River Gade Kings Langley
River Gade
The Gade flows in a south eastern direction
Post to the north Abbots Langley
Post to the south Kings Langley
Post to the east Kings Langley Egg Farm
Blackwell Road
Guide Hut
Chantry Close
Named for a house called the Chantry which was in the area on which the road was built. A Chantry was connected with the Friary and royal institutions in medieval Kings Langley.
Church Lane
All Saints. This is the parish church with a 13th chancel and an earlier Nave. Many additions since. Chapel built 1878 for the 14th tomb of Edmund of Langley, Son of Edward III, which was moved here from the dissolved Friary church in 1539. Queen Victoria presented the armorial window. The top slab is part of an altar but what may be the original slab is in the floor of the north chapel near some medieval encaustic floor tiles. There is also the chest tomb of Sir Ralph Verney d.1528 and wife and a brass of John Carter d.1588 with 2 wives, 9 sons and 9 daughters. Church room linked to the church itself in 1976 in flint with Tottenhoe stone.
National School. This stood next to the north east corner of the church yard and dated from 1836. It eventually became an infant school and closed in 1984.
Blue Court. This is Pole House which was part of the Kings Langley Brewery Estate and later the Blue Court Hotel. This is now the head office of the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board. It has '1830' on the gable, but the inside was rebuilt in 1981 and there were some additions.
3 Church Cottage. 17th house. It has 18th brick front on the ground floor and is ‘Gothicised’.
Kings Langley Brewery. This was on the north corner of the lane with High Street. The Godwin family are thought to have been brewing here since the 1720s, and the brewery later passed by marriage to the Groome family who continued to brew here. It was acquired by Beskins in 1897
Church House. A malting from 1826, converted into church house in 1904 and now offices. In red brick chequered with flint panels. The door has a stone dated 1904.
Sunderland Trading Estate. Site of a Gas works which opened in 1863 and was taken over in 1877. It was later the site of a sewage pumping station for Hemel Hempstead DC.
Common Lane
Fire Station. Water mains were laid in Kings Langley in 1895/6, six fire hydrants were installed and the schoolmaster was asked to form a volunteer fire brigade. The parish council bought a hand cart with lengths of canvas and leather hose. Brigade members used their cars to transport equipment to fires as the handcart was too slow so In 1936 the council purchased a 16 hp Sunbeam car and gave it a coat of red paint and wrote ‘Kings Langley Parish Council Fire Brigade’ in black and yellow on the side. In the Second World War the fire station was manned full time and a lorry was loaned to tow the pump so water could be pumped from rivers, ponds and canals. After the war, they were taken over by the county council and firemen were paid
Vine Cottage. 18th house in brick which used to be the bailiff's house.
Egg Farm Lane
Footpath leading across the railway to the site of the Ovaltine poultry farm
Grand
Union Canal,
This is part
of what was the Grand Junction Canal, built to link the Oxford Canal with the
Thames. It reached here in September 1797. The canal incorporates and follows
the River Gade
Toovey’s Mill Arm. Canal arm leading to Toovey’s Mill
Mill Lane Bridge
Kings Langley Lock No. 692
Water Lane Bridge
Home Park Arm
Hempstead Road
Kings Langley Services Club. The club was set up on 1945 for members of the Home Guard who were not allowed to join the British Legion. It was housed in a building called the Studio which had been used as a wartime nursery,
High Street
1, 3, 5. 17th or earlier timber framed building with brick nogging behind. The front is cased in red brick and there are twp 19th small shop windows
6, 8, 17th timber frame house, now used as a workshop and 2 shops.
7, 9, 11, 13 1700, house used as offices. It is red brick with weather boarded timber framing and a Sun Fire Insurance plaque no. 47130.
15, 17, 19. 16th or earlier timber framed house which is now 3 shops. There is a brick front with over the door to. 19 is 'JL E 1781' when it was sub divided. Originally it might have been a row of 4 square buildings but more likely a cross passage house which was later converted to a double fronted house at 19 and a house and a shop in 15 and 17. 17 have a Georgian shopfront and 14 had a cellar with flint and stone blocks in the wall. At the back is a 17th barn now as a workshop.
16 house which is now used as a shop. Some of it is an 18th wing of 18 with a 19th extension.
