M25 Abbots Langley

Post to the west Kings Langley Egg Farm
Post to the east Abbots Langley East Lane


Bedmond Road
Midway. House with 17th origins
The Oaklands. Traveller community site.
2 Ovaltine Cottages. This is the former entrance to the Ovaltine Model Dairy Farm which was through the central arch. Now converted to housing.
Parsonage Farm.. The farm was acquired by Albert Wander owner of Ovaltine so that there was an extra supply of barley, eggs and milk at the height of demand. When the farm buildings ceased to be used they began to deteriorate and were sold, In the early 1990s, the buildings of Parsonage Farm were converted to residential and are now Antoinette Court. Parsonage farmhouse is a 19th buildimg of pebble dash with decorative flint. There is also a 17th aised barn, timber framed and weatherboarded.
Mansion House Farm. The farm house is 17th, extended in 18th and 19th It is in red brick with some timber framing. The original building was a long rectangle and may have been several buildings. There is a 17th wall painting of a house on the first floor end wall.
Mansion House Cottages. 17th terrace of houses from where a ‘Beating the Bounds’ walk would begin.

Dairy Way
Antoinette Court.This is a conversion of the Ovaltine model dairy farm built in 1932 and closed in 1979. The buildings were designed, as a replica of a farm built by Louis XVI for Queen Marie Antoinette, by J A Bowden. Sons & Partners. It lies behind Ovaltine Cottages on Bedmond Road

High Street
The High Street takes a sharp bend off Bedmond Road . This is because in 1759 Sir John Cope Freeman had the road diverted around a pond in front of his house.
Langley House. This was built in the 1770's by Sir John Cope Freeman who was a Jamaican plantation owner. It was enlarged in 1830. There were a succession of owners through the 19th and latterly the home of Lord Kindersley, Governor of the Bank of England. In 1929 it was bought by the Salvatorian Fathers of Wealdstone for their Novitiate. It was known as Breakspear College, a Roman Catholic Seminary. Later it  became the Breakspear Hospital which was a private clinic, specialising in environmental medicine and the treatment of allergies.  It is now flats.
Hannover Gardens. Hannover Housing Association sheltered housing block.
Margaret House. Quantum Care bungalow development care home.
St Lawrence. The church was dedicated in 1154 and is likely to have had a Saxon predecessor. The low tower was added later, between 1190 and 1200.  . The chancel chapel has a chequer pattern of flint and stone exterior mixed with brick, while the rest of the church is flint with stone dressings.  The interior of the church was badly damaged by fire in 1969. There is a painting of St Lawrence and St Thomas on the wall of the chancel chapel although much of what remains is Professor Tristram's 'restoration' of 1933-5. Plaque to Nicholas Breakspear, only Englishman to become Pope.
Churchyard. The churchyard is not a nature reserve but some areas of grass are not mown during the summer months which has enabled a Pyramidal orchid to grow. It also allows caterpillars time to pupate. There are over a hundred species of wild flowers here, as well as grasses, trees, lichens, mosses, fungi and church walls and headstones provide the conditions needed by slow-growing lichens.
War Memorial. This is on the edge of the churchyard and is a cross with a sword. It was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield and made by H T Jenkins & Son of Torquay with sculpture by W Bainbridge Reynolds Ltd . It was dedicated on 21st December 1920. The inscription says  “ To the Glory of God and in memory of those from this Parish who fell in the Great War 1914-1918. There are 80 names from the Great War,  27 from the Second World War. 1 from Colonial India and 1 Non-Combat death.
Hertfordshire County Council Library. This was the site of an earlier school. It was built in the 1980s on a site near the Church of St Lawrence. The building was recognised by a Civic Trust commendation in 1984
15 this is on the site of the village workhouse which lay to the rear.
21 Boys Home Public House. The building projects forward onto the street.  The pub was established in 1842 and called the Rose and Crown. It became known locally as the ‘Boys Home’ to commemorate soldiers returning home from the Great War and the name was formally adopted in 1986.
Vicarage. This is a big and square early 18th building behind the church. Said to be haunted.
35 Kings Head. This dated from the 1880s and stood opposite the church lych gate. The site now seems to be a Chinese restaurant standing behind a large car park.
Henderson Memorial Hall,The hall was left in trust by the Henderson family to be used for the benefit of local residents. It had been bu8ot by Harry Henderson in memory of his wife. Since 2016 it has been managed by The Henderson Hub.

Love Lane
Reservoir. In 1866 the Abbots Langley Waterworks Company was set up after a tenants of Cecil Lodge, provided the capital.. Initially the Lodge’s water tower was employed but 1886 water was being pumped from a new artesian well at Hunton Bridge up to a specially built tank located off Love Lane
Reservoir Cottages

M25

Parsonage Road
Abbots Langley Primary School. Buildings of 1970 by the County Architect's Department. This was once a national school based in a site nearer to the church.

Summerhouse Way
Cecil Lodge. The road is built on the grounds of Cecil Lodge, which was part of the Earl of Salisbury’s estate in Hatfield. Later it was occupied by W.H Smith the newsagent. It is presumably where the summerhouse was.

St Lawrence Close
Abbots House.  This dates from 1600 on the site of a farmhouse. It was altered and heated in the mid 17th, then rebuilt around 1700 and truncated, but extended since. It was originally timber framed and later cased in red brick with some sham timber framing. It is thought that originally it was a hall or wing of the kind normally added to a large medieval open hall.  There is a conservatory.
Old Maltings. This includes the Kiln Stable Block and is a 17th Malt House.. It is timber framed with partial red brick casing with mock timber framing. The stable block is 19th brick and the Kiln is 18th’ The building was restored in 1975 and is now a house and community hall

The Crescent
St.Saviour's Roman Catholic Church. The church was founded in 1928 by the Society of the Divine Saviour (Salvatorians). They had come to Wealdstone in 1901 opening a school for boys. In 1928 they established a college and parish here in Langley House.  The current red brick church by John Rochford was built in 1963 and was sited next to the college.. The sculpture above the entrance is by David John cast in aluminium and filled with fibreglass.

Sources
Abbots Langley Primary School. Web site
Hannover Housing Associaiot. Web site
Henderson Hub. Web site
Hertfordshire Genealogy. Web site
Historic England. Web site
Imperial War Museum. Web site
Mee. Hertfordshire
Meullenkamp and Wheatley. Follies
Pevsner. Hertfordshire
Pub History. Web site
Quantum Care.Web site
St.Saviours Church. Web site
Three Rivers Council. Web site
Whitelaw. Hidden Hertfordshire
Whitelaw. Hertfordshire Churches