clayland buffer zone countryside of Braughing and the Hadhams across to ancient hornbeam coppices west of the upper Lea valley.[12] The county has sweeping panoramas of chalklands near Royston, Baldock, Hexton and Tring.[12]
Large parts of the county are used for agriculture.
Some quarrying of sand and gravel occurs around St Albans. In the past, clay has supplied local brick-making and still does in Bovingdon, just south-west of Hemel Hempstead. The chalk that is the bedrock of much of the county provides an aquifer that feeds streams and is also exploited to provide water supplies for much of the county and beyond. Chalk has also been used as a building material and, once fired, the resultant lime was spread on agricultural land to improve fertility. The mining of chalk since the early 18th century has left unrecorded underground galleries that occasionally collapse unexpectedly and endanger buildings.[13]
Fresh water is supplied to London from Ware, using the New River built by Hugh Myddleton and opened in 1613. Local rivers, although small, supported developing industries such as paper production at Nash Mills.[14]
Hertfordshire affords habitat for a variety of flora and fauna. A bird once common in the shire is the hooded crow, the old name of which is the eponymous name of the regional newspaper, the Royston Crow published in Royston. A product, now largely defunct, was watercress, based in Hemel Hempstead and Berkhamsted supported by reliable, clean chalk rivers.[15]
See also: List of places in Hertfordshire, List of settlements in Hertfordshire by population and List of lost settlements in Hertfordshire.
This is a table of trends of regional gross value added of Hertfordshire at current basic prices with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.[16]
| Year | Regional Gross Value Added | Agriculture | Industry | Services | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | 11,742 | 96 | 3,292 | 8,354 | |
| 2000 | 18,370 | 77 | 4,138 | 14,155 | |
| 2003 | 20,937 | 82 | 4,348 | 16,507 |
Hertfordshire has the main operational and/or headquarters UK site of some very large employers. Clockwise from north:
In Stevenage (a subsidiary of: BAE Systems, Airbus and Finmeccanica) MBDA, develops missiles. In the same town, Airbus (Defence & Space Division) produces satellites.
Hatfield was where de Havilland developed the first commercial jet liner, the Comet. Now the site is a business park and new campus for the University of Hertfordshire. This major employment site notably hosts EE, Computacenter and Ocado groceries and other goods e-commerce.
Welwyn Garden City hosts Tesco's UK base, hosts the UK Cereal Partners factory and in pharmaceuticals it hosts Roche UK's headquarters (subsidiary of the Swiss Hoffman-La Roche). GlaxoSmithKline has plants in Ware and Stevenage.
Hemel Hempstead has large premises of Dixons Carphone.
The National Pharmacy Association (NPA), the trade association for UK pharmacies, is based in St Albans.
Kings Langley has the plant-office of Pure, making DAB digital radios.
Watford hosts national companies such as J D Wetherspoon, Camelot Group, Bathstore, and Caversham Finance (BrightHouse). It is also the UK base of multi-nationals Hilton Worldwide, TotalEnergies, TK Maxx, Costco, JJ Kavanagh and Sons, Vinci and Beko. The 2006 World Golf Championship and the 2013 Bilderberg Conference, took place at The Grove hotel.[17] Warner Bros. owns and runs its main UK base since the 2000s, Warner Studios, in Leavesden, Watford.
Rickmansworth hosts Skanska.
Local news and television programmes is provided by BBC London & ITV London, however northern parts of the county receive BBC East & ITV Anglia from Norwich.
Local Radio programmes are provided by BBC Three Counties Radio, Heart Hertfordshire, Greatest Hits Radio Bucks, Beds and Herts (formerly Mix 96), Mix 92.6 (formerly Radio Verulam St. Albans) and Community Radio Dacorum (Hemel Hempstead).
Waltham Cross, Broxbourne, is the location of the Lee Valley White Water Centre, a purpose built venue opened in 2010 for the 2012 Summer Olympics. The site consists of two white water courses; one 300m Grade IV "Olympic" run; and one 160m Grade III "legacy" run.[18]
During the games the Center was the venue for the canoe and kayak slalom events.
Lee Valley has since hosted the ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships twice. First in 2015, and most recently in 2023, where Britain topped the medal table with 5 golds.
As of the 2021–22 season, there are four professional football teams in Hertfordshire: Watford F.C., Stevenage F.C., Arsenal W.F.C. and Boreham Wood F.C.
