Ballingdon Bottom is a

valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between Hill, hills or Mountain, mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers ...

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 forms part of the boundary between the

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 ...

es of

Flamstead Flamstead is a village and civil parish in north-west Hertfordshire, England, close to the junction of the A5 and the M1 motorway at junction 9. The name is thought by some historians to be a corruption of the original ''Verulamstead''. Flams ...

and

Great Gaddesden Great Gaddesden is a village and civil parish in Dacorum Hundred in Hertfordshire, England. It is located in the Chiltern Hills, north of Hemel Hempstead. The parish borders Flamstead, Hemel Hempstead, Nettleden and Little Gaddesden and also ...

Parish and county boundaries

Historically, Ballingdon Bottom was the name given to an area to the north of the valley which was a detached part of the parish of

Whipsnade Whipsnade is a small village and civil parish in the county of Bedfordshire, England. It lies on the eastward tail spurs of the Chiltern Hills, about 4.2 km south-south-west of Dunstable on the top of the Dunstable Downs which drop away steepl ...

and an exclave of

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council wa ...

, surrounded by Hertfordshire. In 1825 Parliament looked into detached parts of counties, with a report being compiled from information from the Clerks of the Peace for each county. It appears the clerks did not always have detailed local knowledge of the detached parts they reported upon. The Bedfordshire clerk opened his return by saying "I have no official knowledge of the boundaries of this county", but went on to say that based on a 1765 map by Thomas Jeffreys it appeared that "a small part of the Parish of Studham, in the Hundred of Manshead, in the County of Bedford, being part of Beachwood icPark, belonging to Sir John Sebright, bart. is locally situate in the County of Hertford". The Jeffreys map does not actually specify which parish the detached area was in, merely labelling it "Part of Bedford S

ire Ire or IRE may refer to: Ire * Extreme anger; intense fury * Irē, the Livonian name for Mazirbe, Latvia * A town in Oye, Nigeria * ''Ire'' (album), a 2015 album by the Australian metalcore band Parkway Drive * Ire (Iliad), a town mentioned in ...

; the notion that it belonged to

Studham Studham is a village and civil parish in the county of Bedfordshire. It has a population of 1,128. The parish bounds to the south of the Buckinghamshire border, and to the east is the Hertfordshire border. The village lies in the wooded south ...

seems therefore to have been a mistake by the clerk. The Whipsnade tithe survey of 1844, which relied on more detailed local surveys and knowledge, confirmed that the detached area was in fact part of Whipsnade parish and that it was known as Ballingdon Bottom. The

Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832 The Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which defined the parliamentary divisions (constituencies) in England and Wales required by the Reform Act 1832. The boundaries were largely those recommen ...

identified certain detached parts of counties which should be treated for parliamentary constituency purposes as part of the county in which they were physically located. Schedule M of the act described this area as "Part of Studham Parish, partly in Beechwood Park in the County of Hertford", presumably being based on the mistaken clerk's report of 1825. For electoral purposes it was therefore to be treated as part of Hertfordshire rather than Bedfordshire. The

Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844 The Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844 (7 & 8 Vict. c. 61), which came into effect on 20 October 1844, was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which eliminated many outliers or exclaves of counties in England and Wales for civil purposes. ...

transferred the detached areas identified in the 1832 Act for all other purposes. Ballingdon Bottom therefore became part of Hertfordshire on 20 October 1844. The 1844 Act only changed the county boundaries, and Ballingdon Bottom remained a detached part of the parish of Whipsnade. When district councils were established in December 1894 under the

Local Government Act 1894 The Local Government Act 1894 (56 & 57 Vict. c. 73) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales outside the County of London. The Act followed the reforms carried out at county level un ...

Ballingdon Bottom became part of the

Markyate Rural District Markyate Rural District was a short-lived rural district in Hertfordshire, England from 1894 to 1897, on the borders with Bedfordshire. The district was created under the Local Government Act 1894 from the parts of the Luton Rural Sanitary D ...

, which covered the parts of the

Luton Luton () is a town and unitary authority with borough status, in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 census, the Luton built-up area subdivision had a population of 211,228 and its built-up area, including the adjacent towns of Dunstable an ...

Poor Law Union which were in Hertfordshire. The complicated boundaries in this area were rationalised in 1897 when Ballingdon Bottom was transferred from Whipsnade to become part of the parish of Flamstead in

Hemel Hempstead Rural District Hemel Hempstead Rural District was a rural district in Hertfordshire, England from 1894 to 1974. Evolution The district had its origins in the Hemel Hempstead Rural Sanitary District. This had been created in 1872, giving public health and lo ...

on 30 September 1897.Luton Union and Parish Councils, ''Luton Reporter'', 14 April 1894, page 6

References

Valleys of Hertfordshire Flamstead {{Hertfordshire-geo-stub