Great Wymondley 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

of Wymondley, in the

North Hertfordshire North Hertfordshire is one of ten local government districts in the county of Hertfordshire, England. Its council is based in Letchworth Garden City and the largest town is Hitchin. The district also includes the towns of Baldock and Royston ...

district of

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...

, England. It lies east of

Hitchin Hitchin () is a market town in the North Hertfordshire Districts of England, district of Hertfordshire, England. The town dates from at least the 7th century. It lies in the valley of the River Hiz at the north-eastern end of the Chiltern Hills ...

. Despite the names, Great Wymondley is now smaller than its neighbour,

Little Wymondley Little Wymondley is a village in the parish of Wymondley, in the North Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England. It lies south-east of Hitchin, its post town, and a similar distance north-west of Stevenage. The built-up area of Little ...

History

Roman

The Wymondley area was inhabited in

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

times. Wymondley Roman Villa lies to the west of the village near

Ninesprings Ninesprings is a country park situated in the South East of Yeovil, Somerset, the United Kingdom. It is the largest country park in South Somerset, spanning over . The site lies on Yeovil Sands (a yellow micaceous sand) of the Upper Lias, in ...

in the valley of the River Purwell. Traditionally, the site has been interpreted as a

Roman villa A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house in the territory of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions. Nevertheless, the term "Roman villa" generally covers buildings with the common ...

, but following excavations, more recent thinking is that the remains are a

bathhouse Bathhouse may refer to: * Public baths, public facilities for bathing * Gay bathhouse A gay bathhouse, also known as a gay sauna or a gay steambath, is a public bath targeted towards Gay men, gay and Bisexuality, bisexual men. In gay slang, a ...

. In the late 19th century the historian Frederic Seebohm, who lived in Hitchin, studied the layout of local villages, including Wymondley's

field system The study of field systems (collections of fields) in landscape history is concerned with the size, shape and orientation of a number of fields. These are often adjacent, but may be separated by a later feature. Field systems by region Czech Repub ...

. In publications such as ''The English Village Community'' (1883), he looked at continuity between Roman and English villages. Seebohm was aware that there was a

Roman road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

east of Wymondley, passing through Graveley on the way to

Baldock Baldock ( ) is a historic market town in the North Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England. The River Ivel rises from springs in the town. It lies north of London and north northwest of the county town of Hertford. Nearby towns inc ...

. He was also aware of research that had been done on the work of Roman land surveyors (known as ''

gromatici ''Gromatici'' (from Latin '' groma'' or ''gruma'', a surveyor's pole) or ''agrimensores'' was the name for land surveyors amongst the ancient Romans. The "gromatic writers" were technical writers who codified their techniques of surveying, m ...

'') on sites elsewhere in Europe that preserved more evidence of the Roman landscape. As well as aligning roads, Roman land surveyors were involved in delineating field boundaries for the system of land division called

centuriation Centuriation (in Latin ''centuriatio'' or, more usually, ''limitatio''), also known as Roman grid, was a method of land measurement used by the Romans. In many cases land divisions based on the survey formed a field system, often referred to in m ...

. Seebohm argued that Wymondley's

open-field system The open-field system was the prevalent Agriculture in the Middle Ages, agricultural system in much of Europe during the Middle Ages and lasted into the 20th century in Russia, Iran, and Turkey. Each Manorialism, manor or village had two or thre ...

, as recorded on detailed manorial maps, incorporated old boundaries and in particular fossilised Roman boundaries. He suggested that the dimensions of the fields to the west of the Roman road reflect the use of an ancient unit of measurement called the

jugerum The jugerum or juger (, ', ', or ') was a Roman unit of area, equivalent to a rectangle 240 Roman feet in length and 120 feet in width (about 71×35½m), i.e. 28,800 square Roman feet () or about hectare (0.623 acre). Name It was the do ...

. Assuming the validity of this analysis, which according to Michael Wood has been confirmed at least in part by later scholars, it is implied that: * there was territorial reorganisation in Roman times * there was continuity in the way the land was managed before and after the Anglo-Saxon settlement of this part of Hertfordshire. Toponyms also supply some evidence for continuity, for example the village of Wallington near Baldock appears to have been named by the Anglo-Saxons after its Romano-British population.

