Rickmansworth

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Coordinates: 51°38′18″N 0°27′57″W / 51.6383°N 0.4659°W / 51.6383; -0.4659

Rickmansworth
Rickmansworth, view from St Mary's Church Tower.jpg
The view from the tower of St Mary's Church
Rickmansworth is located in Hertfordshire
Rickmansworth

 Rickmansworth shown within Hertfordshire
Population 14,571 
OS grid reference TQ061944
District Three Rivers
Shire county Hertfordshire
Region East
Country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town RICKMANSWORTH
Postcode district WD3
Dialling code 01923
Police Hertfordshire
Fire Hertfordshire
Ambulance East of England
EU Parliament East of England
UK Parliament South West Hertfordshire
List of places
UK
England
Hertfordshire

Rickmansworth is a small town in South-West Hertfordshire, England located mainly to the north of the Grand Union Canal and the River Colne. The nearest large town is Watford, approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) to the east. Rickmansworth is the administrative seat of the Three Rivers District Council local authority. The name of the local authority is derived from the confluence of three rivers within the perimeter of Rickmansworth. The River Gade and the Grand Union Canal join the upper River Colne near the eastern boundary of Rickmansworth. They are then joined in turn at a confluence with the River Chess near Rickmansworth town centre. The now much larger Colne flows south to form a major tributary of the River Thames.

Contents

Toponymy[edit]

The name Rickmansworth comes from the Saxon name "Ryckmer", the local magnate, and "worth" meaning farm or stockade. In the Domesday Book of 1086 it is known as The Manor of Prichemaresworde. Later spellings are Rykemarwurthe (1119–46), Richemaresworthe (1180), Rykemerewrthe (1248), Richemereworthe (1259), Rikesmareswrth (1287) and Rikmansworth (1382).

History[edit]

There was a settlement in this part of the Colne valley in the Stone age. Rickmansworth was one of five manors with which the great Abbey of St Albans had been endowed when founded in 793 by King Offa. Local tithes supported the abbey, which provided clergy to serve the people until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539. Around the time of the Domesday Book, the population of "Prichemareworth" may have been about 200.

Cardinal Wolsey, in his capacity as Abbot of St Albans, held the Manor of le More in the valley. The manor house was replaced by the hill-top mansion Moor Park, which eventually became the residence of Admiral Lord Anson, who commissioned Capability Brown to remake the formal gardens, and in 1828 of the Barons Ebury; it is now the Golf Club House. The wider area, including Croxley Green, Moor Park, Batchworth, Mill End, West Hyde and Chorleywood, formed the original parish of Rickmansworth.

In 1851, the population had grown to 4,800, and the parish was divided. St Mary's Church serves the parish concentrated in the town and extending to Batchworth and parts of Moor Park. The town had a population of 14,571 recorded at the 2001 census.

The three rivers, the Colne, Chess and Gade, provided water for the watercress trade and power for corn milling, silk weaving, paper making and brewing, all long gone. Other industries have included leather-tanning, soft drinks, soya processing, laundry, straw-plaiting and stocking production. Now there are commercial offices and commuter homes, and the rivers, canal and flooded gravel pits provide for recreation.

West Mill, a water mill, existed at the time of the Domesday Survey. It was leased to the abbot and convent of St Albans by Ralph Bukberd for a term of years ending in 1539. In 1533, they leased it from the end of this term for twenty-six years to Richard Wilson of Watford. He was to keep in repair the mill and also two millstones, 10 inches (25 centimetres) thick, and 4 ft 8 in (142 cm) in breadth.[1] The mill was leased in 1544 to William Hutchinson, yeoman of the spicery, and Janet his wife for their lives.[2] It afterwards came to John Wilson, and was granted in 1576–77 to Richard Master.[3] There was also a water-mill called Batchworth Mill, and a fishery called Blacketts Mill in Rickmansworth.[4] Batchworth Mill was later used as a cotton mill, but was bought in 1820 by Messrs. John Dickinson & Co., and converted into paper mills, now the site of Affinity Water.[5] Scotsbridge Mill was also productive but now is home to a restaurant with the unusual feature of a salmon run. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries many of the principal inhabitants were described as 'clothiers,' from which it may be inferred that the manufacture of cloth was at one time carried on in the parish, but this industry has long since ceased. There were also silk and flock mills here, described in 1808 as recently built.

