or Borough Court was held. The western red cedar pole, high and in diameter, was carved by Hunt at Thunderbird Park, a centre for First Nation monuments. The completed pole was shipped to Britain and erected at Alsford's Wharf in 1968. It is one of only a handful of totem poles in the United Kingdom, others being on display at the British Museum and Horniman Museum in London, Windsor Great Park, Bushy Park and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. The carvings on the totem pole represent four figures from First Nations legend: at the top sits Raven, the trickster and creator deity; he sits on the head of Sunman, who has outstretched arms representing the rays of the sun and wears a copper (a type of ceremonial shield); Sunman stands on the fearsome witch-spirit Dzunukwa; at the base is the two-headed warrior sea serpent, Sisiutl, who has up-stretched wings.

Ashridge is a country estate and stately home with a large Gothic Revival country house built between 1808 and 1814. The surrounding country estate is a park managed by the National Trust; it has been used as a film location for Sleepy Hollow and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. A monument to Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, a tall Doric column with urn (a Grade II* listed building), stands in a grove within Ashridge.

Religion

thumb|The Anglican Parish Church of St Peter's, established in the 13th century

The oldest extant church locally is St Mary's in the adjacent village of Northchurch. Between 1087 and 1104, there is reference to a chaplain called Godfrey and to a chapel of St James with parochial status within St Mary's Berkhamsted's parish. A chapel situated close to St John's Lane, was the base for a small community of monks, the Brotherhood of St John the Baptist in the 11th and 12th centuries.

During King John's reign, Geoffrey Fitz Peter, was instrumental in the foundation the parish church of St Peter, and in 1222, Robert de Tuardo, was registered as the first known rector. Because of the church's proximity to the castle, the reigning monarch was patron of Berkhamsted rectors for several centuries. In 1648, St Peter's Church was requisitioned during the English Civil War by General Fairfax as a military prison to hold soldiers captured from the siege of Colchester. The poet William Cowper was christened in St Peter's, where his father John Cowper was rector.

The parish church of St Peter on the High Street, is one of the largest churches in Hertfordshire. Two other Anglican churches in the town are St Michael and All Angels (Sunnyside) (original building 1886) and All Saints' Church & St Martha's (built in 1906) on Rectory Lane.

Several non-conformist denominations are represented in Berkhamsted:

  • The Baptist community has a chapel on the High Street.
  • A Quaker meeting house was opened in 1818 on the High Street.
  • The Congregationlists worship together with a Presbyterian congregation at St Andrew's United Reformed Church on the corner of Castle Street and Chapel Street.
  • The Methodists share All Saints' Church with Anglicans.
  • The Evangelist (Latter Day Saints) began life has part of the Plymouth Brethren; their Hope Hall opened in 1875, which was renamed Kings Road Evangelical Church in 1969.
  • A Roman Catholic church, the Church of the Sacred Heart, a modern church building dating from 1980, is located on Park Street.

Culture

Literary connections

Geoffrey Chaucer was clerk of works at Berkhamsted Castle from 1389 and based his Doctor of Phisick in The Canterbury Tales on John of Gaddesden, who lived in nearby Little Gaddesden. William Cowper was born in Berkhamsted Rectory in 1731. Although he moved away when still a boy, there are frequent references to the town in his poems and letters. In the Victorian era, Cowper became a cult figure and Berkhamsted was a place of pilgrimage for his devotees. Maria Edgeworth, a prolific Anglo-Irish writer of adults' and children's literature who was a significant figure in the evolution of the novel in Europe, lived in Berkhamsted as a child in the 18th century. The cinema was designed by architect David Evelyn Nye for the Shipman and King circuit. Closed in 1988, the cinema was extensively restored in 2004 and has become a thriving independent local cinema. The cinema features luxurious seating and two licensed bars. Prior to the cinema's construction, an Elizabethan mansion, Egerton House, had occupied the site for 350 years.

BFI National Archive at King's Hill

Rarely open to the public, "The J. Paul Getty, Jr. Conservation Centre" is the location of much of the film restoration work of the National Archive of the British Film Institute. With over 275,000 feature, non-fiction and short films (dating from 1894) and 210,000 television programmes, it is one of the world's largest film archives. Two of the archive's collections were added to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) UK Memory of the World Register, in 2011.

