Part 24

Second Battle of St. Albans.--On Shrove Tuesday, 17th February, 1461, Queen Margaret defeated the Earl of Warwick, who retreated with considerable loss, the battle being mostly fought out on Bernard's Heath, N. from St. Peter's Church. This engagement also was stubbornly fought out. According to Stow and Hollinshead, the Lancastrians were thwarted in their efforts to pass through the town from S. to N., being repulsed by arrows in the Market Place, and eventually reached Bernard's Heath by a circuitous route from the W. If this is so, visitors who ramble down the High Street, turn right into Katherine Lane, coming out of Wellclose Street near St. Peter's Church, will probably tread in the footsteps of the troops of Margaret. After the fight had been decided the victorious Lancastrians poured back into the town, which was again plundered, and the Abbey also partially stripped. This was during the second abbacy of John Wheathampsted, and Stow records that the day after the battle Queen Margaret, and the King (Henry VI.) were led by the abbot and monks to the High Altar of the Abbey, where they returned thanks for the victory.

ST. MARGARET'S, on the river Lea, has a small church with several unimportant memorials. It was probably formed from one aisle of an older edifice.

St. Margaret's is also the name of a few cottages a little N.W. from Great Gaddesden, near the site of the Benedictine convent of Muresley, the refectory of which was almost intact early last century.

ST. PAUL'S WALDEN (4 miles S.W. from Stevenage Station, G.N.R.) is a large and scattered parish; much of it is very picturesque. The church, which was restored twenty years ago, is of several styles, but contains little worthy of comment. Note the tablet on the W. wall of the chapel to Henry Stapleford and Dorothy his wife. "The said Henry was servant to Queen Elizabeth, King James and King Charles" (d. 1631). The manor was formerly called first Waldene, then Abbot's Walden, being the property of the abbots of St. Albans. St. Paul's Walden Bury, 1/2 mile S.W. from the church, is the seat of Lord Strathmore. Note the fine avenues in the park, commanding good views of the house. The walk S. to Whitwell, through the steep and twisted lane and across the bridge over the Maran, keeping the "bog" and cress beds on the right, is very pretty.

SANDON (31/2 miles S.E. from Ashwell Station, G.N.R) has a flint church, probably late fourteenth century. Several features should be noted: (1) Perp. screen (oak) between nave and chancel; (2) old stained glass in windows of both aisles; (3) fine Jacobean oak pulpit; (4) old brass, with inscription which was imperfect 200 years back, to "Johannes Fitz Geoffery, Armiger" (d. 1480); (5) piscina in each aisle; (6) pinnacled and crocketted arches in chancel, over triple sedilia. The church was partially restored in 1875. The manor of Sandone was owned by Saxon kings; Athelstan gave ten houses in the vill to St. Paul's, London. The Old North Road to Royston is 2 miles E.

SANDRIDGE (21/2 miles N.E. from St. Albans) is on the road to Wheathampstead, and is a thoroughly typical English village consisting, for the most part, of one street, with the parish church near its N.E. end. The parish stretches northwards to the Lea, and is very ancient; the vill was given by Egfrith, a son of Offa, to St. Alban's Abbey. It owes its name to the nature of its soil. The church, one of the most ancient in the county, has known much restoration, but still retains Norman work. It was consecrated as a chapel a few years after the consecration of St. Alban's Abbey (1115); the chancel was rebuilt by Abbot John Moote (circa 1400). The tower fell towards the end of the seventeenth century and the structure which took its place was pulled down and reconstructed in 1887. Note the old material in the apex, the Perp. windows in the aisles, the clerestoried Norman nave and the Norman font. There are N. and S. porches.

Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, derived his first title, Baron Sandridge, from this parish; the Jennings family, from which his wife Sarah was descended, possessed the manor for several generations. Sandridge Bury, N.W. from the village, is beautifully situated.

SARRATT (11/2 mile N. from Chorley Wood Station, Met. Extension) is near the river Chess, on the Bucks border. The church is late Norman and is remarkable for the saddle-back roof of its tower, running N. and S., the only tower roof of its kind in Herts. The building is cruciform, of flint, dressed with Totternhoe and Caen stone, and has a square ambry, a very old piscina, and a double sedilia; the latter is E.E. Richard Baxter is said to have preached from the Jacobean pulpit. There are a few old memorials. The church is prettily situated, and a picturesque walk may be taken N.W. to Sarratt Bottom, thence N.E. to

SARRATT GREEN, which during the last two or three centuries has gradually outgrown Sarratt. Note the many fine old cottages on either side of the village green. Sarratt owes its name to Syret, a Saxon.

SAWBRIDGEWORTH (formerly Sabysford, Sabridgeworth, Saybrichesworth and now often called Sapsworth) lies at the S.E. extremity of the county, 4 miles S. from Bishop's Stortford. The district is not very diversified, but is open and pleasant. The history of the several old manor houses in the neighbourhood would fill a large volume; those of Hyde Hall (E.) and Pishiobury (S.) are engraved in Chauncy; the present mansion in Pishiobury Park was built by Wyatt, and has a fine adjoining rosery. The church stands between the town and the station (G.E.R.); it has a good Perp. screen between the clerestoried Dec. nave and the chancel, and a large canopied piscina in the N. aisle. The brasses are numerous: note (1) to Sir John Leventhorpe (d. 1433) and Katherine his wife (d. 1431); the former was an executor to King Henry V.; (2) to several other members of the Leventhorpe family, too numerous to mention; (3) to Calpredus Jocelin (d. 147-), and his wives Katherine and Joan; (4) inscription on brass, which was long ago transcribed as follows:--

"Of your Charite Sey a Pater Nostre and an Ave For the Sowl of William Chaunce On whose Sowl Jesu have Mercy".