18 The Old Cottage Restaurant. 16th house with 17th addition. Inside some beams from the demolished Manor House.
24 The Red House. 18th house in red brick
33, 35, 37 two houses which are now a house and a shop. Some of it is 17th with a 19th shop front on 37. It is red brick probably with a timber frame. 35 has a semi-basement with bread ovens in cast iron with the inscription 'Kemp and Sons Oven Builders Stepney Green London'
34 Haverfield. House now used as a surgery. Built around 1740 in red brick. It has an 18th coach house, wall and gateways in red brick. The coach house has a wooden cupola with dove and a weather vane.
36 -36a Shop built around 1600 with an 18th wing
38 18th house used as a shop
40 18th house used as a shop
44 Village House. 17th house altered in 1838-42 for John Kemp as a house and baker's shop. Timber framed with brick front
46, 48, 50 three 18th houses with 'IK 1762' cut in brick on 46
47 Saracen's Head. There is a low doorway into this single bar free house. It has been a pub since 1619 as shown on an existing lease, and there is a list of landlords from 1826. It is part 16th and the front is 17th
Cromack’s Brewery. Francis Cromack owned the brewery in 1790 but by the late 1840s the family had ceased brewing.
51- 53 17th house, now in businesses use. Thought to the be connected to Cromack’s Brewery
56 Langley House. 16th house, now used as offices and the central part with a stable range is now linked to the central block built in 1720 and it is in white weatherboard with a cupola
59, 61 2 19th houses now used as a shop.
60 Rose and Crown. 17th house, now a pub. This has several additions including a 20th conservatory over the rear courtyard linking the outbuildings. At the front is a tented roof veranda hipped on fluted cast iron columns.
63, 65, 67 row of three 19th houses in knapped flint
Langley Hill
73, 75, 77, 79, 81 16th timber framed house divided into five houses.
Primrose Hill
Trading and Industrial estates and areas between the road and the canal
The Bell Pub. The building has a 17th timber framed back with an 18th or 19th front
Rectory Lane
Rectory Farm. Thomas
Toovey, who owned the adjoining Rectory farm, was a pioneer of intensive
poultry keeping and was already, using the term 'battery' early in 20th century
in his prolific writings.
Roman Gardens
Roman Villa. Kings Langley Football Club sold this area in 1981 when it was a field alongside the canal. It was then discovered that this was the site of a Roman Villa which was then investigated. It is thought that there had been a considerable settlement here but that other remains would have been destroyed by industrial and other developments.
Station Footpath
Gaywoods Fishery. This is a fishery is a man-made lake, dug out in 1978 – 1980 for the ballast was used on the M25 and for which Gaywoods were the contractors. It then became a trout fishery and later a coarse fishery from 1994. The lake has a island in the middle and is fed by three natural springs
Station Road
Much of Station Road is taken up with trading and light industry
Ovaltine Factory. Ovaltine was first called ‘Ovomaltine’ – eggs and malt. It was invented in the 1860s by Dr George Wander, a Swiss chemist. The Kings Langley factory was built in 1911 and production began in 1913. It adjoined the Grand Junction Canal and the LNWR goods yard and farm produce for use as raw material was available locally. New buildings, including the art deco facade, were erected 1924-1929 by C Miskin and Sons of St Albans. Land adjoining the railway was occupied by formal gardens in the 1930s but later it was used for car parking and process plant. In 2002 the site was sold to Fairview for housing. The facade is retained as frontage to apartments and there is housing on other land.
Home Park Cottages. Row of houses. built around 1826 adjacent to Home Park Mill by
John Dickinson for workers' housing. They are in flint and brick
Home Park Mill. This was John Dickinson’s third paper factory, built in 1825 as a new mill near the railway and canal, and not on an existing mill site. Until the 1880s paper and card were made there and then it became a coating and finishing plant for paper made elsewhere. In the 1930s gummed paper and paper-tape were made here and after the Second World War self-adhesive tape called "Holdfast" was produced. However following a merge with the makers of Sellotape production was ‘rationalised’ and the mill closed in 1980. The site has since been developed as a trading estate.
The Nap
Christ Church Baptist Church. Built in 1939 to replace the Old Chapel.