Leisure

The town has a large National Trust common and woodland on its long north-east edge. Running east–west through the centre of the town, along the town's length the Grand Union Canal provides an open space with recreational opportunities, with the small River Bulbourne it creates a wildlife corridor through the town.

Other public green spaces include the castle and Butts Meadow. In 2016, the Friends of St Peter's Berkhamsted received £907,000 in a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Big Lottery Fund to repurpose the Rectory Lane Cemetery and for restored heritage features and create a new green community space in the town.

Sport

The Berkhamsted Bowmen is the oldest archery club in England.

Founded in 1875, Berkhamsted Cricket Club competes in the Herts League and celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2025. The club is based at the Berkhamsted Community Cricket and Sports Club, at Kitcheners Field, Castle Hill.

The nine Berkhamsted and Hemel Hempstead Hockey Club teams are based just outside the town at Cow Roast, playing their matches on their astroturf pitch at the club grounds in Cow Roast.

There are two bowls clubs: Berkhamsted and Kitcheners.

Berkhamsted Football Club, play in the Southern Football League Division One Central, part of the 8th Level in the English League. The team was formed in 2009 after the demise of Berkhamsted Town F.C. which had been established in 1895. Founded in 1996, Berkhamsted Raiders CFC football club was recognised as the FA Charter Standard Community Club of the Year at the English Football Association Community Awards in 2014 and awarded the UEFA Grassroots Silver Award in 2015 for their work across the local community. In 2023, the club had more than 1,300 affiliated players, including 250 girls in 94 youth teams plus Senior, Veterans, Ladies, Walking Football and Inclusive Football sections. In 2022, the club was awarded the Herts FA Grassroots Club of the Year.

A sports centre near Douglas Gardens, comprises a large indoor multi-purpose sports hall, squash courts, a swimming pool and an outdoor all-weather pitch.

The area has a variety of road cycling and mountain biking routes, including traffic-free off-road routes in Ashridge Estate.

Media

Berkhamsted lies within the BBC London and ITV London region. Television signals are received from the Crystal Palace TV transmitter and the local relay transmitter situated in Hemel Hempstead.

Local radio stations are BBC Three Counties Radio on 103.8 FM serving Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire, Heart Hertfordshire on 106.9 FM broadcasting across Hertfordshire, Greatest Hits Radio Bucks, Beds and Herts (formerly Mix 96.2) on 92.2 FM and community based stations, Radio Dacorum and Tring Radio.

The town is served by the regional newspaper, Hemel Hempstead Gazette & Express, which covers the towns of Hemel Hempstead, Berkhamsted and Tring.

Notable people

  • Poet and hymn writer William Cowper (1731–1800), one of the most popular poets of his time, was born and raised in Berkhamsted. Cowper changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. two stained-glass windows in St Peter's Church are dedicated to memory of Cowper.
  • Novelist Graham Greene (1904–1991), whose father was headmaster of Berkhamsted School, which Greene attended. One of Greene's novels, The Human Factor, is set there and mentions several places in the town. In his autobiography, Greene wrote that he has been 'moulded in a special way through Berkhamsted'. Greene's life and works are celebrated annually with a festival organised by the Graham Greene Birthplace Trust.
  • Sir Hugh Carleton Greene (1910–1987) was born and educated in Berkhamsted. Green was a British television executive and journalist and brother of Graham Greene. He was director-general of the BBC from 1960 to 1969.
  • Dame Esther Rantzen (b.1940) is an English journalist and television presenter, who presented the BBC television series That's Life! for 21 years, from 1973 until 1994. Ranzen became Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2014 for services to children and older people through Childline and The Silver Line.
  • Nick Owen (b.1947) is an English television presenter and News presenter, known for presenting the ITV breakfast programme Good Morning Britain, Good Morning with Anne and Nick, ITV Sport and the BBC's regional news show Midlands Today since 1997.

Twin towns

Through Dacorum, Berkhamsted is twinned with:

  • Beaune, Burgundy, France
  • Neu-Isenburg, Hesse, Germany.

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

::(see also Birtchnell, Percy (1975) Bygone Berkhamsted. Luton: White Crescent Press )

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  • Berkhamsted Town Council
  • Berkhamsted Castle
  • Dacorum Heritage Trust