Brickendon is a village in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

of Brickendon Liberty in the district of

East Hertfordshire East Hertfordshire is a local government district in Hertfordshire, England. Its council is based in Hertford, the county town of Hertfordshire. The largest town in the district is Bishop's Stortford, and the other main towns are Ware, Bunti ...

about south of the county town

Hertford Hertford ( ) is the county town of Hertfordshire, England, and is also a civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district of the county. The parish had a population of 26,783 at the 2011 census. The town grew around a ford on the River Lea, n ...

, and is served by

Bayford railway station Bayford railway station serves the villages of Bayford and Brickendon in Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the nort ...

. Centred on a traditional village green and a village pub, ''The Farmer's Boy'', there is an active community with several clubs and activities. The parish (rather than just the village) has won several awards in the Hertfordshire Village of the Year contest in recent years. The name is said to have come from a Saxon by the name of Bricca who laid claim to the hill site, the Saxon word 'don' meaning a hill; thus Bricca's Hill. In the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

the name appears as Brichendone. The manor of Brickendon was held by the canons and later the monks of

Waltham Abbey (abbey) The Abbey Church of Waltham Holy Cross and St Lawrence, also known as Waltham Abbey, is the parish church of the town of Waltham Abbey, Essex, England. It has been a place of worship since the 7th century. The present building dates mainly from ...

, Essex, from about 1060 until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Henry II created the

liberty Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...

of Brickendon in about 1174/84 which granted the abbot freedom from certain taxes normally due to the crown. The chapel, dedicated to the Holy Cross and

St Alban Saint Alban (; la, Albanus) is venerated as the first-recorded British Christian martyr, for which reason he is considered to be the British protomartyr. Along with fellow Saints Julius and Aaron, Alban is one of three named martyrs recorde ...

, was built in 1932 on land and with funds donated by Constance Demain Saunders and her mother Minnie Kingsley. It is part of the ecclesiastical parish of Bayford within the Hartford Hundred West group of parishes. Brickendon Grange was built by Benjamin Cherry in 1859 and is now a golf club designed by CK Cotton. Fanshaws mansion, built in 1885 by Henry Wilson Demain Saunders, is now the headquarters of the Institute of the Motor Industry. The second series of

Catweazle ''Catweazle'' is a British children's fantasy television series, starring Geoffrey Bayldon in the title role, and created by Richard Carpenter for London Weekend Television. The first series, produced and directed in 1969 by Quentin Lawren ...

was filmed around Brickendon in 1970. The former manor house at Brickendonbury was used as a spy training centre during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

as Station XVII of the

Special Operations Executive The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its p ...

(SOE) and is now home to the Tun Abdul Razak Research Centre of the

Malaysian Rubber Board The Malaysian Rubber Board (MRB; ms, Lembaga Getah Malaysia) is the custodian of the rubber industry in Malaysia. Established on 1 January 1998, it has under its fold three agencies ( RRIM, MRRDB and MRELB), which are now merged into one. The R&D ...

Governance

Brickendon has three tiers of local government, at parish, district, and county level: Brickendon Liberty Parish Council,

East Hertfordshire District Council East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...

, and

Hertfordshire County Council Hertfordshire County Council is the upper-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Hertfordshire, in England, the United Kingdom. After the 2021 election, it consists of 78 councillors, and is controlled by the Conservative Party, ...

. The name of the modern

is "Brickendon Liberty", referencing the area's former status as a parish liberty. The liberty of Brickendon was deemed to be part of the parish of All Saints, Hertford, but appointed its own overseers of the poor. Brickendon was included in the Hertford Poor Law Union from 1835 with its own representative on the

Board of Guardians Boards of guardians were ''ad hoc'' authorities that administered Poor Law in the United Kingdom from 1835 to 1930. England and Wales Boards of guardians were created by the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, replacing the parish overseers of the po ...

. As such, Brickendon was deemed to be a separate civil parish from 10 August 1866 under the Poor Law Amendment Act 1866. The civil parish of Brickendon at that time stretched from Brickendon village in the south right up into the town of Hertford in the north, with Castle Street, West Street and All Saints' Church all being within the civil parish of Brickendon, which was partly inside and partly outside the borough of Hertford. In 1891 the parish had a population of 1007. Under the

Local Government Act 1894 The Local Government Act 1894 (56 & 57 Vict. c. 73) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales outside the County of London. The Act followed the reforms carried out at county level un ...

, parishes which straddled borough boundaries were split into separate parishes inside and outside the borough. On 4 December 1894 the parish of Brickendon was therefore abolished and split to form two parishes called "Brickendon Rural" and "Brickendon Urban". Brickendon Rural was included in the

Hertford Rural District Hertford Rural District was a rural district in Hertfordshire, England from 1894 to 1974. It covered the rural area around the county town of Hertford, but did not include the town itself. Evolution The district had its origins in the Hertford ...

. Brickendon Urban had no parish council; it was governed directly by Hertford Borough Council. On 30 September 1900 Brickendon Urban and all the other civil parishes within the borough were abolished to become a single parish called Hertford. On 1 April 1929 the civil parish of Brickendon Liberty was created when Brickendon Rural merged with the neighbouring parish of

St John Rural ST, St, or St. may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Stanza, in poetry * Suicidal Tendencies, an American heavy metal/hardcore punk band * Star Trek, a science-fiction media franchise * Summa Theologica, a compendium of Catholic philosophy an ...

, which had been a sparsely populated rural parish created in 1894 from the parts of the old parish of St John, Hertford which lay outside the borough. On 1 April 1935 parts of

Broxbourne Broxbourne is a town and former civil parish, now in the unparished area of Hoddesdon, in the Broxbourne district, in Hertfordshire, England, north of London, with a population of 15,303 at the 2011 Census.Broxbourne Town population 2011 I ...

Hoddesdon Rural Hoddesdon () is a town in the Borough of Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, lying entirely within the London Metropolitan Area and Greater London Urban Area. The area is on the River Lea and the Lee Navigation along with the New River. Hoddesdon ...

and Wormley were transferred to Brickendon Liberty when these parishes were abolished. On 1 April 1939 part of Brickendon Liberty was transferred to

Little Amwell Little Amwell was a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, lying south-east of the county town of Hertford. The old village of Little Amwell forms the northern part of the modern village of Hertford Heath. The civil parish of Little ...

. Brickendon Liberty remained in Hertford Rural District until that district was abolished in 1974 to become part of

References

External links

Brickendon Liberty community website

A history of Brickendon

The Farmer's Boy

Tun Abdul Razak Research Centre

Brickendon Grange Golf Club

Institute of the Motor Industry
{{authority control Villages in Hertfordshire Former civil parishes in Hertfordshire East Hertfordshire District