Kings Langley Library
Kings Langley Community Centre
Toovey Mill Close
Mill House. Built around 1700 and later altered
Kings Langley Mill. This was a Domesday mill. Nicholas King had leased the mill from the Crown in 1587. In 1763 the mill was sold to John Surrey. He died in 1770 and the mill went to Thomas Toovey by marriage. In 1894, steam power and a roller mill were installed. They had a wharf and their own canal boats to bring grain from Brentford. In 1914, the plant was producing 8 sacks per hour. "Golden Spray" was Toovey's top grade flour, and a canal boat was named after it. In 1913, Foden steam lorries replaced 30 horses and a new 150 hp Woodhouse and Mitchell steam engine with two Lancashire boilers was installed in 1916 and ran until 1956. The iron breast waterwheel was taken out in 1921 and replaced by two Swiss turbines, one of which drove an electric generator until 1978. In 1936 a six storey grain silo, 1000 tons capacity, was built. Flour milling ended in 1939 and the company name changed to Kings Langley Mills Ltd. By 1946, the mill was in poor condition but in 1960, modern plant was brought in and bulk delivery of feed stuffs started in 1969. In 1978 the firm into voluntary liquidation. The machinery was then sold by auction and the mill demolished. The site has been developed for housing.
Vicarage Lane
Charter Court – Parish Council Offices
Water Lane
Moat Cottage. 17th House, now three businesses and a house.
There were once pubs in the road with stables for canal horses. The Lamb at the junction with Church Lane had a tackroom for their harness when the boatmen stayed overnight
Waterside
Langley Hall.
Zion Chapel. The group began meeting here in the early 1800s and records show that in 1812 met in Langley Hill, and the moved to a barn in Waterside, close to a boatman's workshop with nasty smells, and bad language. In 1835 Zion Chapel was built
Watford Road
Cedar Lodge. 19th house in knapped flint
Sources
All Saints Church. Web site
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Evans, John Dickinson
Gaywoods. Web site
Hills. History of the British Paper Industry
Kings Langley History Society. Web site
Whittaker. Brewers in Hertfordshire
Zion Chapel. Web site
The Gade flows in a south eastern direction
Post to the north Abbots Langley
Post to the south Kings Langley
Post to the east Kings Langley Egg Farm
Blackwell Road
Guide Hut
Chantry Close
Named for a house called the Chantry which was in the area on which the road was built. A Chantry was connected with the Friary and royal institutions in medieval Kings Langley.
Church Lane
All Saints. This is the parish church with a 13th chancel and an earlier Nave. Many additions since. Chapel built 1878 for the 14th tomb of Edmund of Langley, Son of Edward III, which was moved here from the dissolved Friary church in 1539. Queen Victoria presented the armorial window. The top slab is part of an altar but what may be the original slab is in the floor of the north chapel near some medieval encaustic floor tiles. There is also the chest tomb of Sir Ralph Verney d.1528 and wife and a brass of John Carter d.1588 with 2 wives, 9 sons and 9 daughters. Church room linked to the church itself in 1976 in flint with Tottenhoe stone.
National School. This stood next to the north east corner of the church yard and dated from 1836. It eventually became an infant school and closed in 1984.
Blue Court. This is Pole House which was part of the Kings Langley Brewery Estate and later the Blue Court Hotel. This is now the head office of the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board. It has '1830' on the gable, but the inside was rebuilt in 1981 and there were some additions.
3 Church Cottage. 17th house. It has 18th brick front on the ground floor and is ‘Gothicised’.
Kings Langley Brewery. This was on the north corner of the lane with High Street. The Godwin family are thought to have been brewing here since the 1720s, and the brewery later passed by marriage to the Groome family who continued to brew here. It was acquired by Beskins in 1897
Church House. A malting from 1826, converted into church house in 1904 and now offices. In red brick chequered with flint panels. The door has a stone dated 1904.
Sunderland Trading Estate. Site of a Gas works which opened in 1863 and was taken over in 1877. It was later the site of a sewage pumping station for Hemel Hempstead DC.
