Hertford Club Site, Hertfordshire

This morning we left later than planned; short sharp storms passed across from the west, but by 10am, the skies had cleared again and we expected similar weather to that of the last few days. We drove into the centre of Hertford, just over a mile away, and parked in the multi-story car park. From here, after coming to grips with the parking charge system, this one unlike anything encountered before, we wandered down into the market streets, colourful and busy, and found our way through to the Information Centre to gather maps and brochures.

From there it was just across the road to the Castle Gardens and a wander around the old historical structure. The Normans built a castle here in the first couple of years after their invasion, to control the river and the town. They certainly didn’t waste any time once they were satisfied they were the conquerors! It has amazed us how quickly castles and fortresses sprang up so soon after 1066. Just over a century later, Henry II enlarged and strengthened the castle as part of the defences of London, which incidentally today is just twenty two minutes away on the train, if there are no holdups.

The castle passed briefly into French hands about fifty years later, and then in 1304 became a Royal Palace for the next three hundred years. Between 1346 and 1359 it was prison to my many times great-grandfather King David II of Scotland and King John of France, who was no relation to me at all. Between 1564 and 1589, it housed Parliament, the Law Courts and the Privy Councils during the plague in London.

In 1627 it was granted to the Earl of Salisbury, he of Hatfield House fame, whose descendants own it to this day. Over the years the grounds have been used for fattening cattle for the London meat markets, the gatehouse was the first home to the East India College and also a medical dispensary for the poor. In 1911 the castle was leased to the Corporation of Hertford as offices and public gardens. So in answer to those overheard yesterday asking how the Cecil family finance the upkeep of their glorious Hatfield House and their wealthy  lifestyle; they are landlords extraordinaire.

We returned to the car park and retrieved our picnic lunch, then set off across the town centre for the Lea Navigation, the canalised river incorporating the River Lea (also known as River Lee) from Hertford Castle to the River Thames at Bow Creek. The picturesque and unbroken walking and cycling route runs the entire length of the river, a distance of 44.5 kilometres or 27.8 miles and has eighteen locks, and today we were intent on enjoying a little part of it.

We passed the narrow boats tied up along the canal banks, lingered at the Hertford Lock, watching a launch and the tour boat pass through, assisting with the opening and closing of the lock gates, and stopped to watch the wide variety of water birds including Mandarin and Mallard ducks, Great Crested Grebes, and swans, most with large families of cygnets in tow or being piggy-backed.

Half way to Ware we paused to learn about the small canal lading off the main river; the “New River: neither new nor a river, but an aquaduct  built from 1609 and 1613 from here to Islington to bring freshwater from Hertfordshire springs to the capital city. Today Thames water still uses the New River as a source for London’s drinking water as well as providing a new twenty five mile long footpath. The New River path follows, wherever possible, the historic water channel as well as some straightened and piped sections from New Gauge to New River Head. Later, through necessity, we chose to detour via part of this pathway to avoid confrontation with a swan family which had placed themselves either side of the towpath; it is asking for trouble to walk between parents and progeny in the wild. 

We reached the township of Ware, just below the lock of the same name and mooring place of the Water Bus which plies its service between Hertford and Ware twice a day. It was this that we had watched enter the Hertford Lock earlier in the afternoon; it had docked with its full boatload of passengers just as we arrived in Ware ourselves.

We decided when we arrived back at the car park in Hertford that we had probably walked over ten kilometres; I was glad to put my feet up back at camp. There we found even more campers in; our caravan is now surrounded in tents on one side and caravans on the other.