Information about Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire

Geography
Status	Ceremonial & Non-metropolitan county
Origin	Historic
Region:	East of England
Area - Total - Admin. council	Ranked 36th 634 miles² (1,643 km²) Ranked 32nd
Admin HQ:	Hertford
:	GB-HRT
ONS code:	26
NUTS 3:	UKH23
Demographics
Population - Total (2005 est.) - Density - Admin. Council	Ranked 15th 1,048,200 638 / km² Ranked 6th
Ethnicity:	88.8% White British 1.7% White Irish 3.2% White Other 1.6% Indian
Politics
Arms of Hertfordshire County Council Hertfordshire County Council [1]
Executive	Conservative
Members of Parliament	James Clappison (C) Barbara Follett (L) David Gauke (C) Oliver Heald (C) Peter Lilley (C) Anne Main (C) Mike Penning (C) Mark Prisk (C) Grant Shapps (C) Charles Walker (C) Claire Ward (L)
Districts
Three Rivers Watford Hertsmere Welwyn Hatfield Broxbourne East Hertfordshire Stevenage North Hertfordshire St Albans Dacorum

:For the similarly named county in the West Midlands region, see Herefordshire.

(pronounced [ˈhɑːtfʊdʃə] or [ˈhɑːʔfʊdʃə], abbreviated as Herts) is an inland county in England and one of the Home Counties. The etymological root of the name is the Anglo-Saxon heort ford, meaning deer crossing (of a watercourse). Deer feature prominently in many county emblems.

Hertfordshire has a history dating back to the Middle Stone Age. The area was first farmed during the Neolithic period, and permanent habitation appeared at the beginning of the Bronze Age. This was followed by tribes settling in the area during the Iron Age. Following the Roman conquest of Britain in AD 43, Hertfordshire adapted quickly to the Roman way of life, and one of the new towns, Verulamium, became the third largest town in Roman Britain. After the Romans left Britain, the Anglo-Saxons occupied the area, creating their own towns, including the county town of Hertford. After the Norman conquest of 1066, Hertfordshire was used for some of the new Norman castles at Bishop's Stortford and Berkhamsted. As London grew bigger, Hertfordshire became conveniently close to the English capital, and much of the area was owned by the nobility and aristocracy, and this patronage helped to boost the local economy. However, the biggest boost to Hertfordshire came during the Industrial Revolution, after which the population rose dramatically. In 1903, Letchworth became the world's first Garden City, and Stevenage became the first Hertfordshire town to redevelop under the New Towns Act 1946.

Geography

Hertfordshire is located to the north of Greater London, and much of the county is part of the London commuter belt. To the east of Hertfordshire is Essex, to the west is Buckinghamshire and to the north are Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

The highest point in the county is 803 feet (245 m) above sea level, a quarter mile (400 m) from the village of Hastoe near Tring. The county motto, is "Trust and fear not". As part of a 2002 marketing campaign, the plant conservation charity Plantlife chose the Pasqueflower as Hertfordshire's county flower.

History

Main article: History of Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire was originally the area assigned to a fortress constructed at Hertford under the rule of Edward the Elder in 913. The name Hertfordshire appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1011.

The Domesday Book recorded the county as having nine hundreds. Tring and Danais became one, Dacorum. The other seven were Braughing, Broadwater, Cashio, Edwinstree, Hertford, Hitchin and Odsey.

Hertfordshire is the starting point of the New River: a man made waterway, opened in 1613 to supply London with fresh drinking water.

In 1965 under the London Government Act 1963 East Barnet Urban District and Barnet Urban District were abolished and their area was transferred to Greater London to form part of the present-day London Borough of Barnet. At the same time the Potters Bar Urban District of Middlesex was transferred to Hertfordshire.

From the 1920s until the late 1980s, the town of Borehamwood was home to one of the major British film studio complexes, including the MGM-British Studios. Many well known films were made here: for example, all the Harry Potter films were made at Leavesden Studios near Watford.

In early December 2005 the 2005 Hemel Hempstead fuel depot explosions occurred at the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal.

In 2012, the Hertfordshire town of Broxbourne will host the canoe and kayak slalom events of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games.

Economy

This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Hertfordshire at current basic prices published (pp.240-253) by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.

Year	Regional Gross Value Added[1]	Agriculture[2]	Industry[3]	Services[4]
1995	11,742	96	3,292	8,354
2000	18,370	77	4,138	14,155
2003	20,937	82	4,348	16,507

Hertfordshire has headquarters of many large well-known UK companies. Hemel Hempstead is home to DSG International. Tesco are based in Cheshunt. Pure Digital the DAB radio maker is based in Kings Langley. JD Wetherspoon is in Watford. Shredded Wheat and Shreddies are made in Welwyn Garden City. Comet and Skanska are in Rickmansworth. Hatfield used to be connected with the aircraft industry, as it was where de Havilland developed the first commercial jet liner, the Comet. Now the site is a business park and new campus for the University of Hertfordshire. This major new employment site is home to, among others, T-Mobile, Computacenter and Ocado. A subsidiary of BAE Systems, EADS and Finmeccanica in Stevenage, MBDA, develops missiles. In the same town EADS Astrium produces satellites.