Common Lane
Fire Station. Water mains were laid in Kings Langley in 1895/6, six fire hydrants were installed and the schoolmaster was asked to form a volunteer fire brigade. The parish council bought a hand cart with lengths of canvas and leather hose. Brigade members used their cars to transport equipment to fires as the handcart was too slow so In 1936 the council purchased a 16 hp Sunbeam car and gave it a coat of red paint and wrote ‘Kings Langley Parish Council Fire Brigade’ in black and yellow on the side. In the Second World War the fire station was manned full time and a lorry was loaned to tow the pump so water could be pumped from rivers, ponds and canals. After the war, they were taken over by the county council and firemen were paid
Vine Cottage. 18th house in brick which used to be the bailiff's house.
Egg Farm Lane
Footpath leading across the railway to the site of the Ovaltine poultry farm
Grand
Union Canal,
This is part
of what was the Grand Junction Canal, built to link the Oxford Canal with the
Thames. It reached here in September 1797. The canal incorporates and follows
the River GadeToovey’s Mill Arm. Canal arm leading to Toovey’s Mill
Mill Lane Bridge
Kings Langley Lock No. 692
Water Lane Bridge
Home Park Arm
Hempstead Road
Kings Langley Services Club. The club was set up on 1945 for members of the Home Guard who were not allowed to join the British Legion. It was housed in a building called the Studio which had been used as a wartime nursery,
High Street
1, 3, 5. 17th or earlier timber framed building with brick nogging behind. The front is cased in red brick and there are twp 19th small shop windows
6, 8, 17th timber frame house, now used as a workshop and 2 shops.
7, 9, 11, 13 1700, house used as offices. It is red brick with weather boarded timber framing and a Sun Fire Insurance plaque no. 47130.
15, 17, 19. 16th or earlier timber framed house which is now 3 shops. There is a brick front with over the door to. 19 is 'JL E 1781' when it was sub divided. Originally it might have been a row of 4 square buildings but more likely a cross passage house which was later converted to a double fronted house at 19 and a house and a shop in 15 and 17. 17 have a Georgian shopfront and 14 had a cellar with flint and stone blocks in the wall. At the back is a 17th barn now as a workshop.
16 house which is now used as a shop. Some of it is an 18th wing of 18 with a 19th extension.
18 The Old Cottage Restaurant. 16th house with 17th addition. Inside some beams from the demolished Manor House.
24 The Red House. 18th house in red brick
33, 35, 37 two houses which are now a house and a shop. Some of it is 17th with a 19th shop front on 37. It is red brick probably with a timber frame. 35 has a semi-basement with bread ovens in cast iron with the inscription 'Kemp and Sons Oven Builders Stepney Green London'
34 Haverfield. House now used as a surgery. Built around 1740 in red brick. It has an 18th coach house, wall and gateways in red brick. The coach house has a wooden cupola with dove and a weather vane.
36 -36a Shop built around 1600 with an 18th wing
38 18th house used as a shop
40 18th house used as a shop
44 Village House. 17th house altered in 1838-42 for John Kemp as a house and baker's shop. Timber framed with brick front
46, 48, 50 three 18th houses with 'IK 1762' cut in brick on 46
47 Saracen's Head. There is a low doorway into this single bar free house. It has been a pub since 1619 as shown on an existing lease, and there is a list of landlords from 1826. It is part 16th and the front is 17th
Cromack’s Brewery. Francis Cromack owned the brewery in 1790 but by the late 1840s the family had ceased brewing.
51- 53 17th house, now in businesses use. Thought to the be connected to Cromack’s Brewery
56 Langley House. 16th house, now used as offices and the central part with a stable range is now linked to the central block built in 1720 and it is in white weatherboard with a cupola
59, 61 2 19th houses now used as a shop.
60 Rose and Crown. 17th house, now a pub. This has several additions including a 20th conservatory over the rear courtyard linking the outbuildings. At the front is a tented roof veranda hipped on fluted cast iron columns.
63, 65, 67 row of three 19th houses in knapped flint
Langley Hill
73, 75, 77, 79, 81 16th timber framed house divided into five houses.
Primrose Hill
Trading and Industrial estates and areas between the road and the canal
The Bell Pub. The building has a 17th timber framed back with an 18th or 19th front
Rectory Lane
Rectory Farm. Thomas
Toovey, who owned the adjoining Rectory farm, was a pioneer of intensive
poultry keeping and was already, using the term 'battery' early in 20th century
in his prolific writings.
