At the heart of the paper trail

Nostalgia Editor Michael Pickard paid a visit to Three Rivers Museum, to find out more about a town electrified by the railways and a former resident who gave his name to one of the first states of America.

RICKMANSWORTH has been inhabited since the Stone Age. It was recorded under the name of the Manor of Prichemeresworde in the Domesday survey.

The Manor of Rickmansworth was granted to the Abbey of St Albans by Offa, the Saxon King of Mercia in the late Eighth Century. By 1363, the manor was worth £18 14s 9d.

The first records of the Church of St Mary the Virgin, in Church Street, date back to the 13th Century when it was founded in the centre of Rickmansworth. In 1630 it was rebuilt with a tower but demolished in 1825. It was then replaced with the current building, which itself was modified with a nave and chancel in 1888.

Tesco workers outside the Rickmansworth store, on the corner of High Street and Station Road in 1936.

The Elms building, which now makes up part of St Joan of Arc School, was built in 1722 and is a prominent example of Georgian architecture in Rickmansworth.

Before the 19th Century, Rickmansworth was the principal paper-making centre of Hertfordshire and had five mills. Only one of those remains – Scotsbridge Mill. This was converted to a paper mill in 1746 from a fulling and corn mill. It was bought by the Beefeater restaurant chain in 1988 and refurbished at a cost of £1.5million.

Batchworth Mill was the largest mill in the town. In the second half of the 18th Century, it was used for cotton milling. It reverted to a paper mill in 1816, and taken over by John Dickinson in 1818. Most of it was demolished in 1910, to be replaced by offices.

The other three mills in Rickmansworth were Solesbridge Mill, Mill End Mill, and West Hyde Mill.

Rickmansworth Park House was completed in about 1810 by Henry Fotherley-Whitfield, Lord of the Manor of Rickmansworth. In 1926 it was sold to the Royal Masonic Institute for Girls and a school opened on the site in 1934.

In 1811, Rickmansworth’s population was 3,230 and had an acreage of 10,021.

The Baptist chapel in the High Street was built in 1843, at a cost of £800. A Methodist chapel was also built in the High Street.

On November 22, 1860, the first sod was cut for the Watford to Rickmansworth railway line and it opened to traffic in 1862.

The first town hall in Rickmansworth was built in 1869 by the Rickmansworth Town Hall Company on the south side of the High Street. From 1912 to 1927 the building was used as Rickmansworth’s first cinema, regularly showing silent films, until the first purpose-built picture house was opened.

The Picture House opened in the High Street in 1927 and was on its own until an Odeon opened in an Art Deco building in the High Street east of the junction with Church Street. The Odeon closed in 1957 and the building was demolished in 1965 to be replaced by Union Carbide House.

The Picture House continued until 1971 but, unlike the Odeon, the building was retained and converted into offices.

Inside the Electricity Offices in High Street, Rickmansworth, during the 1950’s. Do any readers have recollections of working at or visiting the offices?

When the railway reached Rickmansworth in 1862, it was a single track leaving the London and North Western railway line at Watford and terminating close to St Mary’s Church four-and-a-half miles later.

However, it was only the arrival of the Metropolitan Railway in 1887 that saw Rickmansworth acquire a direct route to London.

The Metropolitan Line went on to Chesham, Amersham and Aylesbury and was electrified up to Rickmansworth in 1925.

More than 30 years later, in 1961, electrification reached the Metropolitan line between Amersham and Chesham, which saw the last steam train journey take place between Rickmansworth and Amersham.

In March 1918, composer and poet Arnold Bax stayed at the Victoria Hotel, which is now Long Island Exchange.

In 1944, the Rickmansworth Players formed.

Rickmansworth’s first volunteer fire brigade was formed in 1869 by Dr Henderson, who lived at Basing House. A man named Thomas Fellowes, who was the manager of Salters Brewery, was First Captain.

The town’s first fire station opened in the High Street on September 2, 1981, with all the costs paid for by Dr Henderson. The building is now shared by an estate agent and a fish and chip shop.

Coronation procession through High Street, Rickmansworth, in 1937.

A house in Nightingale Road, Rickmansworth, was for some years home to Hubert Foss, who set up Oxford University Press’ music publishing imprint.

During World War Two, gas works in Talbot Road were bombed. The town also received evacuees from London and the A412 was used by Americans travelling to and from London.

The first air raid warning in the town sounded between 11.55am and 12.05pm on September 3, 1939.

In total, 97 bombs and mines were dropped on Rickmansworth, as well as one flying bomb and 38 anti-aircraft shells.

One woman was hit by a machine gun bullet and 31 houses were destroyed. In addition, 135 more were seriously damaged and 1,250 were slightly damaged.

By the end of the war, 91 people had lost their lives and 306 had been injured.

William Penn Secondary School, which opened in 1957, takes its name from a man who married Gulielma Maria Posthuma Springett on April 4, 1672, in Basing House, Rickmansworth – now home to Three Rivers Museum.

The couple lived there for five years and, in 1682, they went to establish a colony in America. He wanted to call it Sylvania but was told his father’s name, Vice Admiral Sir William Penn, must be used as a prefix, so it became known as Pennsylvania.

The leisure centre in Rickmansworth took his name when the school was closed.

In 1966 the Swan public house was demolished, and six years later, Watersmeet Theatre was built on the site of The Limes.

The Splash, Bury Lane, Rickmansworth, possibly pictured during the 1950s.

Notable businesses to operate in Rickmansworth include two brewers – Saltmore and Skidmore, Adco Fertilisers, Franklins Mineral Waters, Franklins Timber Yard and Croxley Mills.

Nostalgia wishes to thank Barbara Owen and Ann Vernau, from Three Rivers Museum, for their help. The museum is celebrating its 21st birthday this year, having closed and reopened four times in that period.