Since 1922, Watford play their home games at Vicarage Road.[19] The club joined the Football League in 1920 as a founding member of the Third Division[20] and first played in the First Division of English football in 1982, finishing as runners-up to champions Liverpool.[20] Watford was promoted to the Premier League at the end of the 2020–2021 season. After spending one season in the Premier League, they were relegated to the Championship again for the 2022-2023 season.[21]
Stevenage F.C. was formed in 1976 as Stevenage Borough and have played at Broadhall Way since 1980.[22] Stevenage was the first club to win a competitive match at the new Wembley Stadium, beating Kidderminster Harriers 3–2 in the 2007 FA Trophy Final.[23] The club currently play in the EFL League Two and have been managed by former player Alex Revell since February 2020.[24]
Arsenal F.C., whilst based at the Emirates Stadium in the London Borough of Islington, has long held a training ground in the county. Until 1999, it held the London Colney University of London facility, until it built a new purpose-built compound adjacent to it. Watford FC currently utilises the old Arsenal training area as its training facility.
Arsenal W.F.C. play at Meadow Park in Borehamwood.[25] The club was formed in 1987 and have played in the FA Women's Super League since its inaugural season in 2011.[26]
Hertfordshire has many semi-professional and amateur clubs. The highest placed are Hemel Hempstead Town and St Albans City, who play in the National League South and Bishop's Stortford F.C. who play in the National League North.
Hemel Stags are a rugby league team based in Hemel Hempstead.[27] Hemel Stags have played at Pennine Way Stadium since the club's founding in 1981.[28] [29] Until 2018, the club played in league 1, the third tier of the British rugby league system, and now compete in the Conference League South.[30]
The Hertfordshire Rugby Football Union is the governing body for rugby union in Hertfordshire and is responsible for any interested parties involved in rugby.[31]
Tring Rugby play matches at Cow Lane, Tring.[32] The first XV currently play in the Regional 1 South East,[33] League. A level 5 league.
Gaelic Football is played within Hertfordshire, with clubs from Oxfordshire all the way to Cambridge playing in the Hertfordshire League and Championship. Eire Óg, Oxford are the 2022 County Champions. Hurling is played by an amalgamated team, St Declan's CLG, with players contributed from all football teams across Hertfordshire. St Declan's currently play in the Warwickshire League and Championship, having previously played in the London GAA championship. A number of St Declan's players have also played for the Warwickshire Senior Hurling team, playing in the Lory Meagher and Nicky Rackard competitions, including Patrick Lancaster, Eamon Doherty, Alan Hayes, and Alex Hanley.
Below is a list of notable visitor attractions in Hertfordshire:
Hertfordshire is a home county with many towns forming part of the London commuter belt and has some of the principal roads in England including the A1, A1(M), A41, A414, M1, M11, and the M25.
Four principal national railway lines pass through the county:
A number of other local rail routes also cross Hertfordshire:
Three commuter lines operated by Transport for London enter the county:
The distance travelled by buses in Hertfordshire has reduced by 56.5% since 2017.[34]
Stansted Airport and Luton Airport are both within of the county's borders in Essex and Bedfordshire, respectively. The commercial airfield at Elstree is for light aircraft.
The Grand Union Canal passes through Rickmansworth, Watford, Hemel Hempstead, Berkhamsted and Tring.
See also: List of schools in Hertfordshire.
Hertfordshire has 26 independent schools and 73 state secondary schools.The state secondary schools are entirely comprehensive, although 7 schools in the south and southwest of the county are partially selective (see Education in Watford).All state schools have sixth forms, and there are no sixth form colleges.The tertiary colleges, each with multiple campuses, are Hertford Regional College, North Hertfordshire College, Oaklands College and West Herts College.The University of Hertfordshire is a modern university based largely in Hatfield. It has more than 23,000 students.
Hertfordshire is the location of Jack Worthing's country house in Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest.
Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice is primarily set in Hertfordshire.[35]
The location of Mr Jarndyce's Bleak House in Charles Dickens's Bleak House is near St Albans.[36]
The eponymous residence in E. M. Forster's novel Howards End was based on Rooks Nest House just outside Stevenage.[37]
George Orwell based Animal Farm on Wallington, Hertfordshire, where he lived between 1936 and 1940. Manor Farm and The Great Barn both feature in the novel.[38] [39] [40]