Everything about Baldock totally explained
The town
Baldock is a
town in
Hertfordshire,
England where the
River Ivel rises. It is in the
local government district of
North Hertfordshire.
Baldock was founded by the
Knights Templar (also the name of the town's
secondary school) in the 1140s. Indeed, the word
Baldock is believed to be a corruption of
Baghdad, which the Templars had hoped to conquer during the
crusades, as it was a famous and prosperous city. The popular suggestion that the name is more likely to be derived from "Bald Oak", meaning a dead
oak is a
folk etymology unsupported by early forms of the name. The modern layout of the town, and many buildings in the centre, date from the
sixteenth century, with the earliest dating from the
fourteenth century.
The town grew up where the old
Great North Road and the
Icknield Way crossed. Despite the construction of the
A1(M) motorway in
1970, which bypassed the town (and which was called the Baldock Bypass for some years), it was still a major traffic bottleneck until March of
2006, when a new bypass removed the
A505 road (old
Icknield Way) from the town.
Due to its location, the town was a major staging post between
London and the north: many old
coaching inns still operate as pubs and hotels, and Baldock has a surprising number of pubs for its size. The high street is very wide, which is a typical feature of medieval
market places. Unusually, Baldock has a second
market place in White Horse Street. The success of Baldock's market led to the decline of
Ashwell as a
market town.
The number of pubs becomes less surprising once the adjacent, much larger town of
Letchworth Garden City is visited.
Letchworth Garden City had no alcohol prior to 1958, and only two pubs plus a hotel bar were present up until the mid 1990s. Its larger population had for many years visited both Baldock and
Hitchin for refreshment.
The town has a
railway station on the line between
Kings Cross and
Cambridge.
There has been human activity on the site well before the modern town was founded. Prehistoric remains on
Clothall Common dates back as far as
c 3000 BCE. Many
Roman remains have been discovered during building work in and around the town, and the core of the
Roman settlement is on Walls Field near the Hartsfield Primary School in the town. Earlier
Iron Age remains have also been uncovered in the same general location, which may be the earliest town ever to develop in Britain.
A
medieval leper colony, on Royston Road, was located during excavations in 2003, having been though for many years to lie to the south-east of the town on the former Pesthouse Lane (now Clothall Road), the A507.
From 1808 to 1814, Baldock hosted a station in the
shutter telegraph chain that connected the Admiralty in
London to its naval ships in the port of
Great Yarmouth.
An authoritative history of "Baldock's
Middle Ages" (ISBN 0-905858-97-2) was complied by Vivian Crellin, a former headmaster of the
Knights Templar School, while local archaeologists Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews and Gilbert Burleigh published 'Ancient Baldock: the story of an Iron Age and Roman town' in 2007.
In the 1960/70s Baldock was a centre of
Laser research at a MOD laboratory called SERL (Services Electronics Research Laboratory). This facility closed in the late 1970's and some projects and staff were transferred to
RSRE (Royal Signals & Radar Establishment) near
Pershore.
The character of Baldock will no doubt change considerably now that the bypass has opened, removing traffic which has passed from the
A1 motorway to the
A505 towards
Royston and
Cambridge. The bypass was opened on
16 March 2006.
Baldock was formerly the location of a film processing factory which folded before the company (originally based in Letchworth Garden City) could move in; local folklore has it that it was a silent film studio, but this isn't the case. The building was then bought by the Full-Fashioned Hosiery Company from
Halifax, later becoming the Kayser Bondor ladies stocking factory (which temporarily produced parachutes during World War II). Its
Art Deco facade still stands as the largest Listed Building in the town; it was converted to a
Tesco supermarket in the late
1980s. Another notable building in the town is the
thirteenth century Baldock
Parish Church of
St. Mary.
Malting and
brewing were formerly major industries in the town, but apart from some
light industry, today it's mostly a
commuter town.
The town has excellent (free) parking facilities. Fewer lorries now pass through the town because of the new bypass. In the past few years, many businesses have shut down in Baldock. Baldock lost its local football side,
Baldock Town F.C. in 2001, after nearly a 100 years of existence.
Located to the east of the town there's a large residential estate built in several phases. This is known as Clothall Common. Some residents are lobbying to have one green space given village green status. A significant archeological dig took place in this part of Baldock in the late 80's.
Primary Schools
St Mary's Junior Mixed School
Hartsfield Junior Mixed and Infant School
St John Roman Catholic Primary School
Secondary Schools
Knights Templar School
Brandles School
Nearby villages
Further Information
Get more info on 'Baldock'.
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