In coaching days St Albans was a far more bustling and busy town than it is at the present day; a very large number of coaches passing daily through the city each way, the majority running on the Holyhead and Chester road, but a certain number taking the Bedford line. The two chief coaching and posting inns were the Peahen and the White Hart, both of which are still in existence.
The speed and smartness with which the mail-coaches were run in the days immediately preceding their abolition was little short of marvellous.
Watford
The first half of the nineteenth century saw the introduction of railways, which gradually but surely killed the old coaching traffic. One of the first lines to be opened was the London and North-Western—in 1838—which traverses the south-western side of the county, passing through Watford, Boxmoor, Berkhampstead, and the outskirts of Tring. In 1853 a branch line was opened from Watford to St Albans, and another to Rickmansworth in 1862. With a short break between Boxmoor and Hemel Hempstead, the North-Western system is connected with the Midland by means of a branch line from the last-named town to Harpenden. The main line of the Midland, which traverses the western half of the county by way of Elstree, St Albans, and Harpenden, was opened in 1868. Both St Albans and Harpenden have branches of the Great Northern Railway to Hatfield, which is on the main line; the latter continuing through Welwyn, Stevenage, and Hitchin. By means of a branch line of the Great Northern from Hatfield to Hertford, we reach the Great Eastern, the fourth great railway in the county, the main line of which runs through Broxbourne, Sawbridgeworth, and Bishop’s Stortford, but connected also with Ware and Hertford, and having a branch from St Margaret’s to Buntingford.
With such a multiplicity of lines, it might well be imagined that railway communication between nearly all parts of the county would be well-nigh perfect. As a matter of fact, this is by no means the case; and the journey by rail from the western to the eastern side, owing to changes and delays, is so slow and tedious, that it is frequently found convenient to hold important Hertfordshire meetings, like those of the County Council, in London.
As regards water-communication, the western side of the county is served by the Grand Junction Canal, which, after leaving Leighton Buzzard, enters the county near Tring, and thence runs by way of Berkhampstead, Boxmoor, Hemel Hempstead, Runton Bridge, Watford and Rickmansworth in a south-easterly and southerly direction to London. A considerable amount of barge-traffic is still carried on this canal, although nothing approaching that in pre-railway times. In those days the whole of the coal-supply for north-western Herts came by canal to Boxmoor, whence it had to be carted for long distances—some 14 miles to Harpenden, for instance. As there are at least two very steep hills—which become impossible for heavily laden teams when the roads are slippery—between Boxmoor and Harpenden, the inhabitants of the latter picturesque village were apt to run short of firing at Christmas.
The Grand Junction Canal near Hemel Hempstead