Charlton is a

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

in the county of

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...

, in the

East of England East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sunrise, Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact ...

. It is a component hamlet of the

market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rura ...

Hitchin Hitchin () is a market town in the North Hertfordshire Districts of England, district of Hertfordshire, England. The town dates from at least the 7th century. It lies in the valley of the River Hiz at the north-eastern end of the Chiltern Hills ...

, forming a part of the

Hitchin Priory Hitchin Priory in Hitchin in Hertfordshire is today a hotel built in about 1700 on the site of a Carmelites, Carmelite Priory, friary founded in 1317, which was closed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries during the reign of Henry VIII of Engla ...

ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

. Its rural character is protected as a

Conservation Area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural or cultural values. Protected areas are those areas in which human presence or the exploitation of natural resources (e.g. firewoo ...

. Situated east of the Chilterns

AONB An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is one of 46 areas of countryside in England, Wales, or Northern Ireland that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Since 2023, the areas in England an ...

, it lies 30 miles north of

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

History

The manor of Charlton is mentioned 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

as belonging to Ilbert of Hitchin. It later came into the possession of the

Knights Templar The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a Military order (religious society), military order of the Catholic Church, Catholic faith, and one of the most important military ord ...

, and then by the

Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there ...

with the manor of Temple Dinsley until the suppression of the latter order. The manor subsequently came to Edward Pulter, who sold it in 1582 to Ralph Radcliffe from which time it was part of the property of

Charlton House is a

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

building and the birthplace of inventor

Henry Bessemer Sir Henry Bessemer (19 January 1813 – 15 March 1898) was an English inventor, whose steel-making process would become the most important technique for making steel in the nineteenth century for almost one hundred years. He also played a sig ...

in 1813. At the time his father,

Anthony Bessemer Anthony Bessemer (1766–1836 or after 1840) was a British industrialist and Punchcutting, punchcutter, who spent large portions of his life in the Netherlands and France before returning to live in London and Hertfordshire. His son was Henry Bes ...

, operated a

type foundry A type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. Before digital typography, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces for hand typesetting, and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and ...

in the village. The mill-wheel was adapted by his grandfather to power a small foundry. The water-mill was therefore converted to a

foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

during the occupancy of the Bessemer family and back to a mill again afterwards.Sir Henry Bessemer Inventor & Engineer
, Accessed 18 May 2012 There are remains of a windmill less than half a mile from the ''Windmill'' pub from which it may have taken its name. There was, until the 1970s, also a water-wheel in the mill-race in the yard of Wellhead Farm. According to an article by Peter Harkness in Vol 1, No 1 of "Old Hitchin Life" the Harkness family's now world-famous rose-nursery was, in the late 19th century, based in Charlton as well as Bedale, in Yorkshire, with Robert Harkness moving into Charlton House (Bessemer's birthplace) in 1895.

References

External links

Hamlets in Hertfordshire Hitchin {{Hertfordshire-geo-stub