SESSION 1892-93. xlix 



to Dunstable, but the majority accompanying^ the Director in a 

 very pleasant walk across the fields by Chawl End (or Charl End) 

 and Dollar Earm to Luton. 



Field Meeting, 22nd June, 1893. 

 COLXEY HEATH AND TITTENHANGER, ST. ALBANS. 



Although a beautiful day for a country walk, being bright and 

 not too warm, very few members met at Smullford Station, many 

 having probably been deterred from taking part in the meeting 

 by the announcement in the circular that the distance to be walked 

 would be six miles. 'J'here was also a counter-attraction in an 

 excursion of the St. Albans Abbey Guild. 



The route taken was across the fields by Sleepshyde and Colney 

 Heath, and one of the green lanes so frequent in Hertfordshire, 

 to Tittenhanger Farm, and thence through Tittenhanger Wood and 

 Park to Eowman's Green, and by woods and meadows and another 

 green lane to Tittenhanger Green, the Camp, and St. Albans. 



Tittenhanger, variously known in former days as Tidehanger, 

 Tydenhangre, Tyttynhangre, Tetenhanger, etc., was a residence 

 of the Abbots of St. Albans at a very early period. When the 

 first manor-house was built is unknown, but it was re-built between 

 1396 and 1411, when large fish-ponds were constructed; sub- 

 sequently the park was stocked with deer by Abbot John de 

 Wheathamstede ; and in 1654 Sir Henry Blount pulled down 

 the old abbatial residence, and on its site erected the present 

 mansion from designs furnished by Inigo Jones.* 



Remains of the fish-ponds, much overgrown with weeds, are still 

 to be seen, but they no longer fulfil the purpose for which they 

 were constructed. A few dips with collecting-bottle and net 

 showed that their most numerous occupants now are Entomostraca, 

 several species of Daplvnia and Cyclops being captured, while the 

 only fish caught were minnows of an almost microscopic size. 



The park has long ceased to be a deer-park. It has some very 

 fine timber-trees, mostly oaks and elms ; and it is of interest in 

 being the first park through which the Colne flows after it becomes 

 a permanent river. Referring to the variation in its flow just 

 above here, Cussans says: " To a stranger it seems almost incom- 

 prehensible that at Colney Heath (two miles higher up than London 

 Colney), where for nine months in the year it can hardly lay claim 

 to the dignity of a brook, it is no uncommon occurrence for the 

 petulant stream suddenly to rise to a height of five or six feet. 

 Duiing the winter of 1878-79 it sui-passed itself. Colney Heath 

 was a vast lake ; the road from Tittenhanger was completely 

 submerged ; and to add to the difiicultics of locomotion, the sub- 

 stantial brick bridge, twenty feet long, and fully ten feet high 

 from the crown of the arch to the bed of the river, was carried 

 away." f 



* Cussans, 'Hist. Herts,' " Cassio Hundred," p. 27. t lb., pp. 38, 39. 



