47-669: The River Hiz / h ɪ tʃ / is a small (10 miles (16 km)) tributary river in Hertfordshire that feeds the River Ivel that, in turn, feeds the River Great Ouse . Starting at its source of a chalk fed spring just south of the village of Charlton , the river winds its way through the county of Hertfordshire , moving its way into and through Hitchin , where it meets the River Oughton and River Purwell . The Hiz finally meets
94-789: 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
141-425: 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
188-668: 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
235-502: A river in England is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( / ˈ h ɑːr t f ər d ʃ ɪər / HART -fərd-sheer or /- ʃ ər / -shər ; 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
282-589: 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
329-520: Is a non-metropolitan county with ten districts beneath Hertfordshire County Council . Elevations are higher in the north and west, reaching more than 800 feet (240 m) 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
376-502: 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 . Warner Bros. owns and runs its main UK base since the 2000s, Warner Studios, in Leavesden, Watford. Rickmansworth hosts Skanska . Most of the county
423-811: 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
470-639: 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,
517-560: Is served by BBC London & ITV London , however Stevenage and North Hertfordshire is served by BBC East & ITV Anglia . Some northwestern parts of the county around Tring can also receive BBC South and ITV Meridian . Local radio for the county is provided by BBC Three Counties Radio , BBC Radio Cambridgeshire (covering Royston ), 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). Local newspapers in
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#1732855873174564-577: 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 . 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,
611-468: 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. Fresh water
658-487: Is the dative plural of Hicce. Norden says the name is derived from a wood called Hitch, but Ekwall believes this is a conflation with Wychwood , for which the Old English is Hwiccawudu . 52°00′43″N 0°16′16″W / 52.01188°N 0.27106°W / 52.01188; -0.27106 This Hertfordshire location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article related to
705-607: The Harry Potter series was filmed here and the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye . On 17 October 2000, the Hatfield rail crash killed four people with over 70 injured. The crash exposed the shortcomings of Railtrack , and resulted in speed restrictions and major track replacement. On 10 May 2002, seven people died in the fourth of the Potters Bar rail accidents ; the train was travelling at high speed when it derailed and flipped into
752-765: 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
799-601: The Chilterns , clayland buffer zone countryside of Braughing and the Hadhams across to ancient hornbeam coppices west of the upper Lea valley. The county has sweeping panoramas of chalklands near Royston , Baldock , Hexton and Tring . 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
846-487: The ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships twice. First in 2015 , and most recently in 2023 , where Britain topped the medal table with 5 golds. Hertfordshire County Council Hertfordshire County Council is the upper-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Hertfordshire , in England. The council was created in 1889. It is responsible for a wide range of public services in
893-665: The River Ivel near the village of Henlow . The Hicca Way , inaugurated in 2012, is a footpath which follows the course of the river. The Hiz is a focal point in the town of Hitchin, with a market that takes place historically by its banks. The Hiz also runs past the Arlesey Old Moat and Glebe Meadows nature reserve in Arlesey . Although small, the Hiz attracts a great deal of wildlife. There are many birds around this area, which include swans , ducks , coot and kingfishers . Fish inhabit
940-501: 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
987-449: The quarter sessions . The first elections were held in January 1889, and the council formally came into being on 1 April 1889, on which day it held its first meeting at Shire Hall, Hertford , the courthouse (built 1771) which had served as the meeting place of the quarter sessions which preceded the county council. The first chairman of the council was Francis Cowper, 7th Earl Cowper , who
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#17328558731741034-805: 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
1081-745: 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
1128-498: The air when one of the carriages slid along the platform where it came to rest. In early December 2005, there were explosions at the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal at Buncefield on the edge of Hemel Hempstead. 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 . To
1175-501: The composition of the council was: The independent and Green councillors sit together as a group. The next election is due in 2025. The council is based at County Hall on Pegs Lane in Hertford, lying to the south-west of the town centre. The building was completed in 1939; there was no opening ceremony due to the outbreak of the Second World War . Elections are held every four years, interspersed by three years of elections to
1222-480: The county are: 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. During the games the center was the venue for the canoe and kayak slalom events . Lee Valley has since hosted
1269-599: 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. The county's landmarks span many centuries, ranging from the Six Hills in Stevenage built by local inhabitants during
1316-419: The county's ten district councils. Much of the county is also covered by civil parishes , which form a third tier of local government for their areas. The council has been under Conservative majority control since 1999. Political control of the county council since 1974 has been as follows: The leaders of the council since 1995 have been: After the 2021 election and by-elections up to December 2023,
1363-596: The county, including social care, transport, education, and the Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service . The Conservatives have held a majority of the seats on the council since 1999. The council is based at County Hall in Hertford . Elected county councils were created under the Local Government Act 1888 , taking over many administrative functions that had previously been performed by unelected magistrates at
1410-416: The development of several new towns, including Verulamium (St Albans) where in c. 293 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
1457-581: 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
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1504-423: 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 ;
1551-526: 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
1598-554: 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
1645-539: The lowest population density (290 people per km ) and Watford the highest (4210 per km ). 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
1692-485: 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. These range from beech woods of
1739-479: 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 634 square miles (1,640 km ) and had a population of 1,198,800 at the 2021 census . After Watford (131,325), the largest settlements are Hemel Hempstead (95,985), Stevenage (94,470) and the city of St Albans (75,540). For local government purposes Hertfordshire
1786-625: The purple star-shaped flower with yellow stamens, the Pasqueflower is among endemic county flowers . 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
1833-487: The river ( trout mainly) and there is also evidence of otters . The z in Hiz is a Domesday-Book abbreviation for ts (or tch), and Hiz is properly pronounced "Hitch". This fact seems to be little known, and Hiz is now normally said as it is spelled. It may take its name from the Hicce tribe, who inhabited the area and gave their name to Hitchin. Ekwall says that Hiz/Hitch is a probably back-formation from Hitchin, which in turn
1880-518: 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
1927-515: 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
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1974-618: 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. 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
2021-633: 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
2068-548: Was watercress , based in Hemel Hempstead and Berkhamsted supported by reliable, clean chalk rivers. 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. 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
2115-594: Was also a Liberal member of the House of Lords . Local government across England and Wales was reformed in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972 , establishing a system of upper-tier county councils and lower-tier district councils . The 1972 Act classed Hertfordshire as a non-metropolitan county , which determined the division of responsibilities between the county council and the ten district councils which were created in Hertfordshire. The council provides county-level services. District-level services are provided by
2162-563: 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 244 m (801 ft) ( AOD ) on the Ridgeway long distance national path, on the border of Hastoe near Tring with Drayton Beauchamp , Buckinghamshire. At the 2011 census, among the county's ten districts, East Hertfordshire had
2209-465: 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 one— Dacorum —from 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
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