Walkern is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

East Hertfordshire East Hertfordshire is a local government district in Hertfordshire, England. Its council is based in Hertford, the county town of Hertfordshire. The largest town in the district is Bishop's Stortford, and the other main towns are Ware, Bunti ...

, England. It is about two miles from

Stevenage Stevenage ( ) is a large town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, about north of London. Stevenage is east of junctions 7 and 8 of the A1(M), between Letchworth Garden City to the north and Welwyn Garden City to the south. In 1946, Stevena ...

. The village has several shops, including a convenience store, a hair and beauty salon, a craft shop, a shop that features homestyle products, a tea shop, a drum shop, a petrol station and Walkern Gallery near the White Lion public house. Other pubs include the Yew Tree. The village also has a primary school, doctors' surgery, recreation ground and a range of seasonal clubs; according to the time of year there is cricket, football and many other clubs based in the Walkern Sports and Community Centre towards the end of the village near the War Memorial and opposite a former watermill.

History

The

River Beane The River Beane is a short river in the county of Hertfordshire, England. A tributary of the River Lea, it rises to the south-west of Sandon in the hills northeast of Stevenage and joins the Lea at Hartham Common in Hertford. Watermills In ...

, a

chalk stream Chalk streams are rivers that rise from springs in landscapes with chalk bedrock. Since chalk is permeable, water percolates easily through the ground to the water table and chalk streams therefore receive little surface runoff. As a result, th ...

, crosses the village street of Church End at a

ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

. It was used to power

watermill A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in the production of ...

s, a 19th-century example is still to be seen downstream at the other end of the village.Walkern Mill
/ref> The village appears as 'Walchra' 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 manusc ...

of 1086. The name is believed to come from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

''wealc-ærn'', ‘a

fulling mill Fulling, also known as felting, tucking or walking ( Scots: ''waukin'', hence often spelled waulking in Scottish English), is a step in woollen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of woven or knitted cloth (particularly wool) to elimin ...

’. These facilities were sometimes known as ‘walk mills’ (wealc-ærn means ‘walk-house’) and were watermills where cloth was thickened by being pounded. However, there is not any other evidence for a mill at Walkern before the 12th century. The Domesday Book records mills at other sites on the Beane, such as

Sele Mill Sele Mill is a late 19th-century mill building in Hertford, England. It has been converted into apartments. A blue plaque on the building () commemorates an earlier mill on the site, the country's first paper mill. History For most of its hist ...

, but does not mention a mill at Walkern. A possible explanation for this is that the mills it records elsewhere were usually flour-mills, as these were a source of revenue for the

lord of the manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

Parish church

The parish church of St Mary the Virgin is one of the oldest churches in Hertfordshire, with a Saxon wall and rare chalk rood (crucifix) dating to the mid-10th century.

People from Walkern

William de Lanvalei

William de Lanvallei, also known as William de Lanvalei, was lord of Walkern in the early 13th century. He was one of the men designated as enforcers of

Magna Carta (Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called (also ''Magna Charta''; "Great Charter"), is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the ...

. William died a couple of years after the great charter was formally granted by King John at Runnymede on 15 June 1215.

Legacy

There is an effigy in Walkern church, made from

Purbeck Marble Purbeck Marble is a fossiliferous limestone found in the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula in south-east Dorset, England. It is a variety of Purbeck stone that has been quarried since at least Roman times as a decorative building stone. Geology Strat ...

, which may be that of William. At the time of the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, Walkern has twinned with

Lanvallay Lanvallay (; ) is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department of Brittany in northwestern France. Population Inhabitants of Lanvallay are called ''côtissois'' in French. Twinning There is a twinning arrangement with Walkern, Hertfordshire. Th ...

in Brittany through the connection with this baron.

Jane Wenham

Walkern is noted as the home of Jane Wenham, who in 1712 was the last woman in England to be convicted of witchcraft and condemned to death (although the sentence was not carried out).

References

External links

Village website

website for Walkern History Society

website for the Magna Carta Barons Association
{{authority control Villages in Hertfordshire Civil parishes in Hertfordshire East Hertfordshire District