Westwick Row

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Westwick Row is a place in Hertfordshire, in England. It is situated on the edge of Hemel Hempstead.

Westwick Row today is a narrow rural lane in the village of Leverstock Green, near Hemel Hempstead, in Hertfordshire – part of it is within the jurisdiction of St. Albans Rural District Council, and part with Dacorum Borough Council. It was originally within the parish of St. Michael’s St. Albans. It runs into the main St. Albans Road at its most easterly end, at Corner Farm, and into Green Lane at its most westerly end, being connected to the main road also by Pancake Lane.

It was once the central lane of the medieval vill and Manor of Westwick, (see http://bacchronicle.homestead.com/Westwick.html) and indications are that it was not only the main thoroughfare in medieval times, but was also the main thoroughfare of the Saxon Village/Manor of the same name, and indeed was in all probability an Iron-Age trackway. The line of the original iron-age trackway continues at the westerly end via Buncefield Lane.

Several listed buildings are to be found along Westwick Row, namely:- Dell Cottage (early-mid C17); Westwick Cottage (Grade II* late C12/early C13 with later additions); King Charles II Cottage (C17); Westwick Row Farmhouse (C15); Westwick Row Farm Barns (C18); Corner Farm House (C16); Corner Farm outbuildings (C18). Westwick Farm, known to have dated back to Tudor times, was in a poor state of repair and was demolished in the mid C19 by the Earl of Verulam when the farm was added to the portfolio of his estate of Gorhambury. It was replaced with the present farmhouse. From at least the early C19 to the early C20 several farm labourers’ cottages were also to be found along Westwick Row. These were gradually demolished I the C20 when new housing was built in Curtis Road. Several good sized properties were further built at the western end of the Row in the early to mid C20, and a small estate of executive houses were built on the site of Handpost Lodge

Evidence points to a Great Tithe Barn, belonging to the Monastery at St Albans, which once stood along Westwick Row near to the present day Westwick Warren. This was demolished in the mid C17

Evidence of a Romano-British Villa at Handpost Lodge, Westwick Row was discovered in 1998 (see http://bacchronicle.homestead.com/HandpostLodge.html). Other archaeological finds date to the Late Neolithic, Bronze & Iron Ages (see http://bacchronicle.homestead.com/Archaeology.html) and includes a Bronze Age Hoard discovered by Sir John Evans in the mid 19th century. This consisted of a looped socketed bronze axe, fragments of another axe and five lumps of copper. With the exception of one lump of metal that John Evans donated to the British Museum, the rest of the find is at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.