Roman Gardens
Roman Villa. Kings Langley Football Club sold this area in 1981 when it was a field alongside the canal. It was then discovered that this was the site of a Roman Villa which was then investigated. It is thought that there had been a considerable settlement here but that other remains would have been destroyed by industrial and other developments.
Station Footpath
Gaywoods Fishery. This is a fishery is a man-made lake, dug out in 1978 – 1980 for the ballast was used on the M25 and for which Gaywoods were the contractors. It then became a trout fishery and later a coarse fishery from 1994. The lake has a island in the middle and is fed by three natural springs
Station Road
Much of Station Road is taken up with trading and light industry
Ovaltine Factory. Ovaltine was first called ‘Ovomaltine’ – eggs and malt. It was invented in the 1860s by Dr George Wander, a Swiss chemist. The Kings Langley factory was built in 1911 and production began in 1913. It adjoined the Grand Junction Canal and the LNWR goods yard and farm produce for use as raw material was available locally. New buildings, including the art deco facade, were erected 1924-1929 by C Miskin and Sons of St Albans. Land adjoining the railway was occupied by formal gardens in the 1930s but later it was used for car parking and process plant. In 2002 the site was sold to Fairview for housing. The facade is retained as frontage to apartments and there is housing on other land.
Home Park Cottages. Row of houses. built around 1826 adjacent to Home Park Mill by
John Dickinson for workers' housing. They are in flint and brick
Home Park Mill. This was John Dickinson’s third paper factory, built in 1825 as a new mill near the railway and canal, and not on an existing mill site. Until the 1880s paper and card were made there and then it became a coating and finishing plant for paper made elsewhere. In the 1930s gummed paper and paper-tape were made here and after the Second World War self-adhesive tape called "Holdfast" was produced. However following a merge with the makers of Sellotape production was ‘rationalised’ and the mill closed in 1980. The site has since been developed as a trading estate.
The Nap
Christ Church Baptist Church. Built in 1939 to replace the Old Chapel.
Kings Langley Library
Kings Langley Community Centre
Toovey Mill Close
Mill House. Built around 1700 and later altered
Kings Langley Mill. This was a Domesday mill. Nicholas King had leased the mill from the Crown in 1587. In 1763 the mill was sold to John Surrey. He died in 1770 and the mill went to Thomas Toovey by marriage. In 1894, steam power and a roller mill were installed. They had a wharf and their own canal boats to bring grain from Brentford. In 1914, the plant was producing 8 sacks per hour. "Golden Spray" was Toovey's top grade flour, and a canal boat was named after it. In 1913, Foden steam lorries replaced 30 horses and a new 150 hp Woodhouse and Mitchell steam engine with two Lancashire boilers was installed in 1916 and ran until 1956. The iron breast waterwheel was taken out in 1921 and replaced by two Swiss turbines, one of which drove an electric generator until 1978. In 1936 a six storey grain silo, 1000 tons capacity, was built. Flour milling ended in 1939 and the company name changed to Kings Langley Mills Ltd. By 1946, the mill was in poor condition but in 1960, modern plant was brought in and bulk delivery of feed stuffs started in 1969. In 1978 the firm into voluntary liquidation. The machinery was then sold by auction and the mill demolished. The site has been developed for housing.
Vicarage Lane
Charter Court – Parish Council Offices
Water Lane
Moat Cottage. 17th House, now three businesses and a house.
There were once pubs in the road with stables for canal horses. The Lamb at the junction with Church Lane had a tackroom for their harness when the boatmen stayed overnight
Waterside
Langley Hall.
Zion Chapel. The group began meeting here in the early 1800s and records show that in 1812 met in Langley Hill, and the moved to a barn in Waterside, close to a boatman's workshop with nasty smells, and bad language. In 1835 Zion Chapel was built
Watford Road
Cedar Lodge. 19th house in knapped flint
Sources
All Saints Church. Web site
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Evans, John Dickinson
Gaywoods. Web site
Hills. History of the British Paper Industry
Kings Langley History Society. Web site
Whittaker. Brewers in Hertfordshire
Zion Chapel. Web site
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