Westmill is an English 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 ...

in the East Hertfordshire district of

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 ...

, with an area of 1036 hectares. A population of 264 was recorded in the 2001 National Census. It lies just to the south of

Buntingford Buntingford is a market town and civil parish in the district of East Hertfordshire and county of Hertfordshire in England. It lies next to the River Rib and is located on the historic Roman road, Ermine Street. As a result of its location, it ...

, beside the River Rib.

Communications

The

Prime Meridian A prime meridian is an arbitrary meridian (a line of longitude) in a geographic coordinate system at which longitude is defined to be 0°. Together, a prime meridian and its anti-meridian (the 180th meridian in a 360°-system) form a great c ...

passes to the east of Westmill, as does the Roman road

Ermine Street Ermine Street is a major Roman road in England that ran from London (''Londinium'') to Lincoln (''Lindum Colonia'') and York (''Eboracum''). The Old English name was ''Earninga Strǣt'' (1012), named after a tribe called the ''Earningas'', ...

, which ran from London to Lincoln and York.British History Online. Westmill
Retrieved 29 July 2014.
/ref> Its route is followed here by the A10 trunk road. There is a skeleton bus service to Buntingford. West Mill railway station on the

Great Eastern Railway The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern R ...

's Buntingford Branch Line from St Margarets to

opened on 3 July 1863. Passenger traffic thrived until the mid-1950s and the rise of car ownership. The line and station closed to passengers on 16 November 1964. The station buildings had been demolished by 1968.

Historic buildings

The large medieval parish church, dedicated to St Mary the Virgin and restored in the 19th century, shows signs of a

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

origin. It is one of a large number of historic buildings in the village. One, a thatched cottage named

Button Snap Button Snap is a 17th-century cottage in northeast Hertfordshire, that has been associated with the writer Charles Lamb. It is on a rural gravel road west of the village of Westmill. It has been listed Grade II on the National Heritage List for E ...

at Cherry Green, was owned by the writer Charles Lamb from 1812 to 1815. It was through the widow of his godfather, Francis Fielde (died 1809) that Lamb, as he put it, "came into possession of the only landed property which I could ever call my own." The church is part of a joint benefice of

Aspenden Aspenden is a village and civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England. It is just to the south of Buntingford. The Prime Meridian A prime meridian is an arbitrary meridian (a line of longitude) in a geograph ...

and Buntingford. The commons were enclosed in 1819. The former 16th century watermill is now a private house.

Facilities

The village has a pub/restaurant, the ''Sword Inn Hand'', and a village hall, where a children's nursery is held.

Notable residents

*The antiquary

Nathanael Salmon Nathanael (or Nathaniel) Salmon (22 March 1675 – 2 April 1742) was an English antiquary who wrote books on Roman and other antiquities to be found in the south-east of England. He was not well respected as a scholar in his time or subsequently, ...

(1675–1742) was a curate in the village for several years, but refused to take the oath of allegiance to Queen Anne in 1702 and later practised as a doctor in St Ives. His ''History of Hertfordshire'' appeared in 1728. *Westmill was the 1833 birthplace of the child diarist Emily Pepys, whose father

Henry Pepys Henry Pepys (; 18 April 1783 – 13 November 1860) was the Church of England Bishop of Sodor and Man in 1840–1841 and of Worcester in 1841–1860. He gave generously to the Three Choirs Festival, held in Worcester every third year. His daughter ...

, later bishop of Sodor and Man, then

bishop of Worcester A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

, was the rector from 1827 to 1840. He donated a stained-glass window in memory of four of his children, who died in childhood. This can be seen behind the altar. *The murder of a small girl by her nine-year-old brother, Billy Game, at Westmill in 1848 became the subject of a ballad.Murder at Westmill (1848)
Retrieved 29 July 2014.
/ref>

References

18 'Hertfordshire History: the Westmill Murder' on YouTube.

External links