Kings Langley, Hertfordshire

Historical Description

King's Langley, a village and a parish in Herts. The village stands adjacent to the river Gade, the Grand Junction Canal, and the L. & N.W.R., 4½ miles NNW of Watford, and has a station on the railway, a post, money order, and telegraph office (R.S.O.), and fairs on 24 and 25 June. The parish includes also the hamlet of CHIPPERFIELD,! which is noticed separately. Acreage, 3481; population of the civil parish, 1629; of the ecclesiastical, 1099. The manor was given by Edward I. to a Dominican priory here, went to the Grimstones, the Morisons, and the Earls of Essex, and belongs now to the Blackwell family. The priory was founded in the 13th century by Roger Lucey, was the burial-place in 1312 of Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall; was enlarged and enriched by Edward IL, Edward III., and Edward IV., till it became the greatest house of its order in England, and was restored as a nunnery by Queen Mary. A royal palace was erected on a spot near the church by Henry III., was the birthplace of Edmund de Langley, fifth son of Edward III., was occupied during one Christmas by Edward IL, and till the time of Qneen Elizabeth by the dowager queens, and is now represented by some crumbling remains. Tessellated tiles are frequently found in the fields. Paper-making, brewing, malting, and straw-plaiting are carried on. The living is a rectory in the diocese of St Albans; net value, £221. Patron, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The church of All Saints' is a building of flint and stone in the Perpendicular style, comprises nave and chancel with an embattled tower, contains a piscina, a brass of 1528, and a restored monument of Prince Edmund de Langley, and contained temporarily the remains of Richard II. A chapel was built in 1878 at the end bf the north aisle, to which the tomb of Prince Edmund de Langley was removed. In 1887 a stained window was presented by Her Majesty, and placed at the east end of the chapel. There are other beautifully stained windows in the church, and the reredos is a unique piece of sculpture. Shendish is a country residence standing in a park of 200 acres. There are charities worth about, £50 a year.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Kings Langley from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Langley, King's (All Saints))

Land and Property

A full transcript of the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Hertfordshire is online.

Maps

Online maps of Kings Langley are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Hertfordshire newspapers online:

• Hertford Mercury and Reformer
• Herts Guardian, Agricultural Journal, and General Advertiser
• Watford Observer

Visitations Heraldic

The Visitations of Hertfordshire, 1572 and 1634. Edited by Walter C. Metcalfe, F.S.A. is available on the Heraldry page.