HERTFORD HUNDRED 



ALL SAINTS AND ST. 

 JOHN'S, HERTFORD 



Parts of ALL SAINTS and ST. JOHN'S, HERTFORD, including the 

 liberties of Brickendon and Little Amwell. 



The following account deals with the district com- 

 prising the modern civil parishes of Brickendon Rural, 

 St. John Rural and Little Amwell, all of which lie 

 immediately south and east of Hertford Borough. 

 They were for the most part either in the eccle- 

 siastical parish of All Saints, the church of which 

 belonged to Waltham Abbey, or in the parish of 

 St. John, a church belonging to Hertford Priory.' 

 The benefices of All Saints and St. John were 

 amalgamated about 1640,* and Little Amwell was 

 constituted a separate parish in 1864. 3 This district 

 lies on the southern edge of the Hertfordshire Chalk 

 beds, and the arable land and pasturage are about 

 equal in quantity. 



The present parish of Brickendon Rural includes 

 about 1,34-8 acres immediately south of All Saints' 

 Church. A large part lay within the liberty of 

 Brickendon, also belonging to the abbey of Waltham.' 

 Brickendon Bury, the capital messuage of the manor 

 of Brickendon, lies within Brickendon Rural. It 

 stands on the summit of rising ground about a mile 

 south of Hertford. The present house dates from 

 the early 18th century, but the interior has been 

 completely modernized and additions have been made 

 to the rear. The plastered north or entrance front, 

 which is two stories in height with an attic, remains 

 more or less in its original condition and presents, 

 with its central pediment and Corinthian pilasters, 

 an elevation correct in detail but poor in design. 

 Considerable portions of the moat remain on the west 

 and south, where it is still filled with water. A large 

 find of Roman coins was discovered in making a sunk 

 bed to the south-east of the house. On the Hertford 

 side the house is approached by a magnificent avenue 

 of trees nearly three-quarters of a mile in length, 

 known as 'Morgan's Walk.' On the well-wooded 

 slopes to the south are Brickendon Green and Grange. 

 A part of this district was at one time held by the 

 equally powerful Abbots of Westminster. 6 Fanshaws, 

 a little to the north of Brickendon Green, is the 

 property of Mrs. Kingsley. The house was built by 

 Mr. H. Demain- Saunders, Mrs. Kmgsley's first 

 husband, who acquired property at Brickendon Green 

 (including Fanshaws Farm), formerly part of the 

 manor of Brickendon. 



St. John Rural is a purely agricultural district 

 immediately east of Brickendon. It covers some 

 1,662 acres and includes only one considerable 

 house, viz. Jenningsbury, at which there is a moat. 

 The manorial lands of Jenningsbury extend into the 

 ecclesiastical parishes of All Saints, St. Andrew and 

 St. John, Hertford, and also into Broxbourne and 

 Great Amwell. 8 Balls Park, the estate of Sir George 

 Faudel Faudel-Phillips, bare., is a detached portion 

 of Little Amwell, lying between the parishes of 



Brickendon Rural and St. John. It was the pro- 

 perty of Sir John Harrison about 1640, when in 

 endowing the joint vicarage of All Saints and 

 St. John he excepted the tithes of his own estate. 7 

 At Dalmonds, near Hoddesdon, there are fragments 

 of a homestead moat. 



The civil parish of Little Amwell contains about 

 495 acres and lies between St. John Rural and the 

 parish of Great Amwell. On its north-west is a 

 detached portion of Great Amwell. There is reason 

 to believe that Little Amwell was included within 

 the holding of Amwell in 1086, 9 and that it sub- 

 sequently became distinct, both for ecclesiastical and 

 other purposes, through its acquisition by the monks 

 of Waltham. 9 



The village of Little Amwell stands on high 

 ground between Hertford and Great Amwell, near 

 the junction of Ermine Street with the Hertford 

 road. The modern church is a little south of the 

 village, which is small, consisting of a few scattered 

 houses and the farm buildings of Amwellplace. On 

 the Ermine Street, about half a mile north of the 

 village, is the small hamlet of Rush Green with a 

 moated homestead at Gamels Hall. Late in the 

 14th century John son of Robert Game! held the 

 land formerly 'Gameles' jointly with seven other 

 tenants of the lord of Great Amwell Manor. 10 A 

 barrow of unknown date lies beyond 'Thieves Lane' 

 on the borders of the detached portion of Great 

 Amwell parish." 



The main road from Hertford to Ware traverses 

 the northern part of the parishes of St. John and 

 Little Amwell. The famous spring at Chadwell 

 near this road is the head of the New River, the 

 water-supply brought to London by 'one man's 

 industry, cost and care.' As early as the 13th 

 century the monks of Waltham had been induced 

 by Philip of Hertford to improve the supply from 

 Chadwell Spring, doubtless lor local use." Under 

 Queen Elizabeth an Act was passed for the con- 

 veyance of water from any part of Middlesex or 

 Hertfordshire to the city." The Acts of 1605 and 

 1606 mention the springs of Chadwell and Amwell 

 as the source of the projected supply." The works 

 were begun by Sir Hugh Myddelton zo February 

 1608, and the ' keeper of Amwell -head ' took a con- 

 spicuous part in the pageantry on Michaelmas Day 

 1613, when the water was first admitted to the great 

 cistern at Islington." On a pedestal at the spring 

 is an inscription to the memory of the great engineer 

 of the river. 



The LIBERTY OF BRICKENDON 



MANORS lay outside the borough of Hertford. 



Before the Conquest Brickendon already 



belonged to Waltham Abbey, to which it had been 



See under Hertford Borough. 

 ! Ibid. E 



3 Lend. Gax. 2 Aug. 1S64, p. 3809. 



See under Hertford Borough an 



s See below. 



'"Add. R. (B.M.), iSBif 



a Hart. MS. 4809, fol. 167. 

 > Stow, S a ™*y( e d.Strypf, 1720),!, 

 * Loc. and Personal Acts, 3 Jas. I, t 

 ; 4 ]a,. I, cap. .2. 



