Hertfordshire-10a

Hertfordshire, United Kingdom

[10a]

- Baldock to Royston over Hertfordshire countryside -

A walk from Baldock to Royston on a summer's day - part 1

It is quite astounding how the British landscape can alter its appearance from one season to the next, not least where farmland is involved. Churned, muddy fields once ploughed are transformed into brightly coloured landscapes in the warmer season prior to harvest. According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), parts of England, particularly East Anglia, were officially in a drought following the earlier dry spring. Large areas of northern Europe were facing drought after one of the driest European springs on record, as was the case in both the South East and central-southern region of England. On a somewhat overcast, windy Saturday morning, the first in June, having taken the train from Royston to Baldock with the intention of walking back across the countryside, I encountered some light rain as I completed the final leg of the walk from Therfield to Royston. In fact, welcome intermittent rains returned to the South east all of the rest of the week. It was with some irony that, after having mowed my lawn the previous day and noticing that my fruit trees had been drooping somewhat, I decided to water them.

The walk features a number of villages en route which may include Baldock^GM, Clothal^GM, Wallington^GM, Rushden^GM, Sandon^GM, Kelshall^GM, Therfield^GM and Royston^GM. On this occasion however, as the OS map indicated an almost direct connection between Wallington and Roe Green, I was keen to explore this variation.

View along Whitehorse Road on the approach to the roundabout in Baldock town centre

The Victoria Pub along Sun Street, Baldock, St Mary's Church and tower at the end, the scaffolding of the recent renovation now removed.

View down Church Street very close to the butcher of Chapman & Sons, where I am able to purchase South African food.

Baldock was founded by the Knights Templar in the 1140s. Perhaps for this reason, one theory of the origin of the name Baldock is as a derivation from the Old French name for Baghdad Baldac which the Templars had hoped to conquer during the Crusades. Other theories include that the name is derived from "Bald Oak", meaning a dead oak. The modern layout of the town, and many buildings in the centre, date from the sixteenth century, with the earliest dating from the fourteenth century. The town grew up where the old Great North Road and the Icknield Way crossed. Despite the construction of the A1(M) motorway in 1970, which bypassed the town (and which was called the Baldock Bypass for some years), it was still a major traffic bottleneck until March 2006, when a new bypass removed the A505 road (old Icknield Way) from the town. Due to its location, the town was a major staging post between London and the north: many old coaching inns still operate as pubs and hotels, and Baldock has a surprising number of pubs for its size. From the 1770s until 2008 the high street (London Road) was very wide, a typical feature of medieval market places where more than one row of buildings used to stand. In the case of Baldock, the bottom of the High Street had three such rows, until Butcher's Row was demolished by the Turnpike authorities in the 1770s. In late 2008, a town centre enhancement plan included a narrowing of the road and subsequent widening of paved areas.

Baldock Museum and Town Hall in London Road (the High Street), Baldock.

London Road (the High Street), Baldock, the protruding spire of St Mary's Church and Taste Cafe and Bar on the left.

The Greene King pub towards the top end of Baldock's London Road (the High Street).

Baldock has since the 16th century been a centre for malting, subsequently becoming a regional brewing centre with at least three large brewers still operating at the end of the 19th Century, despite a decline in demand for the types of beer produced locally. The 1881 Census records approximately 30 drinking establishments (the town's population was at that time around 1900). There has been human activity on the site well before the modern town was founded. Prehistoric remains on Clothall Common date back as far as c3000 BCE. Many Roman remains have been discovered during building work in and around the town, and the core of the Roman settlement is on Walls Field near the Hartsfield Primary School in the town. Earlier Iron Age remains have also been uncovered in the same general location, which may be the earliest town ever to develop in Britain. A medieval leper colony, on Royston Road, was located during excavations in 2003, having been thought for many years to lie to the south-east of the town on the former Pesthouse Lane (now Clothall Road), the A507. Baldock's positions at the crossing of two ancient thoroughfares, the Great North Road and the Icknield Way has made it a stopping point for a number of illustrious visitors, including Charles I, who passed through Baldock en route for London after his arrest in 1648, and supposedly Dick Turpin. Preacher John Wesley came to the town in 1747. However, perhaps one of the town's most famous visitors was Ludwig II of Bavaria, (builder of the famous Neuschwanstein Castle) who came to the town in 1879 on the recommendation of Sir Richard Wallace, to whom he had written for advice on England's medieval architecture. Wallace advised Ludwig to take a tour of the English countryside in order to survey a variety of ecclesiastical buildings, that he might draw inspiration from them for future building projects. In a letter to Wallace, Ludwig expressed particular admiration for the buildings of Hertfordshire, which he toured extensively.