Bourne End is a village in
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...
, England. It is situated on the ancient Roman
Akeman Street
Akeman Street is a Roman road in southern England between the modern counties of Hertfordshire and Gloucestershire. It is approximately long and runs roughly east–west.
Akeman Street linked Watling Street just north of Verulamium (near mode ...
between
Berkhamsted
Berkhamsted ( ) is a historic market town in Hertfordshire, England, in the Bulbourne valley, north-west of London. The town is a civil parish with a town council within the borough of Dacorum which is based in the neighbouring large new town ...
and
Hemel Hempstead
Hemel Hempstead () is a town in the Dacorum district in Hertfordshire, England, northwest of London, which is part of the Greater London Urban Area. The population at the 2011 census was 97,500.
Developed after the Second World War as a ne ...
, on the former A41
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
-
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
Trunk Route, on the Grand Union Canal that runs between
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
and
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
and at the confluence of the Chiltern chalk stream, the Bourne Gutter and the
River Bulbourne
The River Bulbourne is a small river in Dacorum, Hertfordshire, England. The word bourne derives from the Anglo-Saxon word for a stream. It is an unnavigable tributary of the River Gade, which flows into the River Colne, which in turn is a trib ...
. It is in the Dacorum Ward of Bovingdon, Flaunden and Chipperfield.
History
Bourne End formerly lay within the extended parish of
Northchurch
Northchurch is a village and civil parish in the Bulbourne valley in the county of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. It lies between the towns of Berkhamsted and Tring.
Situated on the Roman road Akeman Street, a major Roman villa dating from ...
(Berkhamsted St. Mary). It was then known as the
hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
of Broadway.
In 1909 the south-eastern part of Northchurch was separated into a new parish consisting of the hamlets of Sunnyside and Broadway. Bourne End/Broadway became a separate parish in 1915.
Bourne End derives its name as it lies at the end of the Bourne Gutter, an irregularly flowing stream, at its confluence with the
River Bulbourne
The River Bulbourne is a small river in Dacorum, Hertfordshire, England. The word bourne derives from the Anglo-Saxon word for a stream. It is an unnavigable tributary of the River Gade, which flows into the River Colne, which in turn is a trib ...
. According to local tradition the Bourne Gutter is a
Woe Water that only flows at times of tragedy. Recorded instances include during 1665 at the time of the
Great Plague
The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...
, in 1914 at the outbreak of the
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and in 1956 during the
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the Tripartite Aggression ( ar, العدوان الثلاثي, Al-ʿUdwān aṯ-Ṯulāṯiyy) in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel,Also known as the Suez War or 1956 Wa ...
. The Hemel Hempstead Gazette has also run stories on the Gutter flowing in early 1982 as Argentinian Forces invaded the
Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouzet ...
, in early October 1987 days before the
Great Storm of 1987 that devastated woodlands throughout southern England, and in 2003 as British troops joined the International invasion of Iraq. It also began flowing in March 2020, during the early stages of the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
within the UK, and throughout Winter 2020 into Spring 2021.
Bourne End was the scene of the
rail disaster
Classification of railway accidents, both in terms of cause and effect, is a valuable aid in studying rail (and other) accidents to help to prevent similar ones occurring in the future. Systematic investigation for over 150 years has led to the r ...
on the
West Coast Main Line
The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is one of the most important railway corridors in the United Kingdom, connecting the major cities of London and Glasgow with branches to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh. It is one of the busiest ...
on 30 September 1945 when an express train was derailed with many fatalities.
Church of Saint John the Evangelist
![Church of Saint John the Evangelist Bourne End 02](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Church_of_Saint_John_the_Evangelist_Bourne_End_02.jpg)
In the 1850s the rector Cannon Sir John Hobart Culme Seymour decided to found 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.
Often a chapel of ea ...
for St Mary's Northchurch. The architect
George Gilbert Scott
Sir George Gilbert Scott (13 July 1811 – 27 March 1878), known as Sir Gilbert Scott, was a prolific English Gothic Revival architect, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches and cathedrals, although he started ...
was commissioned to design the new church and construction was funded by Thomas Halsey of The Hall, Berkhamsted. An additional donation was made by the
Prince of Wales
Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...
on behalf of the landowner, the
Duchy of Cornwall
The Duchy of Cornwall ( kw, Duketh Kernow) is one of two royal duchies in England, the other being the Duchy of Lancaster. The eldest son of the reigning British monarch obtains possession of the duchy and the title of 'Duke of Cornwall' at ...
.
The Church of St. John The Evangelist was completed in 1854. It is a small flint church in the
Gothic Revival
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
style with a steep pitched roofs and decorative red tiles topped with a small wooden
spire
A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are ...
, a timber-framed porch and a semicircular
apse
In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...
at the east end.
The six stained glass windows in the apse are early works by
Alfred Bell. In 1889-1891 the chancel was altered to add a richly carved altar and a Gothic reredos depicting the Resurrection, and the domed apse ceiling was decorated with a painted scene of Dante's vision of Heaven, painted by David Bell.
In 2001 four of the Alfred Bell stained glass windows were stolen. These have since been replaced by replica windows, installed in 2003.
References
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Villages in Hertfordshire
Dacorum