including Beech Bottom Dyke and Sandridge Road Wastes
You can read a copy of the complete document here which is slightly blurred. A recent clear copy is available here.
1915 Management Agreement Commentary
The document here is the “Management Agreement” drawn up by the then St Albans Corporation in 1915 to set out its powers to manage Bernards Heath. The provisions in the agreement have been turned into local by-laws.
Continue reading “Bernards Heath 1915 Management Agreement”Local historian, Peter Burley, has recently published an account of ‘Battlefields as Assets of Community Value (ACVs)’ in the Battlefield Magazine. You may well ask what is an ACV? , well the answer to this appears in the article, a copy of which is shown below with particular reference to the second Battle of St Albans, 1461 on Bernards Heath.
The text is not easy to read in the copy below, so this is reproduced in the pdf document here. The copy depicts a scene from the Battle, painted by Graham Turner.
The Friends of Bernards Heath (FoBH) exists for the interests of two of the three pieces of registered common land which lie within St Albans’ city boundaries; Bernards Heath and Sandridge Road Wastes.
Sandpit Lane Wastes are not included. Note that Beech Bottom Dyke, another Friends concern, is a Scheduled Ancient Monument (SAM), but not common land and is owned by St Albans District Council (SACDC).
Continue reading “Common Land”and possibly the site of the 2nd battle of St Albans 1481.
See larger image here
This is the earliest picture of the Heath that we know of that dates from the early 19th century.
The picture comes from a document entitled ‘Our own country’ and is published by Cassell and Co. Ltd. It was digitised by the the University of California. No author is mentioned.
It has been suggested that the view is looking north towards Sandridgebury and another suggestion is that the building in the distance is more likely to be St Leonard’s Church, Sandridge.
It is interesting that most of the pictures in the document mentioned above are easily relatable to local buildings or scenery, including those in St Albans, but this view could have been related to many locations, perhaps even including the artist’s mind.
Update 14th June 2023
A chance meeting by Peter Burley with a former resident of Sandbridgebury House has confirmed that the building in the picture is indeed her former home. What better provenance – thank you Peter.
The picture is currently exhibited in St Albans Museum + Gallery.
Round shot saved
A round shot from the second St Albans (1461) battlefield has been saved from going into a private collection by the Battlefields Trust and the St Albans and Hertfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society (SAHAAS).
The round shot was discovered by a metal detectorist in the Bernards Heath area of St Albans in 2014 and displayed at the St Albans Museum in an exhibition in 2016, but it was never returned to its owner after the exhibition. John Morewood, SAHAAS president, tracked it down to a dealer in antique arms in Brighton.
Continue reading “Wars of the Roses”
A walk within the parish of St Saviour’s with the Friends of Bernards Heath.
Start at St Saviour’s Church – end at the King Will.
A parhelion or sun dog is an optical phenomenon that consists of a bright spot to one or both sides of the Sun caused by the refraction of sunlight by ice crystals in the atmosphere. There is often a halo as well. In this case there is just one sun dog and no halo.
Peter Burley, local historian, writes: Its historical interest is that a parhelion appeared on another Wars of the Roses battlefield in January 1461 at Mortimer’s Cross in Herefordshire. The Earl of March – the Yorkist commander and future Edward IV – seized the initiative and told his troops that it was a sign from heaven that they would win the battle. They did and the Yorkists adopted a symbol of three suns in splendour for their banners – and this won them a second battle at Barnet (1471) when the Lancastrian Earl of Oxford’s banner of stars was mistaken for the Yorkist suns and the Lancastrian army started fighting itself.
Photo: PB
We’re having a tree at the St Saviour’s Christmas Tree Festival – our theme will be ‘Christmas on the home front in Bernards Heath in 1917‘. We know from the Roll of Honour that thirty-four young men (see below) from the Bernards Heath area died at the Front that year, and we know their names, but we don’t know anything else about them. 16 of the 34 were killed at Passchendaele.
Our tree will honour them, and remember what was going on back home that Christmas. Can you, or anyone you know who had family in Bernards Heath back then, help us with any information about them, or the Christmas customs locally in 1917? If you can help, please get in touch emailing Jenny Burley, jennyburley1@gmail.com
Jenny is making 34 of these decorative poppies for the tree
The 34 names from the Roll of Honour for 1917:
Captain Guy Frederick Bailey MC, 7 July 1917 (Western Front)
Private Charles Aubrey Bamford, 29 November 1917 (Western Front)
Lieutenant Henry Lee Betts, 20 September 1917 (Western Front)
Private Percy Buck, 31 July 1917 (Western Front)
Private Albert Edward Butcher, 24 December 1917 (Western Front)
Corporal Frederick Ernest Butcher, 20 July 1917 (Palestine)
Gunner Cyril Hugh Thomas Calvert, 9 October 1917 (Western Front)
Private Charles Ridgway Cooper, 12 April 1917 (Western Front)
Private Albert Josiah Critten, 28 April 1917 (Western Front)
Driver Charles Robert George Day, 29 November 1917 (Egypt)
Private Walter Dennis, 28 April 1917 (Western Front)
Private George Field, 20 October 1917 (Western Front)
Private Harry James Gates, 26 November 1917 (Western Front)
Private Charles William Harris, 23 July 1917 (Western Front)
Private Alfred Thomas Hopkins, 20 September 1917 (Western Front)
Private George Marcus Hornett, 22 September 1917 (Western Front)
Private Arthur Ivory, 23 April 1917 (Western Front)
Private Harry Ivory, 3 August 1917 (Western Front)
Corporal Ernest Walter Izzard, 31 July 1917 (Western Front)
Private James William Keech, 21 September 1917 (Western Front)
Bombardier Henry John Manners, 21 October 1917 (Western Front)
Private Kenneth Ernest Knott, 21 September 1917 (Western Front)
Midshipman Richard Owen, 14 June 1917 (Atlantic Ocean)
Sergeant William James Payne, 31 July 1917 (Western Front)
Private Harry Peacock, 28 April 1917 (Western Front)
Lieutenant Geoffrey Edward Sewell, 2 September 1917 (Western Front)
Gunner Bertram Christian Sexton, 1 November 1917 (Western Front)
Lance Corporal Alfred Stone, 24 June 1917 (Western Front)
Private Charles Stratton, 28 March 1917 (Western Front)
Gunner William Taylor, 30 September 1917 (Western Front)
Gunner Arthur George Tyler, 8 July 1917 (Western Front)
Captain Harold Henry Underwood, 19 April 1917 (Palestine)
Private Frank Warwick, 8 December 1917 (Western Front)
Quartermaster Frank Arthur Wilkinson, August 1917 (on active service in the merchant marine)
A walk around the parish of St Saviour’s, Sandpit Lane conducted by local historian Peter Burley.
Meet at the hall, 25 Sandpit Lane at 2.00 pm
on Sunday 19th February.
The walk will be followed by tea and a talk in the hall at 3.30 pm. You are welcome to arrive in time for the talk.
It will not cover the whole boundary, that would be too ambitious, but the eastern third of the parish going from the church via the Wick and back again along Marshal’s Drive.
This is a valedictory event for Father Peter at St Saviour’s and all are welcome.
The walk on the 8th May was very successful with 30 people joining on what was a sunny warm afternoon. Local historian Peter Burley led the walk, with an impressive depth of knowledge about the area.
Continue reading “Bernards Heath Guided Walk”