There was a long-running dispute over water levels in the Batchford area, following construction of the Grand Junction Canal, which were resolved in 1825, when an 8.2-foot (2.5 m) obelisk was erected in a pond, to act as a water gauge. The obelisk records the agreement made between the canal company, John Dickinson who was the miller at Batchworth Mill, and R. Williams of Moor Park, who was the landowner.[6]

Lord Ebury's railway[edit]

In July 1860 Lord Ebury obtained powers to construct a 4.5 mile single track line between Watford and Rickmansworth which opened in October 1862. The Rickmansworth terminus was located opposite the church to the south of the town. Here interchange sidings were provided adjacent to the nearby Grand Union Canal. These have now become a builders merchant timber yard, but a track-sized path to the left of the new buildings allows pedestrian access to the old railway track which now forms the Ebury Way footpath and cycle track – linking Rickmansworth to the centre of Watford.[7] The line had two other stations at Watford Junction and Watford High Street and its depot was situated on Wiggenhall Road in Watford. A further Parliamentary authorisation was obtained a year later to construct an extension from Rickmansworth to Uxbridge to connect with the Great Western Railway's Uxbridge branch, but this was never realised.[8]

Despite hopes that the railway would bring further economic development to Rickmansworth and would serve the small factories and warehouses which had developed along the Grand Union Canal, it was Watford which grew at a faster pace and drew business from Rickmansworth. The construction of the railway was dogged with financial problems and a further Act of Parliament had to be passed in 1863 to authorise the issue of further shares to the value of £30,000 (£40,000 worth of shares had already been issued).[9] Initially there were five daily trains each way from Rickmansworth to Watford. The line was worked from the outset by the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) who paid the WRR 50% of the gross earnings of the line.[10]

The railway was never particularly successful financially, and the Official Receiver was called in only four years after opening.[11] They tried to raise money by opening several freight branches, the most notable being to the Croxley printers and to the Grand Union Canal at Croxley Green. The company was eventually absorbed in 1881 by the burgeoning LNWR whose station it shared at Watford Junction.

Railway[edit]

Rickmansworth grew dramatically during the Victorian era, and then again during the 1920s and 1930s as part of the Metro-land area, due to the extension of Metropolitan Railway, and became a commuter town.

Chiltern Main Line diesel-express trains from Marylebone station, London – via Harrow-on-the Hill – to Aylesbury (change for Birmingham ) and fast, electric Metropolitan trains from the City of London – via Baker Street – to Amersham-on-the-Hill, all stop at Rickmansworth station.

Motorway[edit]

Both Junctions 17 and 18 of the M25 motorway are within the perimeter of Rickmansworth and give access to Heathrow Airport, and the national motorway network.

Aquadrome[edit]

Bury Lake

Rickmansworth's public park, the Aquadrome has a Local Nature Reserve consisting of Batchworth Lake, Bury Lake, open grassland, areas of woodland, car park and play area covering 41 hectares (100 acres). Its boundaries are the River Colne to the north, the Grand Union Canal to the east and south, and to the west, Stockers Lake. In July 2009, the Aquadrome received a Green Flag award.

The lakes are old water-filled gravel quarries stocked with fish. Gravel from the site was used to build Wembley Stadium in 1923. Batchworth Lake is popular with water skiers and hosts the Rickmansworth Water Ski Club. Bury Lake is home to BLYM, a sailing club and RYA-recognised teaching establishment.

Stockers Lake, to the west of the Aquadrome, is a nature reserve.

Sport[edit]

Rickmansworth Cricket and Sports Club
The present clubhouse was built in 1921 by Sir William Francis Reckitt - a member of the Reckitt and Colman Mustard dynasty. Rickmansworth Sports Club is the home of Rickmansworth Cricket Club, which currently runs 5 sides in the Saracens Hertfordshire Cricket League.
Over the years, other sports have moved into the grounds, including the Chess Valley Rugby Football Club and the Rickmansworth & Chess Valley Hockey Clubs.
  • Rickmansworth Golf Course is adjacent to Moor Park golf course.
  • Rickmansworth Lawn Tennis Club. (Also hosts Rickmansworth Table Tennis Club matches)
  • Rickmansworth Water Ski Club is located on Batchworth Lake.
  • William Penn Leisure Centre has an indoor swimming pool and sports facilities.

