Tring, Hertfordshire

Historical Description

Tring, a small market-town and a parish in Herts. The town stands on Icknield Street, 1½ mile W of the L. & N.W.R., on which it has a station, and 4¼ miles NW of Berkhampstead. Acreage of the civil parish, 7770 of land and 221 of water; population, 5426; of the ecclesiastical, 4986. Tring has an urban district council consisting of twelve members. The hamlets of Wilstone and Long Marston have a parish council consisting of five members. Tring is an ancient place, was known at Domesday as Treung, and belonged then to R. D'Eu. It now consists chiefly of two well-built streets, has a weekly market for corn and straw-plait on Friday, and fairs on Easter Monday and Old Michaelmas Day. The industries include the manufacture of straw-plait, the weaving of canvas, and brewing. It has a head post office. The Victoria Hall, erected in 1886, is a building of red brick and stone in the Italian Renaissance style, containing a reading-room, library, and a large assembly room. There is also a mechanics' institute. The special glory of Tring, however, is Mr Walter Rothschild's museum, a plain building of red brick opened in 1892. It is wholly zoological, and contains a magnificent collection of stuffed birds, mammals, reptiles, and fishes, a large number of specimens preserved in alcohol, a fine collection of shells, corals, and sponges, and some hundreds of thousands of insects. The museum is divided into public galleries and a students' department, and is being continually enriched with new specimens, collected and forwarded by Mr Walter Rothschild's agents from all parts of the world. The manor of Tring belongs to Lord Rothschild. Tring Park, one of the seats of Lord Rothschild, is a fine mansion pleasantly situated amidst very beautiful scenery. The living is a vicarage, united with the chapelry of Wilstone, in the diocese of St Albans; net value, £170 with residence. The church is an ancient edifice of stone and flint in the Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, S porch, and a massive embattled western tower. There are a Primitive Methodist and four Baptist chapels, and charities worth about £320 a year. Little Tring, Tring Grove, and Welstone are adjacent hamlets. There are a church and a Baptist chapel at Wilstone.

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 Tring

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Tring from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (TRING (St. Peter and St. Paul))

Land and Property

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

Maps

Online maps of Tring 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.