The loss of aircraft manufacture at Hatfield is just one of a number of industrial losses as companies capitalise on land values and move to regions where land is cheaper and recruitment is easier. Examples include Scammell, (formerly of Watford), DRG (Hemel Hempstead) and Lucas (also Hemel). In general, the land thus freed has been used for housing or service industries.

Transport

Hertfordshire lies across routes between London and the North, the North-West and the Midlands and as a consequence it is well-served by road and rail routes and, in the past, by canals.

Road

The county has always been traversed by some of the principle roads in England, originally the A1 to Yorkshire and Scotland, A5 to North Wales, A6 to north-west England and the A41 to the Midlands and now the M1, M11, A1(M) and the M25.

Rail

Principle rail routes lie through Stevenage to Yorkshire and Scotland, and through Watford to the Midlands, Wales, the north-west and Glasgow. Lesser routes serve St Albans (and the East Midlands) and Royston (to Cambridge and Norwich). Commuter routes supplement the through routes and the London Underground extends to Watford.

Air

There is an international airport at Stansted and another just outside the county at Luton. At Elstree, there is a busy airfield for light aircraft.

Canals

The Grand Union Canal passes west Hertfordshire, through Watford, Hemel Hempstead and Berkhamsted.

Natural resouces

Despite the spread of built areas, much of the county is given over to agriculture, mainly arable. One product, now largely defunct, was water-cress, supported by reliable, clean rivers.

Some quarrying of sand and gravel occurs in the St Albans area. In the past, clay has supplied local brick-making.

Fresh water is supplied to London from Ware, using the New River built by Hugh Myddleton. Most of the county's own supply comes from the chalk aquifer. Local rivers, although small, supported developing industries such as paper production at Nash Mills.

Education

Hertfordshire has an entirely comprehensive system in its state schools, with 26 independent schools. The state schools do well, but performance of schools is far from uniform, and barely looks 'comprehensive' per se in some districts, specifically Watford, Hertsmere and St Albans. Watford's separate Grammar Schools for Girls and Boys although comprehensive get results very similar to their namesake grammar schools, with the other two schools in the district being low performing. Overall, Hertfordshire gets 53.7% of pupils achieving 5 GCSEs at grades A-C including English and Maths. The average for England is 45.8%. St Albans has the highest school population, with Watford the lowest (four schools). The best performing schools at GCSE are the two non-selective Watford Grammar Schools, followed by Dame Alice Owen's School in Potters Bar, Loreto College in St Albans, Parmiter's School in Garston, St. George's School, Harpenden, Rickmansworth School, Hitchin Girls' School, The Hertfordshire and Essex High School in Bishop's Stortford and St Albans Girls' School. The worst performing school is Bushey Hall School. There are no bad schools in the Three Rivers district, and overall at GCSE, Hertfordshire does much better than many parts of England. At A-level, it has some good schools with the top three being Hockerill Anglo-European College in Bishop's Stortford, Sir John Lawes School in Harpenden, and The Broxbourne School. Although at GCSE, Hertfordshire is much better than many areas, at A level if looked at overall, it performs under the England average.

Average score at GCSE by council district (%)

• Three Rivers 76.1
• East Hertfordshire 64.9
• St Albans 62.6
• Watford 58.0
• North Hertfordshire 56.0
• Hertsmere 49.6
• Dacorum 48.1
• Welwyn Hatfield 46.3
• Broxbourne 45.1
• Stevenage 41.0

Geology

Main article: Geology of Hertfordshire

The rocks of Hertfordshire belong to the great shallow syncline known as the London basin. The beds dip in a south-easterly direction towards the syncline's lowest point roughly under the River Thames. The most important formations are the Cretaceous Chalk, which is exposed as the high ground in the north and west of the county and the younger Palaeocene, Reading Beds and Eocene, London Clay which occupy the remaining southern part. The eastern half of the county was covered by glaciers during the Ice Age and has a superficial layer of glacial boulder clays.

Urban areas

These are the main towns in Hertfordshire. For a complete list of settlements see list of places in Hertfordshire.

• Abbots Langley
• Berkhamsted
• Bishop's Stortford
• Borehamwood
• Broxbourne
• Bushey
• Cheshunt
• Croxley Green
• Harpenden
• Hatfield
• Hemel Hempstead
• Hertford
• Hitchin
• Hoddesdon
• Letchworth Garden City
• Potters Bar
• Rickmansworth
• Royston
• South Oxhey
• Stevenage
• St Albans
• Tring
• Ware
• Watford
• Welwyn Garden City

References

External links

• For places in Hertfordshire
• Hertfordshire County Council website
• Population of Hertfordshire Settlements - from census 2001
• Ask Watson - Hertford - Events in and around the town of Hertford
• Hertfordshire, by Herbert W Tompkins, 1922, from Project Gutenberg
• Hertbeat FM- Local Radio Station
• For researching the History and Genealogy of Hertfordshire
• Flickr Hertfordshire Photo Group

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