Education[edit]

Primary schools[edit]

Secondary schools[edit]

Leisure[edit]

  • Watersmeet is a 515 seat venue complex for hire owned by Three Rivers District Council, situated in the centre Rickmansworth on the High Street. The auditorium can transform from a raked theatre to a flat floor for performances "in the round" or dinner dances, cabarets, weddings, indoor markets and craft fairs.
  • The Rickmansworth Players (affiliated to NODA) are a well-established amateur dramatics society that performs musicals and plays on a regular basis.
  • Rickmansworth hosts a Sub-Aqua Club.
  • Rickmansworth Historical Society meets at 8pm on the second Thursday of the month from September to June in the Cloisters Hall.
  • Colloquially, Rickmansworth is often shortened to "Ricky", as used in the town's annual "Ricky Week" celebrations which occur in May.
  • The town's canal history is remembered every year at the end of Ricky Week with the Rickmansworth Festival, organised by Rickmansworth Waterways Trust.
  • There is an annual Ricky Road Run with more than 500 runners taking to the streets of Rickmansworth.
  • Up until 2010, an annual "Victorian Evening" was held in the town centre every November, but this changed in 2011, and became a "Starlight Evening". This was inspired by the reference to Rickmansworth by Douglas Adams' in the first page of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything."

Filming: cinema and TV[edit]

Grand Union Canal[edit]

  • Batchworth Lock No 81,Grand Union canal at Rickmansworth with a barge framed by a bridge (circa 1895)

  • Batchworth Lock No 81, Grand Union Canal (1977)

  • Grand Union Canal in Rickmansworth

Notable residents[edit]

Scenes from Rickmansworth[edit]

  • Talbot Road

  • St Mary's Parish Church

  • The Coach and Horses Public House

  • Our Lady Help of Christians RC Church

  • St Joan of Arc School (The Elms)

  • Moor Park Mansion

  • The Old Vicarage

  • The Bury

  • The Lion and the Eagle which used to top the War Memorial, now in the public gardens behind the Council Offices

  • Bury Lake, part of the Aquadrome

References[edit]

  1. ^ Page, William. William Page, ed. A History of the County of Hertford: Volume II. Parishes: Rickmansworth. Institute of Historical Research. 
  2. ^ Page, William. William Page, ed. A History of the County of Hertford: Volume II. Parishes: Rickmansworth. Institute of Historical Research. 
  3. ^ Page, William. William Page, ed. A History of the County of Hertford: Volume II. Parishes: Rickmansworth. Institute of Historical Research. 
  4. ^ Page, William. William Page, ed. A History of the County of Hertford: Volume II. Parishes: Rickmansworth. Institute of Historical Research. 
  5. ^ Page, William. William Page, ed. A History of the County of Hertford: Volume II. Parishes: Rickmansworth. Institute of Historical Research. 
  6. ^ Details from listed building database (158791) Obelisk at Moor Lane, Rickmansworth. Images of England. English Heritage.
  7. ^ Welbourn, N. (1998). Lost Lines London. Shepperton, Surrey: Ian Allen Ltd. p. 110. ISBN 0-711026-23-8. 
  8. ^ Davies, R.; Grant, M.D. (1984). Chilterns and Cotswolds (Forgotten Railways). Newton Abbot, Devon: David St John Thomas. p. 35. ISBN 0-946537-07-0. 
  9. ^ Davies, R. and Grant, M.D. (1984), p. 35.
  10. ^ Davies, R. and Grant, M.D. (1984), p. 36.
  11. ^ Welbourn, N. (1998), p. 110.
  12. ^ http://castlefacts.info/contentpages/castledetails/castledetails.asp?country=England&countyid=19&county=Hertfordshire&castleid=1716&latitude=51.6339&longitude=-0.4364&uin=11558

William Page (editor) (1908). "Parishes: Rickmansworth". A History of the County of Hertford: volume 2. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 31 March 2012. 

See also[edit]

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