Places to see in ( Berkhamsted - UK )
Places to see in ( Berkhamsted - UK )
Berkhamsted is a medium-sized historic market town on the western edge of Hertfordshire, England. The affluent commuter town is located in the small Bulbourne valley in the Chiltern Hills, 26 miles northwest of London. Berkhamsted is a civil parish, with a town council within the larger borough of Dacorum.
People have been living in the Berkhamsted area for over 5,000 years. There is evidence of flint working in the Neolithic period and metal working in the late Iron Age and Roman periods. The high street is on a pre-Roman route known by its Saxon name Akeman Street. The earliest written reference to Berkhamsted is in 970AD. Berkhamsted was recorded as a 'burbium' (an ancient borough) in the Domesday Book in 1086. The oldest known extant jettied timber-framed building in Great Britain, built 1277 - 1297, survives as a shop on the town's high street.
The most important event in the town's history was in December 1066. After William the Conqueror defeated King Harold's Anglo-Saxon army at the Battle of Hastings, the Anglo-Saxon leadership surrendered to the Norman encampment at Berkhamsted. The event was recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. From 1066 to 1495, Berkhamsted Castle was a favoured residence held by many English royals, including Henry II and Edward, the Black Prince; and historical figures such as Thomas Becket and Geoffrey Chaucer. After the castle was abandoned in 1495 the town went into decline, losing its borough status in the second half of the 17th century. Modern Berkhamsted began to expand following the construction of the canal and the railway in the 19th century.
Among those born in Berkhamsted was Colonel Daniel Axtell, who was the captain of the Parliamentary Guard at the trial and execution of Charles I in 1649. The towns literary connections include the 17th century hymnist and poet, William Cowper, the 18th century writer Maria Edgeworth, and the 20th century novelist Graham Greene. The town is the location of Berkhamsted School, a co-educational boarding independent school, founded in 1541 by John Incent, Dean of St Paul's Cathedral; and Ashlyns School a state school whose history began as the Foundling Hospital established in London by Thomas Coram, in 1742. The town is home to the Rex Cinema (a highly regarded independent cinema) and the British Film Institute's BFI National Archive at King's Hill, one of the largest film and television archives in the world, which was endowed by J. Paul Getty, Jr.
The next stage in the town's transport history occurred in 1834 when, after opposition from turnpike trusts and local landowners was resolved, the first Berkhamsted railway station was built by chief engineer Robert Stephenson. Though the castle was the first building to receive statutory protection from Parliament, the railway embankment obliterated the old castle barbican and adjacent earthworks. Most of the raw materials used to build the railway were transported via the canal.
The majority of Berkhamsted's eighty-five listed or scheduled historical sites are on in the high street and the medieval core of the town (a significant number of them contain timber frames). Four are scheduled, one is Grade I, seven are Grade II*, the remaining 75 are Grade II. he Berkhamsted Canadian totem pole sits adjacent to the canal, close to Castle Street Bridge. In the early 1960s, Roger Alsford, a great-grandson of the founder of the timber company, James Alsford (1841–1912), went to work at the Tahsis lumber mill on Vancouver Island.
( Berkhamsted - UK ) is well know as a tourist destination because of the variety of places you can enjoy while you are visiting the city of Berkhamsted . Through a series of videos we will try to show you recommended places to visit in Berkhamsted - UK
Join us for more :