(b) Malting is still extensively carried on at Ware, which has been the centre of the industry for many years; it is said, indeed, to be the largest malting town in England.  There are nearly 100 malting houses, many of them being beside the River Lea, navigable from this town for barges W. to Hertford and S. to London.  There are extensive Breweries at St. Albans, Watford, Hertford, High Barnet, Baldock, Hitchin, Hatfield, Tring, Berkhampstead, and other places.

(c) Brick Fields are worked at Watford, St. Albans, Hemel Hempstead, Broxbourne, Bishop’s Stortford, Hitchin and elsewhere.

(d) Brushes of many kinds are manufactured at St. Albans and Berkhampstead.

(e) Hurdles are made at Barkway, Croxley Green, Breachwood Green, Chorley Wood, Albury, and at one or two other places.

(f) Iron Foundries are at Hertford, Ippollitts, Royston, Colne Valley (Watford), Hitchin and Puckeridge.

(g) Paper is made at Croxley Mills, King’s Langley, and Nash Mills.

(h) Silk is made at the large mill on the River Ver, St. Albans, and at Redbourn.

(i) Photographic plates, paper, etc., are made at Watford, Boreham Wood and Barnet.

(j) Lavender Water is made at Hitchin, from lavender grown in fields close by.

Gravel abounds in many districts, and pits are extensively worked at Rickmansworth, Hertford and at Heath, Wheathampstead, Watford and Harpenden.

There are windmills at Cromer, Albury, Goff’s Oak, Anstey, Arkley, Much Hadham, Weston, Tring and Bushey Heath. Water mills are too numerous to specify, there being several on many of the small rivers named in Section II.

VIII.  HISTORY

Hertfordshire was formerly a part of Mercia and of Essex.  Its share in what is usually called “History” can hardly be called great; but many interesting details of its story are recorded in the histories of Chauncy, Salmon, Clutterbuck, and Cussans.  Among smaller works the following will be found useful:  Cobb’s Berkhampstead; Gibbs’ Historical Records of St. Albans; Nicholson’s Abbey of St. Albans; Bishop’s Hitchin and Neighbourhood, and Bygone Hertfordshire by various writers.

The story of Hertfordshire may be said to commence with the sack of the great Roman city of Verulamium by the followers of Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni[e] (A.D. 61).  Our knowledge of the event is largely drawn from Tacitus, and Dion Cassius, who give revolting details of the torture of the inhabitants by the Britons.  The martyrdom of St. Alban (circa A.D. 304) the Synod of Verulam (429), the second destruction of that city by the Saxons towards the end of the sixth century and the siege of Hertford by the Danes in 896, when Alfred the Great grounded their vessels by cutting the river banks, are some of the more prominent episodes of pre-Conquest times.  William I., entering the county from the direction of Wallingford, met the Saxon nobles in council at Berkhampstead immediately before his coronation at Westminster.  The castles of Hertford and Berkhampstead were captured by the revolted barons.