INDUSTRIES 



borders of the county at Ivinghoe Arson (Aston), 

 in Buckinghamshire. Perry was also occa- 

 sionally made in Hertfordshire in the i8th 

 century. Ellis declared ** that with his fine 

 golden-coloured orange pears in a plentiful 

 year he made a ' most charming perry.' His 

 procedure was as follows : ' For Perry ** we 

 stamp or grind the orange pears in August, or 

 September at farthest ; and if we can then get 

 some ripe, sharp apples, wildings or crabs we 

 mix them with the pears, and press all together 

 to lessen the extraordinary luscious taste of 

 this fruit, which, with right management, 

 afterwards will become an agreeable perry for 

 early drinking.' By further racking and proper 

 ingredients it could be kept for a winter liquor 

 ' which as soon as in the cask yields a scent so 

 much hke an orange that few can believe it 

 that never proved it.' By the beginning of the 

 19th century, however, whatever industry may 

 have existed appears to have died out. G. A. 

 Cooke, writing in 1825,^" in describing orchard 

 cultivation, states that no apples grown in 

 Hertfordshire were then used for cider. 



The county possesses no historic quarries, 

 though a little grey limestone of the Totternhoe '^ 

 type has been got for local buildings. Beds of 

 phosphatic modules and worn Gault fossils, 

 whether belonging to the Upper Greensand or 

 the Chalk Marl, were largely worked in the 

 past, as in the neighbourhood of Hitchin and 

 Ashwell. The digging of gravel for road- 

 metal is also a decreasing industry, since 

 Leicestershire syenite has been brought to 

 the south. The chalk ^^ obtained from quarries, 

 of sufficient size to be liable to Government 

 inspection, amounted in 191 1 to 29,335 tons. 

 One thousand five hundred and eighty-one tons 

 of flint and 12,516 tons of clay were also re- 

 turned for that year. 



Medicinal springs, which apparently were 

 fitfully exploited, have been discovered at 

 East Barnet, Heme! Hempstead and other 

 places.^ 



The woodlands ** of Hertfordshire furnished 

 in the Middle Ages excellent timber, and 

 then, as now, Berkhampstead was an im- 

 portant centre of the trade. In 1591-2 wages ^^ 

 were fixed under the Statute of 1562-3 ^^° for 



*^ Husbandry (1750), vii, 147. 



« Ibid. 141. 



"* Op. cit. 32. 



" cf. y.C.H. Herts, i, 8 et seq. 



^2 Gen. Rep. Mines and Quarries, pt. iii (1912), 

 214 et seq. 



*^ G. A. Cooke, op. cit. 91, 164 et seq. 



^* Hertfordshire is described as ' ful of wode ' in an 

 early MS. entitled the ' Characteristics of Counties,' 

 published in Hearne's edition of Leland's Itin. v, 

 p. xxvi. 



" Sess. R. (Herts. Co. Rec), i, 11. 



"» Stat. 5 Eliz. cap. 4. 



woodmen, and the following rates were en- 

 joined : — 



' Cleaving of lathe by the hundred not above 

 3d. 



'Cleaving of pale by the hundred not above 6d. 



'Felling and hewing of colewood by the 

 dosin not above I2d. 



' FelUnge, makeinge and buynding of baven 

 by the hundred, accomptinge six score to the 

 hundred, every baven beinge fower foote in 

 lenghte, not above 14^. 



' And for every lode of talewood 4^. 



* Makinge and buyndinge of brushe baven by 

 the hundred, after six score in the hundred 

 made of ramell left of colewood, not above Sd.' 



Charcoal-burning was a widespread industry 

 from the earliest times, and this fuel not only 

 found a local market, but was probably carried 

 to London. Even toward the close of the 

 15 th century the charcoal produced on certain 

 manors was a source of considerable profit. 

 In an account ^^ of 1475 for Sir John Say's 

 manors of Bedwell, Little Berkhampstead 

 and Lowthes we find that 62 cartloads of 

 charcoal made from underwood cut in Bedwell 

 Park and elsewhere brought in £2 iSs. ^d. 

 The trade long continued, and in 1606-7 ^^^ 

 inhabitants of Stanstead ^' were greatly annoyed 

 by ' the making of wode,' so that not only the 

 inhabitants but strangers were ' constrained to 

 stope their nosses as they go bye, the stinke is 

 so greate.' Much later, in 1804, Arthur 

 Young, in his account of the Earl of Clarendon's 

 park at Grove, speaks of beeches burnt for 

 charcoal.'^ 



Woodware, as might be expected, was always 

 a local industry in the forest regions. *^^ In the 

 1 8th century the trade was still brisk in the 

 county. William Elhs writes in enthusiastic 

 terms of the fine long hedges of alder in the 

 water meadows between Hemel Hempstead 

 and Watford. Their large high poles were 

 turned to great account among ' the Berk- 

 hampstead and Cheshunt turners of hollow 

 ware, who in this commodity make more 

 consumption of this wood and beech than 

 any other two towns in Great Britain, as is 

 allowed by good judges ; for with this wood 

 they make dishes, bowls, and many other 

 serviceable goods that are lighter and softer 

 than the beech or elm, and will bear turning 

 thinner than most others ; so that to please 



5^ East Herts. Arch. Soc. Trans, iv (2), 193. cf. 

 the ' puteos carbonum ' at Knebworth (Harl. Roll 



13)- 



'>'' Sess. R. (Herts. Co. Rec), i, 37. 



'* Gen. View of Agric. of Herts. 146. 



^^^ In this connexion we may notice the number 

 of wheelwrights in south-western Hertfordshire in 

 the 14th century. In 1355 eight were fined at 

 Rickmansworth, four at Wheathampstead and six in 

 the liberty of Berkhampstead (Coram Rege R. 377). 



245 



