Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire

Historical Description

Rickmansworth, a small town and a parish in Herts. The town stands at the confluence of the rivers Chess, Glade, and Colne, and on the Grand Junction Canal, 3¾ miles W by 8 of Watford, and 18 from London. It has a station on the Metropolitan railway, and is the terminal station of a branch of the L. & N.W.R. from Watford. It was originally called Rykemereswearth, a name which meant the "rich moor meadow," has pleasant environs, and attracts many anglers for the sake of sport in the neighbouring waters. It was formerly a market-town, the market being held on Friday, but this has become obsolete. The town, however, still has a fair for cattle on 24 Nov. There are paper mills, a large brewery, a bank, and the works of the Rickmansworth and Uxbridge Valley Waterworks Company, which were constructed during the years 1883-89 at a cost of about £62,000. There are a post, money order, and telegraph office (R.S.O.), a town-hall erected in 1869 which will seat 400 persons, and an unusually efficient fire brigade. The parish contains also Mill End, Croxley Green, West Hyde, Batchworth, and Chorley Wood, which are noticed separately. Acreage, 9904 of land and 116 of water; population of the civil parish, 6974; of the ecclesiastical, 3730. There is a parish council consisting of fifteen members. The manor belonged to the Saxon kings, was given by Offa to St Albans Abbey, went at the dissolution to Bishop Eidley, was given by Mary to Bishop Bonner, reverted in the time of Elizabeth to the Crown, passed to the Fother-leys and the Whitfields, and now belongs to the Gilliats. Moor Park, the seat of Lord Ebury, about a mile S of the town, is a magnificent building of Portland stone, originally erected in 1678, afterwards almost wholly rebuilt in 1720, and since greatly improved. It stands in the midst of a beautiful park of about 500 acres. Rickmansworth Park is a chief residence,. and there are several other good residences in the town and its vicinity. The church, which was rebuilt with the exception of the tower in 1890 at a cost of about £5500, is a building of flint and stone in the Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel with aisles, nave, aisles, N porch, and an embattled western tower of flint. The chancel has a piscina. and three sedilia. The vicarage house is an ancient building, some portions of it dating from about the middle of the 15th century. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of St Albans;. net value, £373, in the gift of the Bishop of St Albans. There are Baptist and Wesleyan chapels, almshouses for nine poor persons, and a cemetery of 6 acres with two mortuary chapels.

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.

Church Records

Findmypast, in association with the Hertfordshire Archives & Local Studies have the Baptisms, Banns, Marriages, and Burials online for Rickmansworth

Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Rickmansworth from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Rickmansworth (St. Mary))

Land and Property

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

Maps

Online maps of Rickmansworth 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.