Chapter II: Physical Features

Hertfordshire, being an inland county, is naturally devoid of many charms to be found in those counties which have a sea-coast. But it has beauties of its own, being particularly varied and undulating. Its scenery is pleasantly diversified by many woods, which however are mostly of but small extent, by swelling cornfields, and by several small and winding streams. There is much rich loam in the many little valley-bottoms traversed by these streams, and other loams of inferior quality are found in abundance on the higher levels of the arable districts. The soil in many parts, owing to the preponderance of chalk, is specially adapted to the cultivation of wheat. Its trees have elicited the admiration of many, particularly its oaks and elms, of which colossal specimens are found here and there throughout the county, and its beeches, of which the beautiful woods on the Chiltern slopes and elsewhere in the W. are largely composed. The hornbeam is almost restricted to Essex and Hertfordshire. The woods of Hertfordshire form indeed its sweetest attraction in the eyes of many. The districts of Rickmansworth, Radlett, Wheathampstead and Breachwood Green, among others, are dotted with coppices of ideal loveliness, and larger woods such as Batch Wood near St. Albans and Bricket Wood near Watford are carpeted with flowers in their season, interspersed with glades, and haunted by jays and doves, by ringlets and brimstones. Hazel woods abound, and parties of village children busily "a-nutting" in the autumn are one of the commonest sights of the county. It abounds, too, in quiet park-like spots which are the delight of artists, and contains many villages and hamlets picturesquely situated upon slopes and embowered among trees. A large proportion of the birds known to English observers are found in the county either regularly or as chance visitors, and will be treated more fully in a separate section. The many narrow, winding, flower-scented lanes are one of the chief beauties of Hertfordshire. The eastern part of the county, though, on the whole, less charming to the eye than the rest, contains some fine manor houses and interesting old parish churches. Its most beautiful part is unquestionably the W., near the Buckinghamshire border; its greatest historic interest centres around St. Albans, with its wonderful old abbey church now largely restored; Berkhampstead, Hertford, Hatfield and Hitchin. The county contains rather less than the average of waste or common land; the stretches of heath used for grazing purposes only aggregating 1,200 acres.

Among the finest panoramic views may be mentioned:--

(1) From the hill near Boxmoor Station.

(2) From the village of Wigginton, looking S.

(3) From the high-road between Graveley and Baldock.

(4) From Windmill Hill, Hitchin, looking W.

There were medicinal waters at Barnet, Northaw, Hemel Hempstead and Welwyn, but these are now disused. Many other details touching physiographical characteristics are mentioned as occasion arises in the Alphabetical Gazetteer which follows this Introduction.

The Geology of Hertfordshire must be here summarised in few words. The predominant formations are the Cretaceous and the Tertiary.

CRETACEOUS.--Ignoring the Gault, which barely touches the county, this formation consists chiefly of Chalk-marl, Lower, Middle and Upper Chalk. A series of Chalk Downs, an extension of the Chiltern Hills, stretches, roughly speaking, from Tring to Royston, forming by far the most prominent natural feature of Hertfordshire. The oldest rocks are in the N.W.

_The Chalk Marl_ is superimposed upon the Gault and Upper Greensand beds, which are confined to the western portion of the county. Its upper layer passes into a sandy limestone, known as Totternhoe stone, which has furnished materials for many churches in the shire. Ashwell, Pirton and Tring may be named as neighbourhoods where this stratum may be traced.

_The Lower Chalk_ is devoid of flints, and rests, in somewhat steeply sloping beds, upon the Totternhoe stone. It forms the western slopes of the Dunstable Downs, and of the Chiltern Hills. It is fossiliferous, one of the commonest of its shells being the Terebratula.

_The Middle Chalk_, of resonant hardness, is laminated, and has at its base the Melbourn Rock and at its summit the Chalk Rock. Nodules of flint, greenish in appearance, and (rarely) arranged in layers, occur sparsely in the Middle Chalk, which may be traced in the neighbourhood of Boxmoor, Berkhampstead and Baldock, and also in a few other districts.

_The Upper Chalk._--Although, as has been stated, the configuration of Hertfordshire is very undulating, we are able to discern a general trend in certain districts. Thus, there is a gradual slope to the S. from the N.W. and central hills, a slope which comprises the larger part of the county. This slope is formed of the Upper Chalk, a formation abounding in layers of black flints. The chalk is whiter than that of the lower beds, and very much softer. Fossil sponges, sea-urchins, etc., are abundant in this formation.

TERTIARY.--Many of the chalk hills of Hertfordshire are strewn with outlying more recent deposits which prove that the lower Tertiary beds were more extensive in remote ages. The beds of sand and clay, of such frequent occurrence in the S.E. districts, contain fossils so distinct from those of the Upper Chalk that an immense interval must have elapsed before those Tertiary deposits were in turn laid down.

_The Eocene Formation._--The _Thanet Beds_, of light-coloured sands, present in some other parts of the London Basin, notably in Kent, are wanting in Hertfordshire. There are, however, some widespread deposits of loamy sands which may possibly be rearranged material from the Thanet Beds.

The lowest Eocene deposits in the county are the _Reading Beds_. These rest directly upon the Chalk and have an average thickness of, say, 25 feet. They may be traced E. to S.W. from the brickfields near Hertford to Hatfield Park; thence to the kilns on Watford Heath and at Bushey; they may also be traced from Watford to Harefield Park. These beds contain flints, usually found close to the Chalk, and consist chiefly of mottled clays, sands, and pebble-beds. Fossils are but rarely found. From the Woolwich and Reading Beds come those conglomerate masses of flint pebbles commonly called Hertfordshire _plum-pudding stone_. These have usually a silicious matrix and were often used by the Romans and others for making querns for corn-grinding. It is, perhaps, not impertinent to mention here the opinion of geologists that during the _Eocene Period_ a considerable portion of the land usually spoken of as S.E. England was covered by the ocean.

