Back in 1930, the Watford Observer ran a series called Do You Know?, in which every week, ten questions were asked to test the reader’s knowledge of Hertfordshire.

There were no prizes – the answers were included elsewhere in the same edition. Here are a dozen questions from September 1930. The answers are also included at the end so no cheating! See how you get on.

1. Which is the only ancient church in West Herts with a tall spire?

2. Where in Hertfordshire is lavender grown commercially?

3. Where in West Herts was there a town which has now entirely disappeared?

4. Which local charity was left for apprenticing poor children?

5. Where was there a fatal instance of “witch ducking”?

6. Where were held two famous synods of the church in pre-Norman times?

7. For what was the Earl of Bridgewater, in whose memory the column at Ashridge was erected, famous?

8. Which railway station stands partly on the site of a Roman villa?

9. Where in Watford district were Roman burial urns once discovered?

10. Where is the legend of a woman highwayman, the Wicked Lady Ferrers?

11. When was the erection of the present Abbey Church at St Albans started?

12. To which church in West Herts did Queen Victoria present stained windows?  


ANSWERS: 1.St Mary’s, Hemel Hempstead; 2. Hitchin; 3. Pendley, near Tring, where in the 15th Century Robert Whittingham built a mansion, enclosed a large acreage, and destroyed “a great town” which had “above 13 ploughs, besides divers [sic] handicraftsmen as tailors, shoemakers and cardmakers, with divers others”; 4. Lady Morison’s Charity; 5. Long Marston, near Tring; 6. At Hertford and Hatfield; 7. He was a pioneer in canal construction; 8. Boxmoor [sorry, this one’s a bit of a trick. In 1930, when the question was set, this was true. However the station, later renamed Hemel Hempsted (as it was spelled then) is now closed and has been for 50 years or more]; 9. Near Munden; 10. Markyate; 11. In 1077; 12. Kings Langley, on the restoration of Edmund of Langley’s tomb.