Cycle Rides Round London

by Charles G. Harper

THE CHURCH BELL, SHENLEY.

Shenley Church lies a mile away from the village and has lost its tower. The bells, save one, were removed to the more accessible Chapel-of-Ease in the village, and the one remains in the churchyard, hung in the most extraordinary manner on an iron bar.

Returning to the village, and having found the way to Radlett, we go by a winding lane downhill, and between the two parks of Porters and New Organ Hall. Radlett is a quite modern settlement, of no interest. The name, however, is ancient, and derives from the “Red Leat,” a tributary of the Colne, whose water runs of a reddish hue after rain has washed the red gravel soil through which its course lies. Here we cross the Edgware-St. Albans road and come to Gill’s Hill, a name of dread; for it was here, at Gill’s Hill Cottage, in 1823, that the notorious murder of Mr. William Weare was committed by John Thurtell. A lane on the right hand leads to the still existing house, and many morbid persons go and feast their eyes on it, as did Sir Walter Scott in 1828. This particularly sordid and stupid crime, committed by the gambler Thurtell, and connived at by his confederates, Hunt and Probert, for mere plunder, aroused the widest interest, and contemporary literature, not greatly to its credit, is full of references to the vulgar tragedy. Scott, as we have seen, actually paid a visit to the scene, and Carlyle alludes to it again and again. The thing that most held his imagination and exercised his sardonic humour was the evidence of one of the witnesses on behalf of Thurtell, to the effect that “he was a respectable man: he kept a gig.” To “gigmanity,” as a symbol and token of respectability, Carlyle often recurs.

High Cross, which now comes on our way to Aldenham, is, indeed, high. Higher still is Kemp Row, away to the left, the place where the mitred Abbots of St. Albans hanged criminals literally “high as Haman,” if not, indeed, considerably higher than that biblical personage. By “criminals” you are to understand a very wide interpretation—which, in fact, included such as stole the deer or netted game on the extensive manors of those dignified clergy. Those abbots had their gallow’s as a quite ordinary article of domestic furniture, and turned off many an unlucky poacher with the least possible compunction.

Aldenham is a place with a dignified air, derived from the many parks that surround it. Aldenham House is the seat of the recently ennobled Mr. Henry Hucks-Gibbs, who contended long and expensively in the Law Courts with that master of gall and wormwood, Lord Grimthorpe, as to which of them should have the right to spend a fortune on the restoration of the reredos of St. Albans Abbey.

From here it is a fine run, chiefly downhill, across the breezy heights past Patchett’s Green and Bushey Grove to the long village street of Bushey, well known nowadays for its artistic colony of the Herkomer School. The builder has been busy here, and Bushey and Watford are now practically linked together.

Watford is fast losing its old-time individuality in the amazing extension of Suburbia, but it is still remarkable to the stranger for its beeriness. Big bulks the name of Benskin at Watford, and every third house in the long High Street seems, from a casual inspection, to be an inn.

A curiosity in the shape of a fig tree growing out of a large stone altar-tomb in the parish churchyard is the local marvel at Watford, and if you do not see it, why, then, no Watfordian will consider his town properly explored. It may be seen, within a railed enclosure, outside one of the church windows, and is, of course, the subject of a legend. This is the last resting-place, they tell you, of a lady who on her deathbed exclaimed, “If there be a God, may a tree grow out of my heart!” This shocking and wicked tale is, of course, as absolutely baseless as the equally wicked and shocking story to the same effect told of Lady Anne Grimston at Tewin. The tree is a chance seedling. Anyone malicious or mischievous enough could create countless such miracles by inserting seeds in the crevices of such old tombs.

From Watford the way is bordered for nearly two miles on the left hand by the beautiful lawns and woods of Cassiobury Park, and here and there ancient elms form avenues along the road, and lend a grateful and cooling shade. Cassiobury is the seat of the Earl of Essex, whose notices, setting forth the dreadful things which will be done to trespassers, are plentifully displayed for the length of a mile and a half, and do not add to the sylvan beauties of the scene. Beyond and adjoining Cassiobury is Grove Park, the Earl of Clarendon’s seat, just glimpsed in passing. Now the Grand Junction Canal and the river Gade, flowing in one channel, are seen on the left, and presently we cross over them, turning slightly to the left at the hamlet of Hunton Bridge. A canal is not usually a beautiful object, being straight and formal, and generally with the commonplace surroundings of coal and other wharves; but the Grand Junction, which accompanies the road from this point to Boxmoor and onwards, provides interest and a series of charming pictures all the way. Beside it, at a decent distance, runs the main line of the L. & N.W.R. to King’s Langley.

King’s Langley is a village pretty enough, but of no particular interest; but the church has a claim to inspection, containing as it does the altar-tomb of a former Duke of York; Edmund de Langley, fifth son of Edward the Third, born at the Royal Palace of Langley, 1341, died 1402. It stands in a chapel at the east end of the north aisle, lighted by a stained-glass window, presented by the Queen in 1878, in honour of her “ancestor.” Notice stones in the churchyard to various persons bearing the odd name of Evilthrift. A few fragments of Langley Palace yet remain on a hilltop a mile distant from the village.