Resting upon the _Reading Beds_ we find that well-known stratum called the _London Clay_, which is of bluish hue when dug at any considerable depth. It is found in some of the same districts as the _Woolwich_ and _Reading Beds_, and from Hertford and Watford it extends to N.E. and S.W. respectively until it leaves Hertfordshire. Its direction may be approximately traced by a series of hills, none of which are of any great height.

_The Drift._--In Hertfordshire, as elsewhere, the strata whose names are so familiar to geologists do not form the existing _surface_ of the ground. For the origin of this we go back to a comparatively recent period, when disintegration was busily working upon the solid rocks, and glaciers were moving southwards, leaving stones and much loose _débris_ in their wake. Rivers, some of which, as in the Harpenden valley, have long ceased to run, separated the flints from the chalk, forming a gravel which is found in quantities at Harpenden, Wheathampstead and St. Albans, and is, indeed, present in all valley-bottoms, even where no river now runs. Gravel, together with clays, sand, and alluvial loams, forms, for the most part, the actual surface of the county.

_The Rivers_ of Hertfordshire are many, if we include several so small as hardly to deserve the name. They are the Ash, Beane, Bulbourne, Chess, Colne, Gade, Hiz, Ivel, Lea, Maran, Purwell, Quin, Rhee, Rib, Stort and Ver.

1. _The Ash_ rises near Little Hadham, and, passing the village of Widford, joins the Lea at Stanstead.

2. _The Beane_, rising in the parish of Cottered, runs to Walkern, where it passes close to the church, and flows from thence past Aston and Watton, and into the Lea at Hertford.

3. _The Bulbourne_ rises in the parish of Tring, passes N.E. of Berkhampstead and S.W. of Hemel Hempstead and unites with the Gade at Two Waters.

4. _The Chess_ enters the county from Buckinghamshire at Sarratt Mill, and flowing past Loudwater joins the Gade at Rickmansworth. The Valley of the Chess is one of the prettiest districts in the shire.

5. _The Colne_ rises near Sleap's Hyde, is crossed by the main road from Barnet to St. Albans at London Colney, and by the main road from Edgware to St. Albans at Colney Street. Thence it passes between Bushey Hall and Bushey Lodge, flows through Watford to Rickmansworth where, uniting with the Gade and Chess, it enters Middlesex near Stocker's Farm.

6. _The Gade_ rises near Little Gaddesden, skirts Hemel Hempstead Church on the W. side, and passing King's Langley and Hunton Bridge, flows through Cassiobury Park and joins the Chess and Colne at Rickmansworth.

7. _The Hiz_, rising at Well Head, S.W. of Hitchin, crosses that town, joins the Purwell at Grove Mill and leaves the county at Cadwell.

8. _The Ivel_ rises near Baldock, flows to Radwell Mill and shortly afterwards enters Bedfordshire.

9. _The Lea_ is the largest river in Hertfordshire. It rises near Leagrave (in Bedfordshire) and flows through the county from N.W. to S.E. Entering Hertfordshire at Hide Mill, it flows past Wheathampstead, Hatfield, Hertford, Ware, and, leaving the county near Waltham Abbey, enters the Thames at Blackwall. Its entire length is about 50 miles. The waterway known as the _Lea and Stort Navigation_ is navigable to Bishop's Stortford.

10. _The Maran_, or _Mimram_, rises in the parish of King's Walden, skirts Whitwell on the N., running parallel with the village street, and passing through Welwyn and near Tewin enters the Lea at Hertingfordbury.

11. _The Purwell_, or _Pirall_, rises in the parish of Ippollits and passing W. of Great Wymondley runs to Purwell Mill, and joins the Hiz at Grove Mill.

12. _The Quin_ rises in the neighbourhood of Wyddial, and passing Quinbury, unites with the Rib at Braughing.

13. _The Rhee_, rising a little E. of Ashwell, has but a few miles to flow before it enters Cambridgeshire.

14. _The Rib_ rises at Corney Bury, flows E. of Buntingford, thence turning W. it flows under the bridge at the _Adam and Eve_, runs to Westmill, Standon and Thundridge, finally uniting with the Lea at Hertford.

15. _The Stort_ enters Hertfordshire from Essex at a point near Cannon Wood Mill, and after passing through Bishop's Stortford forms the extreme E. boundary of the county for some distance before quitting it near Cheshunt.

16. _The Ver_ rises near Flamstead, is crossed by the Dunstable Road, N.W. of Redbourn, then recrossed by it. It then skirts St. Albans on the S. and joins the Colne near Park Street.

In addition to the cutting of the _Lea and Stort Navigation_ already mentioned, there are other artificial waterways:--

_The Aylesbury Canal_ (a branch of the Grand Junction Canal) crosses the extreme western neck of the county, from S. of Puttenham to S. of Gubblecote.

_The Grand Junction Canal_ is largely utilised by barges traversing the W. of Hertfordshire. It is conspicuous at Rickmansworth, Boxmoor, and Berkhampstead; it enters Bedfordshire near Marsworth Reservoir.

_The New River_ was constructed by Sir Hugh Myddelton, a London goldsmith, in 1609-13, and is largely fed by springs at Chadwell near Hertford. Its course in Hertfordshire is mostly close to and parallel with that of the Lea. The New River caused the financial ruin of its projector; one of its shares is now worth a large fortune. The whole story of this undertaking is very interesting; but as the New River was cut in order to bring water to London that story belongs to a volume on Middlesex.