Ringshall is a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

in the Chiltern Hills of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is located on the border of the counties of Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire; parts of the village lie in 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 authorit ...

es of

Edlesborough Edlesborough is a village and civil parish in the Aylesbury Vale district of Buckinghamshire, England. Edlesborough is also next to the village of Eaton Bray just over the county boundary in Bedfordshire, about west-south-west of Dunstable. ...

and

Ivinghoe Ivinghoe is a village and civil parish in east Buckinghamshire, England, close to the border with Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. It is northwest of London, north of Tring and south of Leighton Buzzard, close to the village of Pitstone. Ety ...

in eastern Buckinghamshire, while the rest of the village is mainly within the parish of

Little Gaddesden Little Gaddesden (pronounced ) is a village and civil parish in the borough of Dacorum, Hertfordshire north of Berkhamsted. As well as Little Gaddesden village (population 694), the parish contains the settlements of Ashridge (population 53), H ...

(where the population was included) in the west of Hertfordshire. Ringshall lies within the HP4 postcode and the

postal address An address is a collection of information, presented in a mostly fixed format, used to give the location of a building, apartment, or other structure or a plot of land, generally using political boundaries and street names as references, along w ...

designated by Royal Mail is "Ringshall, ".

History

''Ringshall'' is one of four place-names in the parish of Edlesborough Northall and Dagnall that have an origin with the suffix ''healh''; the others being

Dagnall Dagnall is a village in the parish of Edlesborough, in Buckinghamshire, England. The place name is derived from the Old English for "Daegga's Knoll". In manorial rolls of 1196 it was listed as ''Dagenhale''. The spelling ''Dagenhale'' appears ...

, Hudnall and

Northall Northall is a hamlet in the civil parish of Edlesborough, in Buckinghamshire, England, situated halfway between Edlesborough and Billington, Bedfordshire. It has one large Baptist chapel which is still in use and one pub, The Swan. The villag ...

. Ringshall-Hall Farm is situated in the Edlesborough part, but the hamlet was always appendant to Ivinghoe. The Ivinghoe part of the hamlet was transferred to Little Gaddesden in 1895, but some houses have since been built along Beacon Road in the area that remained as part of Ivinghoe parish.

Landmarks

Ringshall is close to Ashridge House, a former stately home that is now in use as a management college. A

crenellated A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interva ...

Gothic Revival stone

gatehouse A gatehouse is a type of fortified gateway, an entry control point building, enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a town, religious house, castle, manor house, or other fortification building of importance. Gatehouses are typically the mo ...

stands in Ringshall at an entrance to the Ashridge estate which was probably designed 1808-1813 by

James Wyatt James Wyatt (3 August 1746 – 4 September 1813) was an English architect, a rival of Robert Adam in the neoclassical and neo-Gothic styles. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1785 and was its president from 1805 to 1806. Early life W ...

, architect of Ashridge House. Ringshall lies on the edge of the Ashridge Commons and Woods, an extensive a

country estate An estate is a large parcel of land under single ownership, which would historically generate income for its owner. British context In the UK, historically an estate comprises the houses, outbuildings, supporting farmland, and woods that s ...

of dense woodland which is managed by the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

. Moneybury Hill, a woodland next to Ringshall, is especially noted as it was

landscaped Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...

by the celebrated English landscape architect Capability Brown between 1759 and 1768 for the

Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater (21 May 1736 – 8 March 1803), known as Lord Francis Egerton until 1748, was a British nobleman from the Egerton family. He was the youngest son of the 1st Duke. He did not marry, and the dukedom expire ...

. Nearby Dockey Wood is also noted as an example of

bluebell wood A bluebell wood is a woodland that in springtime has a carpet of flowering bluebells ('' Hyacinthoides non-scripta'') underneath a newly forming leaf canopy. The thicker the summer canopy, the more the competitive ground-cover is suppressed, encou ...

s. From the 1930s to the 1990s, the Deer Leap swimming pool operated in Ringshall, drawing large numbers of visitors to the hamlet.

References

External links

{{Commons category-inline, Ringshall, Berkhamsted, Ringshall Hamlets in Hertfordshire Hamlets in Buckinghamshire Dacorum Aylesbury Vale Ashridge Ivinghoe Little Gaddesden

History

Landmarks

References

Further reading

External links