Apsley, Hertfordshire

Apsley was a 19th-century mill village in the county of Hertfordshire, England. It is a historic industrial site situated in a valley of the Chiltern Hills. It is positioned below the confluence of two permanent rivers, the Gade and Bulbourne. In an area of little surface water this was an obvious site for the location of water mills serving local agriculture. Today it is a suburb of the larger town of Hemel Hempstead.

For other uses, see Apsley.

Apsley

Part of London Road, Apsley
Apsley
Location within Hertfordshire
OS grid referenceTL0505
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townHEMEL HEMPSTEAD
Postcode districtHP3
Dialling code01442
PoliceHertfordshire
FireHertfordshire
AmbulanceEast of England
UK Parliament

Recent (2011–) rapid building around the canal area has seen a large influx of London commuters, largely from the software and business communities. At the 2011 Census the village was included in the Dacorum Ward of Apsley and Corner Hall.

Origin of the name

The name Apsley dates from the Anglo-Saxon period and means aspen wood.

Brief history

It was the construction of the trunk canal (later to be called the Grand Union Canal) between London and the Midlands through the valley in 1798 that began its industrial rise at the start of the 19th century. The canal gave an easy way of transporting the raw and manufactured products to and from the mills.

Frogmore Paper Mill, Apsley, Hertfordshire. The only surviving member of a number of nineteenth century paper mills located in the town. It is now a museum, The Paper Trail.

John Dickinson, the inventor of a new method of continuous papermaking, purchased an existing mill in the area in 1809. There is record of paper making already taking place nearby at this time. His business expanded throughout the Victorian age coming to occupy large parts of the flat land in the valley bottom. Streets of mill workers' terraced houses grew up adjacent to the mills. Housing for managers was built on the old Manor Farm, higher up the hill towards Felden, in the grounds of the Manor Estate, today known as Shendish Manor. Production peaked during the Second World War. The site was however not ideal for large scale papermaking in the 20th century and later became a warehouse and distribution centre for products made elsewhere. The last John Dickinson warehouse closed in 1999. Frogmore Paper Mill is a working paper mill and visitor centre located in some of the original mill buildings.[1] Paper continued to be made until 2006 a short distance away at Nash Mills by the global Sappi group at a former John Dickinson mill. This too closed for production in 2006 but continued as a distribution centre for some time.[2] In 2011, the Sappi site was redeveloped for canal-side housing, preserving some of the historic structures at the site. The Apsley Paper Trail Trust, operating Frogmore Paper Mill, ensures that paper is still made in the area; its artisan papers, made on a 1902 Fourdrinier Machine keep the tradition alive.

In the 1950s the adjacent town of Hemel Hempstead was designated a New Town as part of the provision of new residential areas surrounding London and Apsley became a part of the development, also giving its name to the new school of Apsley Grammar School at Bennetts End.

Apsley today
St Mary's Church (1871) stands above the modern Sainsbury's supermarket in Apsley. It was built to serve and inspire the workers of the paper mill that once occupied the supermarket site.

Today, Apsley is an outer district of Hemel Hempstead and is still a busy commercial centre. The Victorian shops that grew up when it was a mill town now house newsagents, public houses, restaurants, and a range of small businesses. The former mill sites are taken up with supermarkets, retail parks and offices (including large offices on the Dolittle Meadows site occupied by Hertfordshire County Council, Epson, HSBC and until recently, British Telecom). Housing developments combining the canal-side location with the ease of access to Apsley railway station have been very successful, and Apsley Marina is a thriving location for boaters.

The local parish church is St Mary's, in London Road. There is also a Methodist church.

An important local issue since the summer of 2003 is the proposal to build on land surrounding the Manor Estate in Apsley that had previously been designated as green belt land. A new housing estate, called the Aspen Estate, has since been built on the hills above the Manor Estate.

Apsley timeline
  • 13th century – Ralf de Chenduit was granted land in the area. The local manor is still called Shendish Manor today.
  • 1803 – First record of paper making in the area at nearby Frogmore.
  • 1809 – John Dickinson, the inventor of a continuous mechanised papermaking process, purchased a corn mill in the valley and started making paper.
  • 1811 – The Grand Junction Canal, later to be called the Grand Union Canal, opened to through traffic. The original route of part of the canal was higher up the side of the valley passing north of the George and the Three Tuns pubs on Belswains Lane. It put Apsley on the principal trade route from London to the north.
  • 1836 – John Dickinson built his country house in nearby Nash Mills and called it Abbot's Hill. It is now a private school.
  • 1838 – The London and Birmingham Railway passed through the valley adjacent to the site but no station was built. Canals continued to be the primary commercial means of transport for Apsley's mills.
  • 1853 – Charles Longman, heir to the publisher Longman's and partner to John Dickinson, bought the Shendish estate and built an impressive manor house.
  • 1871 – The Church at Apsley End was opened for public worship; its construction was funded by Charles Longman.
  • 1938 – Apsley railway station was built with backing from John Dickinson Ltd as a way to bring more people to work at the mills.
  • 1939–1945 – John Dickinson's was at its peak, and employed more than 7,000 workers. It made munitions as well as paper and paper products.
  • 1999 – The last paper mills owned by John Dickinson were finally shut.
  • 2003 – A working heritage and education centre was built around the framework of the remaining mill; its visitor centre aims to celebrate the links between the industry, the town and the international impact, innovations created in Apsley had upon the world.
  • 2006 - Apsley Marina was established.
  • 2011 – Local Football Club Apsley Athletic FC was formed.

See also

References

A Hertfordshire Valley by Scott Hastie photographs by David Spain, Alpine Press Ltd, Kings Langley, 1996, ISBN 0-9528631-0-3

  1. "Frogmore Paper Mill". Visit Southeast England. Retrieved 5 September 2018.
  2. http://www.hemelhempsteadtoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=841&ArticleID=1415761 hemelhempsteadtoday.co.uk
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