Medieval

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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 records 58 households at Wymondley, with the land being divided between four owners. It does not distinguish between Great Wymondley and Little Wymondley, but later historians have deduced that the lands of Gosbert of Beauvais and those held directly by

King William King William may refer to: People Bimbia * William I of Bimbia * William II of Bimbia () Britain and Ireland * William of England (disambiguation), multiple kings * William I, King of Scots (–1214), also known as William the Lion German Empir ...

correspond to Great Wymondley, whilst the lands of Robert Gernon and

Odo of Bayeux Odo of Bayeux (died 1097) was a Norman nobleman who was a bishop of Bayeux in Normandy and was made Earl of Kent in England following the Norman Conquest. He was the maternal half-brother of duke, and later king, William the Conqueror, and w ...

were Little Wymondley. A

motte-and-bailey castle A motte-and-bailey castle is a European fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground called a motte, accompanied by a walled courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade. Relatively easy ...

known as Wymondley Castle was built on a site immediately east of the parish church, possibly during

The Anarchy The Anarchy was a civil war in England and Duchy of Normandy, Normandy between 1138 and 1153, which resulted in a widespread breakdown in law and order. The conflict was a war of succession precipitated by the accidental death of William Adel ...

of 1138 to 1153. The castle did not endure for long, and only earthworks remain. Wymondley was anciently part of the parish of Hitchin. There was a church at Great Wymondley by the 12th century, which was originally a

chapel of ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently, generally due to trav ...

St Mary's Church, Hitchin St Mary's Church is a Church of England parish church in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England. St Mary's Church is the largest parish church in Hertfordshire, and is remarkably large for a town of the size of Hitchin — this has been cited as eviden ...

. The church at Great Wymondley had its own clergy by the early 13th century and Great Wymondley was thereafter treated as a separate parish, although it retained some ties to Hitchin until the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

in the 16th century. Around the same time that Great Wymondley became a parish, a church was also built at Little Wymondley, which had become a separate parish by 1235. The boundary between the two parishes of Great Wymondley and Little Wymondley was complex, as was often the case with parishes created at this time out of a previously united territory. Both parishes had detached parcels of land in the area around Titmore Green and Todds Green at the southern end of the old Wymondley territory. Great Wymondley's parish church of St Mary the Virgin is a

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

building. It has a

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 9th and 10th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norma ...

nave and

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

, the latter being an

apse In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault (architecture), vault or semi-dome, also known as an ' ...

built of small rounded stones. The Manor House, at the corner of Hitchin Road and Willian Road, dates back to the 15th century.

Later history

Delamere House is an elegant

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The Roman symbol of Britannia (a female per ...

building. There are also a number of thatched cottages, including a row of terraced cottages called Hornbeam Court on Arch Road, built in 1818, each of which is named after one of

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. ...

's wives.

Geography

The village is set in an agricultural landscape which is protected within the

Green Belt A green belt or greenbelt is a policy, and land-use zone designation used in land-use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wilderness, wild, or agricultural landscape, land surrounding or neighboring urban areas. Similar concepts ...

.Natural and historic environments
www.wymondley.org The soil is

boulder clay Boulder clay is an unsorted agglomeration of clastic sediment that is unstratified and structureless and contains gravel of various sizes, shapes, and compositions distributed at random in a fine-grained matrix. The fine-grained matrix consists o ...

above chalk. The village has a public house, the Green Man. There is a small village hall which comprises a former

tin tabernacle A tin tabernacle, also known as an iron church, is a type of prefabricated ecclesiastical building made from corrugated galvanised iron. They were developed in the mid-19th century, initially in the United Kingdom. Corrugated iron was first u ...

that was originally erected as a church in

Hastings Hastings ( ) is a seaside town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to th ...

, before being dismantled and rebuilt in Great Wymondley as a village hall in 1912.

Governance

Great Wymondley forms part of the parish of Wymondley. There are three tiers of local government covering Wymondley, at

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

district A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

, and

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

level: Wymondley Parish Council,

North Hertfordshire District Council North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is ...

, and

Hertfordshire County Council Hertfordshire County Council is the upper-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Hertfordshire, in England. The council was created in 1889. It is responsible for a wide range of public services in the county, including social c ...

. The civil parishes of Great Wymondley and Little Wymondley were merged into a single parish called Wymondley in 1937. In 1931 (the last census before the abolition of the civil parish), Great Wymondley had a population of 285.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Hertfordshire Roman sites in Hertfordshire Former civil parishes in Hertfordshire North Hertfordshire District