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HERTFORDSHIRE DID YOU KNOW?

The Royal Connection

Once William the Conqueror had won the Battle of Hastings, he set out for London. He went the scenic route, into Kent and back along the South side of the River Thames. After being blocked at a crossing at Southwark he consulted his Norman satnav and discovered a further crossing at Wallingford. He crossed there and set up camp at Berkhamsted, now in Hertfordshire. He waited there for a while, maybe built a wooden motte and bailey castle, before the barons rode out from London and invited him to be King. He said "oui", he was French, and the Norman rule began. A bit later he ordered for a proper stone motte and bailey castle to be built at Berkhamsted. Look closely at the picture and you can see the mound, centre, top, that would be where the keep, or fortified tower, was built. The mound was called the motte and the bailey was the lower enclosed level.

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Hertfordshire Eats

The city of St Albans in Hertfordshire is the home to unique buns called Pope Lady Cakes.

There is a story that says a noble lady and her attendants were travelling North from London, got lost but saw the light in the clock tower of the local monastery and made it to safety. The lady then gave some money to provide cakes to the poor of the neighbourhood each Lady Day.

Lady Day is 25th March and used to be the start of the new year from 1155 until 1752

The cakes were made in the shape of ladies, with a body, a head, some arms but no legs. Currants may be used for a nose and two eyes. It is possible that, as the cakes were given out by monks, this is where the "Pope" label came in.

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Hertfordshire VIPs

Seven random people who were born in hertfordshire in the last 100 years:-
Lewis Hamilton (Racing Driver), Geri Halliwell (Spice Girl), Elaine Page (singer), Gareth Southgate (England Football Manager as at 2020), Dame Esther Rantzen (TV Presenter and Campaigner), Max Whitlock (Gymnast) and Michael Portillo (TV Presenter and ex Politician)

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Richard Remembers

My family didn't own a car from when I was six until I was seventeen. If we needed to go on holiday, which we didn't do every year, we would either travel by train or hire a car. If we wanted to go out for a day at the weekend or in the summer holidays we would use the tube, the metropolitan line. One destination on that line was Chorley Wood and we would occasionally go there and walk on the common. It is a Nature Reserve and part of the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The Chiltern Hills are a set of chalk hills that stretch across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. They cover an area of 322 square miles.

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Owlbut's Birdwatch

So there I was, looking to see what birds I could tell you about that can be found in Hertfordshire and this appeared. It's me. Well not me but another short-eared owl, which can also be known as Shortie. Now I see why I get on so well with Richard. It said that we are unusual owls because we prefer to be out and about in the daytime. Well, I knew that. You can see us best in winter. Look out for us over moorlands and saltmarshes.

Short-eared owls mainly hunt during the daytime where we feed on field voles and small birds. We nest on the ground in scraped-out hollows lined with grass and downy feathers. The short-eared owl is a mottled yellowy-brown above, paler underneath and has dark circles around its yellow eyes. Short 'ear tufts' provide its common name.

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Two extra sections, "It Happened Here" and "Now That's Weird", will appear on 16 September 2024