Nasty, Romans and Vogons.

The text and routes in these mapping apps are based on content in my blog where you can find the updated versions of the routes and notes on the landscape, history and things to watch out for. Link www.pootler.co.uk.

The route starts from Knebworth Station and then runs clockwise to the east of Stevenage, on quiet, gently undulating roads around the East Hertfordshire Plateau. (You could as easily start from Stevenage, if you don’t mind the town traffic!). It crosses the River Rib and (Roman) Ermine Street at Buntingford and beyond that follows the River Quin south to Braughing, before turning West to return to Knebworth via Stapleford. This was another part of territory of the Catuvellauni until the Romans arrived and turned their oppidum at Braughing into a town which for a while vied in importance with St Albans. There is little t o see of it now; and the varied landscape is a microcosm of the changes in the agricultural and village landscape since Medieval times.

Zooming In

Highlights are:

The post mill in Cromer. You won’t see many of those!

Locations used in the 2005 film of 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent's house and the local pub, where he is drinking when the planet is blown up.

A hamlet named 'Nasty'. You can guarantee that name wasn't invented by estate agents. (There is also a hill called Bummers!)

Buntingford, where the High Street is a Roman Road and (it is claimed) became England’s first turnpike.

A cornucopia of ancient and listed buildings. The churches at Walkern, St Wydial, Buntingford and Braughing are rated 'Grade 1' and (catering to my own religion), Braughing has a Grade 2* listed boozer, the Brown Bear

And gratuitous oddities.

On the blog there are detailed notes on waypoints and things to see ,which I hope will be more entertaining than the links to dry Wikipedia articles dredged up as POI’s by the mapping apps’ software robots. If your mapping app has not imported these, use this link to go directly to the blog post of the route. This cannot give you the exact location for each waypoint but it many cases you won’t need it and at least the information will be up to date!

Link: Pootler Route

Zooming Out

This is chalk country but that is usually only seen where the plateau has been dissected by a river. Elsewhere it is covered, mostly by boulder clay, first deposited and then diced, sliced and scoured through aeons of glaciation and erosion. In the valleys, more fertile loamy soils facilitate intensive arable farming.

In the Iron Age, the Belgic 'Catuvellauni' tribe took over the area from the Trinovantes and built an 'Oppida' or stronghold at Braughing, which is on this route and which later developed into a lively, commercial Roman settlement covering some 15 ha. To picture it, think of a settlement of timber houses built around a few streets, with a few brick or stone public buildings such as a baths. Only a little further south, at Puckridge, was the intersection of Stane Street, Ermine Street and other major roads, all part of the system that started with the Appian Way in Rome and revolutionised European transport. There is nothing to see now, but Braughing is regarded as one of the most important archaeological sites in Hertfordshire.  The current pattern of settlement and cultivation began with the Saxons. One of the early tribes were known as the Brahingas who gave their name to Braughing. The villages are stuffed full of Listed Buildings and old churches. Some of the latter have Saxon origins traces of the latter See Link: Listed Buildings in Herts

Beyond that the main legacy is in the faded patterns of ditches, fields and tracks in what experts define as 'ancient' countryside with villages, isolated farms and hamlets, narrow lanes and very old hedgerows; a pattern of settlement thought to have been created by 'assarting', or the clearance of forests, in the 12th & 13th century. Forests apart, the area has always been relatively densely settled.

Braughing’s decline as an administrative centre compared to St Albans started very early on, and in the Medieval era it must also have been eclipsed by places like Ware, with its access to the navigable River Lea. Like most places, the agricultural population and economy would have grown in the centuries immediately after the Norman Conquest. The 1300’s brought a sharp reversal as the climate cooled and crop failures were followed by the Black Death at a time when England was almost constantly at war. If there is once century to avoid on your time travels, this might be it! There are several abandoned villages hereabouts. Recovery took a century or more during which labour shortages led to rising incomes and a shift towards less labour-intensive pastoral farming, mainly sheep. People started investing in the their property and many of the oldest houses that you see today were the result of this ‘Great Rebuilding’.

 

On the blog you will also find posts on the rich and complicated human and topographical history of the area as a whole, ranging from the early occupation, the changing agricultural landscape, the geomorphology of the chalk country, the buildings and anything else that moves me.

At Link: Pootler / Other Stuff

Route Tips

If your app provides notes on the road surfaces etc. keep in mind that they are automatically generated and only as good as the underlying mapping.This is a road tour and I have never had a problem on it.