Powerflush nearby to Stevenage
Stevenage is a large town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, located 29 miles (47 kilometers) north of London. Stevenage is located east of the A1(M) junctions 7 and 8, between Letchworth Garden City to the north and Welwyn Garden City to the south. Stevenage was designated as the United Kingdom’s first New Town under the New Towns Act in 1946.
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HISTORY
Stevenage is located near the Roman road that connects Verulamium to Baldock. Some Romano-British remains were discovered during the construction of the New Town, and a hoard of 2,000 silver Roman coins was discovered in the Chells Manor area in 1986 during house-building. Six Hills, six tumuli by the side of the old Great North Road that are presumably the burial places of members of a local family, are the most substantial evidence of Roman activity.
The first Saxon camp was established in a clearing in the woods near the Roman sites, where the church, manor house, and first village were later built. Settlements sprouted up in Chells, Broadwater, and Shephall as well. Shephall was a separate parish prior to the establishment of the New Town, and Broadwater was divided between the parishes of Shephall and Knebworth.
In 1086, the Lord of the Manor was the Abbot of Westminster Abbey, according to the Domesday Book. The town had relocated to the Great North Road. It was granted a Royal Charter in 1281 to hold a weekly market and an annual fair, which are still held in the High Street.
The first part of St Nicholas’ Church dates from the 12th century, but it was most likely a place of worship much earlier. From 1213, the list of rectors (parish priests) is relatively complete. The church was greatly improved around 1500, with decorative woodwork and the addition of a clerestory.
In Whomerley Wood, the ruins of a medieval moated homestead consist of an 80-yard-square trench that is nearly five feet wide in places. It was most likely Ralph de Homle’s home, and pieces of both Roman and later pottery have been discovered there.
In 1558, Thomas Alleyne, then Rector of Stevenage, established Alleyne’s Grammar School, a free grammar school for boys that, despite becoming a boys’ comprehensive school in 1967, continued to exist uninterrupted (unlike the grammar school in neighboring Hitchin) until 1989, when it was merged with Stevenage Girls’ School to become the Thomas Alleyne School. From 1952 to 1961, Francis Cammaerts was the Headmaster of Alleyne’s Grammar School. The school, which has been a mixed comprehensive school since 1989 and is now an academy as of 2013, is still located on its original site at the north end of High Street. The school was supposed to be relocated to Great Ashby, but the Coalition government (2010–15) scrapped the plan due to budget constraints.
The Great North Road, which was turnedpiked in the early 18th century on the site of the Marquess of Granby pub, contributed to Stevenage’s prosperity. Many inns on the High Street catered to the stagecoaches, which passed through Stevenage 21 times per day in 1800. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the road now known as Six Hills Way was frequented by highwaymen who sought refuge among the ancient burial mounds. The Highwayman pub in Graveley is named after James Whitney, who was hanged at Newgate in 1693 for robbing travelers in the area.
The Great Fire of Stevenage destroyed 42 properties in Middle Row on July 10, 1807, including Hellard’s almshouse of 1501.
It is thought that the fire was started when a young girl working as a chambermaid at one of the coaching inns emptied embers from the fireplace into the street.
Due to a strong North wind, sparks from the embers ignited the thatched roof of a nearby wheelwright’s shop and quickly engulfed the other timber-framed buildings in the Old Town’s north end.
Only by demolishing a house to serve as a firebreak was the conflagration prevented from engulfing the entire street.
The houses and inns were rebuilt with brick facades and tiled roofs after the fire was extinguished by Stevenage’s volunteer firefighters using a hand-operated fire engine made in 1763.
Troopers from the Hertfordshire Yeomanry aided the firefighters in their work.
The Great Northern Railway was built in 1850, effectively ending the era of the stagecoach. Throughout the nineteenth century, Stevenage grew slowly, and a second church (Holy Trinity) was built at the south end of the High Street. Dickens stated in 1861, “The village street was typical of most village streets: wide for its height, silent for its size, and drowsy to the point of drowsiness. The most peaceful little houses, with the largest window shutters to keep nothing out, as if it were the Mint or the Bank of England.”
Philip Vincent purchased the HRD Motorcycle Co Ltd from receivership in 1928, relocating it to Stevenage and renaming it the Vincent HRD Motorcycle Co Ltd. Until 1955, he manufactured the legendary motorcycles, including the Black Shadow and Black Lightning, in the town.
GEOGRAPHY
Stevenage has an oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification Cfb), as does almost the entire United Kingdom.
