Lemsford is a village and

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

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 gover ...

, England. It is near

Welwyn Garden City Welwyn Garden City ( ) is a town in Hertfordshire, England, north of London. It was the second garden city in England (founded 1920) and one of the first new towns (designated 1948). It is unique in being both a garden city and a new town and ...

and Hatfield and is in the Hatfield Villages Ward of the Borough of Welwyn/Hatfield.

Lemsford Springs Lemsford Springs is a 4 hectare nature reserve in Lemsford, Hertfordshire, England. It is managed by the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, which purchased the site in 1970. Notable for its lagoons, the site is in the Lea valley and its other ha ...

is a small nature reserve. Its lagoons are important for birds such as the

Green sandpiper The green sandpiper (''Tringa ochropus'') is a small wader (shorebird) of the Old World. The green sandpiper represents an ancient lineage of the genus ''Tringa''; its only close living relative is the solitary sandpiper (''T. solitaria''). The ...

. The yearly Lemsford Fete garners thousands of visitors and is a traditional English country fete. Held at St. John's School and Church, activities include maypole dancing, raffles and live music.

History

The parish was created in 1858 out of the parish of Bishop's Hatfield. However, the settlement is older.

Buildings of interest

Lemsford Mill

Lemsford Mill, which is

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 Ire ...

, is a 19th-century structure on the

River Lea The River Lea ( ) is in South East England. It originates in Bedfordshire, in the Chiltern Hills, and flows southeast through Hertfordshire, along the Essex border and into Greater London, to meet the River Thames at Bow Creek. It is one of t ...

. It probably occupies the site of one of four mills at Hatfield which were recorded in 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 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

in 1086. It is now the headquarters of Ramblers Holidays, having been refurbished to provide office accommodation. It features a

water wheel A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or bucke ...

which generates electricity. The building was both regional and national winner of the British Council for Offices awards 2007 in the ‘small project’ category.

Brocket Hall and Lemsford church

In the 19th century when Lemsford became a separate parish,

Brocket Hall Brocket Hall is a neo-classical country house set in a large park at the western side of the urban area of Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire, England. The estate is equipped with two golf courses and seven smaller listed buildings, apart f ...

, which is on the edge of Lemsford, was part of the Cowper estates. The church was erected in 1859 as a memorial to the sixth Earl Cowper. It is Early English and Decorated in style, with a good east window, the latter also dedicated to the memory of the earl. The tower (west) is lofty and embattled.

People from Lemsford

The society osteopath

Stephen Ward Stephen Thomas Ward (19 October 1912 – 3 August 1963) was an English osteopath and artist who was one of the central figures in the 1963 Profumo affair, a British political scandal which brought about the resignation of John Profumo, the Se ...

, a significant figure in the

Profumo affair The Profumo affair was a major scandal in twentieth-century British politics. John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War in Harold Macmillan's Conservative government, had an extramarital affair with 19-year-old model Christine Keeler beg ...

of 1963, was born at Lemsford in 1912. His father was the vicar of Lemsford.

References

External links

Pictures of Lemsford
(A Guide to Old Hertfordshire) Villages in Hertfordshire Hydroelectricity in England Watermills mentioned in the Domesday Book {{Hertfordshire-geo-stub