Why is stevenage called stevenage

The earliest part of St Nicholas' Church dates from the 12th century but it was probably a site of worship much earlier. The known list of priests or rectors is relatively complete from The remains of a medieval moated homestead in Whomerley Wood is an yard-square trench almost 5 feet wide in parts.

It was probably the home of Ralph de Homle, and both Roman and later pottery has been found there. Around the Church was much improved, with decorative woodwork and the addition of a clerestory. In Thomas Alleyne, a rector of the town, founded a free grammar school for boys, Alleyne's Grammar School, which had an unbroken existence unlike the grammar school in neighbouring Hitchin until Francis Cammaerts was headmaster of the school from to The school, which was a mixed comprehensive school and is now an Academy as of , still exists on its original site at the north end of the High Street.

It was intended to move the school to Great Ashby, but the Coalition government —15 proposed scrapping the move owing to budget cuts. Stevenage's prosperity came in part from the North Road, which was turnpiked in the early 18th century. Many inns in the High Street served the stage coaches , 21 of which passed through Stevenage each day in In the Great Northern Railway was constructed, and the era of the stage coach had ended. Stevenage grew only slowly throughout the 19th century and a second church Holy Trinity was constructed at the south end of the High Street.

In Dickens commented, "The village street was like most other village streets: wide for its height, silent for its size, and drowsy in the dullest degree. The quietest little dwellings with the largest of window-shutters to shut up nothing as if it were the Mint or the Bank of England.

He produced the legendary motorcycles, including the Black Shadow and Black Lightning, in the town until This slow growth continued until, after the Second World War , the Abercrombie Plan called for the establishment of a ring of new towns around London. It was designated the first New Town on 1 August The plan was not popular with local people, who protested at a meeting held in the town hall before Lewis Silkin, minister in the Labour Government of Clement Attlee.

As Lewis Silkin arrived at the railway station for this meeting, some local people had changed the signs 'Stevenage' to 'Silkingrad'. Silkin was obstinate at the meeting, telling a crowd of 3, people outside the town hall around half the town's residents : "It's no good your jeering, it's going to be done. In the radical townplanner Dr Monica Felton became Chairman of the Stevenage Development Corporation but she was sacked within two years. There were a number of reasons for her dismissal by the government but a lack of hands-on town planning leadership and her opposition to the Korean War for which she was later awarded the Stalin Peace Prize sullied her reputation.

In keeping with the sociological outlook of the day, the town was planned with six self-contained neighbourhoods. The Twin Foxes pub, still on the Monks Wood estate, was Stevenage's first 'new' public house and was named after local notorious identical-twin poachers Albert Ebenezer and Ebenezer Albert Fox.

Next to be built and occupied by the London overspill was Bedwell in , and then came Broadwater and Shephall , Chells in the s and later Pin Green and Symonds Green. Another new development to the north of the town is Great Ashby. As of [update] it is still under construction. At least two other public houses have a direct relationship to local history.

The name of the pub " Edward the Confessor " closed could have had a connection to the time at which St Mary's Church in nearby Walkern was built, for King Edward ruled from until his death in Walkern's village church dates from this time. The second pub with a possible link to local history is the "Our Mutual Friend" in Broadwater.

Then in disaster struck when the Black Death reached Stevenage. The town lost much of its population. However Stevenage soon recovered. Through the centuries life in Stevenage continued to be much the same.

However from the midth century stagecoaches began to pass through Stevenage. By the early 19th century about 20 coaches were passing through each day. Naturally passengers spent money in the town and it prospered.

However in the railway reached Stevenage and the stagecoaches ended. From Stevenage had a primitive fire engine with a hand-operated pump. It was needed in and in when severe fires struck the town.

In , at the time of the first census Stevenage was a tiny market town with a population of a little over 1, Not much bigger than it was in the Middle Ages. These Roman roads were not entirely abandoned in the Anglo-Saxon period and indeed local road maintenance became a legal requirement.

However, Saxon settlements created during the early or Migration period were often re-located in middle Saxon times or when the dominance of Christianity resulted in a movement away from the old pagan sites. Place-name evidence for the early Anglo-Saxon period from the rest of Hertfordshire is rare.

Braughing, which was the site of the Roman settlement of Curcinate has an "ing" suffix suggesting a primary Saxon presence, while Wickham Bishops Stortford has two elements-"WickM and "Ham". Both of these indicate early settlements. The evidence for the Anglo-Saxon period in the area now known as Hertfordshire is equally fragmentary. For the Migration period in the 5th and 6th centuries, there are indications that the Chiltern escarpment was occupied, with early cemetery material from Ashwell, and at Luton, and Kempston, just outside the county boundary.

Such evidence that there is, suggests Saxon occupation from the Thames Valley and along the Icknield Way. Elsewhere, as at Verulamium, Romano-British civilisation continued certainly well into the fifth century, if not beyond.

Any early Saxon evidence is found outside the town as at Old Parkbury, Radlett. Recent research makes it clear that Saxon and Briton warily co-existed in many parts of the country. Not that there were many of either race in Hertfordshire, and it looks as though the Roman withdrawal, combined with a serious plague in Britain during the first half of the 5th century resulted in a pretty deserted landscape.

The Saxons really started to colonise the county from the mid-6th century onward. So the early material from Stevenage is of considerable interest. While there is positive evidence for a Roman presence in Stevenage, some 43 Romano-British sites having been recorded in a 40 square mile area around Stevenage, information about the Anglo-Saxon period is tantalisingly vague.

There are no surviving above-ground features from the period in the town. The nearest church where possible Saxon elements have been identified is 4 miles away at Walkern. The main evidence comes from just one hut site inexpertly excavated in the 's.

The dig took place under difficult circumstances at , Broadwater Crescent, some five years after the estate had been built. It is most unlikely that this was an isolated building and must have formed part of a settlement of some kind. The hut was of the sunken-floored variety known at the time of its discovery as a "Grubenhaus". He was executed on the 1st February Old Town. Childhood Memories of Stevenage - Coreys Mill c. Coreys Mill.

Dancing days. Henry Trigg's Coffin. I Remember The Coffin. Memory of 6 Bottles.