Helham Green We travelled to the other side of the world to find Helham Green and its neighbours. They are in Wareside parish, just east of the Greenwich Meridian. Wareside village is a two-pub hub for the surrounding hamlets but the local primary school is in Reeves Green and the church is nearer to BabbsContinue reading “Across the Great Divide”
Author Archives: toby1960
Friend’s Green
The old tiles look sturdy and heavy to bear but notice the apparent fragility of the roof frame. The beams at the crest of the roof are bowed. You can see they have been cut from trees, unlike the precision cut timber you’d buy from a yard today. The timber frame of the building toContinue reading “Friend’s Green”
Shaw Green to Cumberlow Green
>OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA The green at Shaw Green is a couple of hundred yards south of the cluster of houses and farms, next to Shaw Green cottages, a paddock through which runs Shawgreen Way, a broad path although one that was blocked beyond the green by a fallen tree when we last went through. ButContinue reading “Shaw Green to Cumberlow Green”
Two greens on the Mimram
Poplars Green and Archers Green I love the little River Mimram. Its name is so ancient – pre-Celtic – that its meaning isn’t known. It rises near Whitwell and, along with the Beane and the Rib, joins the Lea at Hertford. Over-extraction and increasingly dry summers sometimes reduce it to a trickle in places andContinue reading “Two greens on the Mimram”
Norton Green
The pond in Norton Green’s Watery Grove hosts newts and frogs and toads. Purple Emperor butterflies are reputed to visit the tree tops of the common. The sunflower mural on the end of a row of cottages cheers a trip – and here’s the rub – southwards on the A1M. The hamlet is just yardsContinue reading “Norton Green”
Rush Green
This is the Rush Green on the road from Hitchin to Codicote – there are at least a couple of others. There’s a working farm there, overwhelmed by a clutch of body shops and metal bashers and a vast graveyard of scrapped lorries, impressive in its own way and visible from the hills overlooking theContinue reading “Rush Green”
Woolmer Green
I took a diversion when I spotted some strange shapes in the distance and came upon an artist’s studio in a farmyard on the edge of Woolmer Green The village straddles the old Great North Road and you’d think nothing of it – a bit of Knebworth gone astray or a chunk of Oaklands (bizarreContinue reading “Woolmer Green”
Mangrove Green
What links a hamlet on the very edge of Hertfordshire – Luton’s outskirts lurking a field’s length away – to sub-tropical swamps? Nothing. The name Mangrove Green derives from ‘thicket in common use or possession,’ from the Old English gemǣne , ‘common,’ and græfe, says the Survey of English Place Names, not from the mangrove (a word likelyContinue reading “Mangrove Green”
Coleman Green
Coleman Green, not to be confused with Colemans Green, near Breachwood Green, comprises the John Bunyan pub and a handful of cottages surrounded by woodland and a hollow lane leading to Ayot Green and Welwyn. The association with Bunyan, Puritan preacher, author of Pilgrim’s Progress, and Parliamentary trooper during the civil war is the preservedContinue reading “Coleman Green”
Wateringplace Green
I’ve given up trying to take a photograph of Wateringplace Green, so I’ve settled on a couple about it. It’s near Moor Green and just yards off Back Lane, the stretch of one-time Roman road that runs from Hare Street to Cherry Green. The ponds may have provided water for drovers’ stock moving down theContinue reading “Wateringplace Green”
