Hunton Bridge is a small settlement near

Abbots Langley Abbots Langley is a large village and civil parish in the English county of Hertfordshire. It is an old settlement and is mentioned (under the name of Langelai) in the Domesday Book. Economically the village is closely linked to Watford and was f ...

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, with a historic royal connection. Its population in the 1991 census was 327. It is in the Three Rivers population of Langleybury. Hunton Bridge enjoyed its greatest prosperity during 1810-26, when the

Sparrows Herne turnpike Sparrows Herne Turnpike Road from London to Aylesbury was an 18th-century English toll road passing through Watford and Hemel Hempstead. The route was approximately that of the original A41 road; the Edgware Road, through Watford, Kings Lang ...

ran through the village. Prior to that date the turnpike had run along Gypsy Lane and Upper Highway. In 1810 it was rerouted along Old Mill Lane to the village, and up the hill to reconnect with Upper Highway. By 1826 the presence of the

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow un ...

and the works associated with it had dried out the bottom land sufficiently for the turnpike to be rerouted along what is now the A41 avoiding the climb up Hunton Bridge Hill. Today the village is situated between the

M25 London orbital motorway The M25 or London Orbital Motorway is a major road encircling most of Greater London. The motorway is one of the most important roads in the UK and one of the busiest. Margaret Thatcher opened the final section in 1986, making the M25 the lon ...

and a spur of the motorway leading to

Watford Watford () is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, 15 miles northwest of Central London, on the River Colne. Initially a small market town, the Grand Junction Canal encouraged the construction of paper-making mills, print works, a ...

. The A41 trunk road runs just west of the village. The Hunton Bridge

filling station A filling station, also known as a gas station () or petrol station (), is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold in the 2010s were gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel. Gasoli ...

just off the Watford spur (Junction 19 of the M25) is a local landmark.

History

St Paul's Church

St Paul's Church is a Grade II* listed building, dating from 1863-5. It was designed by

Henry Woodyer Henry Woodyer (1816–1896) was an English architect, a pupil of William Butterfield and a disciple of A. W. N. Pugin and the Ecclesiologists. Life Woodyer was born in Guildford, Surrey, England, in 1816, the son of a successful, highly resp ...

for William Jones Loyd of Langleybury House. The Old Vicarage alongside, now a private home, dates from 1879.

Public houses

Hunton Bridge currently has two public houses. It used to have five, having lost the Maltsters Arms in 1963, the Farriers Arms in 1965, and The Dog and Partridge in August 2017. The remaining pubs are : *The Kings Head: a 300-year-old grade II listed building which has now been refurbished as a restaurant and bar. In the years when the turnpike ran through Hunton Bridge it served as a coaching inn; *the Kings Lodge, which was built in 1642 as a hunting lodge for King Charles I, also refurbished as a restaurant and bar.

1 Bridge Road

The land adjacent to the Grand Union Canal and to the north of Bridge Road was in industrial use from the opening of the canal. A coal wharf known as Hunton Bridge Wharf was established approximately 100 years after the opening, consisting of a tramway, warehouse and managers dwelling. Of these buildings only the cottage remains at 1 Bridge Road.

The Old School House

The original house was demolished and replaced with the current fine brick early Georgian building which was built in the late 1720s. Subsequent changes were made during the 1800s such as the addition of the library joining the main house to the servant wing. The schoolhouse was used for

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

services until the building of St Paul's church across the road in

Langleybury Langleybury is a country house and estate in Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire, England, about northwest of the centre of the town of Watford. The house stands on a low hill above the valley of the River Gade. Owners Raymond 1711–1756 The estate ...

Hunton Canal Bridge

The original structure was demolished in 1923 and replaced with an ornate reinforced concrete

skew arch A skew arch (also known as an oblique arch) is a method of construction that enables an arch bridge to span an obstacle at some angle other than a right angle. This results in the faces of the arch not being perpendicular to its abutments and its ...

. The structure includes an ornate cornice to the parapet and balustrades. The existing western edge beam was demolished in 1983 due to a vehicular impact with a new aluminium parapet. The structure was Grade II listed in 1985.

Planning history

On 28 June 1984, Three Rivers District Council Planning Committee resolved that an area of Hunton Bridge, should be designated as a Conservation Area, and subsequently extended in 1990 in terms of the Planning (Listed Building and Conservation Areas) Act 1990. Listed buildings within the boundary include

Grade II* Listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

* Church of St. Paul * The Kings Lodge

Grade II Listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

* Lych Gate * Loyd Memorial Cross * The Old School House * The Kings Head Public House * K6 Telephone Kiosk * Hunton Canal Bridge Locally Important Buildings * 1, Bridge Road * Brookside Cottages

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Hertfordshire Three Rivers District