Several monuments and brasses are to the memory of persons buried elsewhere. Note the marble altar-tomb in chancel to John Jocelin or Jocelyn (d. 1525) and Philippa his wife.

Shafton End and Shafton-Hoe lie a little E. from the Cambridge Road, on the Essex border, about 4 miles S.E. from Royston.

Shaw Green is 4 miles S.E. from Baldock, near Julians Park.

SHEEPHALL (2 miles N.N.E. from Knebworth Station, G.N.R.) is a little E. from the Great North Road. It is a small village. The church, E.E., is approached through a good lich-gate, and contains many memorials, including two sixteenth-century brasses to members of the Nodes family, one of which was Sergeant of the Buckhounds to Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary and Elizabeth (d. 1564).

SHENLEY (2 miles E. from Radlett Station, M.R.) is of interest to many for its fine old "lock-up," or cage, in the centre of the village. We are on high ground here, and the tower of St. Alban's Abbey is well seen above the trees to the N.W. The village is scattered along several converging roads, and the surrounding country is undulating and beautifully wooded. Turn down the lane opposite the Black Lion to reach the old church of St. Botolph, 1 mile N.N.W. from the cage. Note the venerable yews, and the quaint old grave-boards in the graveyard; also the altar-tomb to Nicholas Hawksmoor, a pupil of Wren, and the architect of St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard Street (d. at Shenley, 1736). The church was partly rebuilt in the middle of the eighteenth century, when the tower was demolished and a structure of timber, with quadrangular tiled roof, eventually erected in its stead. This has disappeared, and the "old parish church" is now an oblong building of flints, chalk-faced, with tiled roof. Porters, in the park, a little W., was the residence of Admiral Lord Howe. Salisbury Hall, a gabled manor house with massive chimneys, surrounded by a moat, is Jacobean, and stands on the spot occupied successively by the older houses of the Montacutes, and of Sir John Cutts, Treasurer and Privy Councillor to Henry VIII. Eugene Aram visited the neighbourhood.

Sleap's Hyde (1/2 mile S.E. from Smallford Station, G.N.R.) is a hamlet in the parish of Colney Heath.

Smug Oak, a few cottages, lies on the E. confines of Bricket Wood, 1/2 mile N.E. from that station, L.&N.W.R.

Smyth's End adjoins Barley on the S. (q.v.).

Solesbridge Lane, on the river Chess, is close to Chorley Wood.

Southend and Southend Green are hamlets, (1) adjoining Stevenage on the S., (2) 1/2 mile E. from Rushden.

Spellbrook is a hamlet nearly midway between Sawbridgeworth and Bishop's Stortford.

Stanborough, on the Hatfield-Welwyn road, is midway between Hatfield and Brocket Hall Parks. The road which branches N.W. from the hamlet leads to the modern church at Lemsford (q.v.).

STANDON has several claims to notice. It is a large village, 1 mile E. from the Old North Road. A little W., and on the other side of the railway, is the mansion which occupies the site of Standon Lordship, a fine old manor house, of which hardly a vestige remains. It was long owned by the Sadleir family, most illustrious of whom was Sir Ralph Sadleir (d. 1587), who fought at Pinkie. (See below.)

The church, largely Dec., still retains some Saxon foundations, and has singular features worthy of comment. The embattled tower is separate from the main structure, standing on the S. side of the chancel; the chancel is raised much higher than the nave, from which it is approached by a flight of steps; note the hagioscope on either side of the chancel arch. Within the chancel, on the S. side, stands the fine monument to Sir Ralph Sadleir, consisting of altar-tomb and marble effigy in armour, recumbent beneath a canopy supported by Corinthian pillars; note the relieved figures of his sons and daughters on the lower part of the tomb, also, suspended above, two helmets and other relics. The standard pole captured at Pinkie rests beside the effigy. There are also several old brasses. Close to the village, at Old Hall Green, are the Roman Catholic College, Chapel and Cemetery; the college was founded at Twyford, Hants, late in the seventeenth century, from whence it was removed, first to Standon Lordship, and then (1769) to Old Hall. The library is large and valuable.

STANSTEAD ABBOTS may be easily reached from St. Margaret's Station, G.E.R., 1/2 mile W. It was a place of considerable trade at the time of the Conquest. The old flint church is E.E., with a chapel on the N. side, built by Edward Baesh--whose monument it contains--in 1577. He was lord of the manor of Stanstead Abbots and "General Surveyor of the Victuals for the Navy Royal and Marine affairs within the Realms of England and Ireland" (d. 1587). He married Jane, a daughter of Sir Ralph Sadleir. (See Standon.) The six Baesh Almshouses were built and endowed by his son, Sir Edward Baesh. Several brasses, some mutilated, are in the church, notably one near the altar-rails to William Saraye or Saxaye, late of "Grais In" (d. 1581). Stansteadbury, a huge gabled mansion, largely rebuilt, stands in extensive grounds, and was the home of the Baeshs and of their successors, the Feildes.

Stapleford, a village on the river Beane, is 3 miles N.N.W. from Hertford. The church is Perp. with N. porch; it was enlarged nearly fifty years ago, when the present tower was added.

STEVENAGE, a town on the Great North Road, has shifted from its original position. It once stood farther N.E. and close to the church; but after a terrible fire which destroyed a large proportion of its houses the village was gradually rebuilt more directly on the famous old coaching road. The first paper mill in England is said to have been built in this parish. Several of its inns were standing when the regular coaches were on the road.