Dacorum Heritage Trust

Old Herts 

Web Sites

Many web sites are continually being updated and it is impossible for me to monitor all these changes. You should therefore visit this web site to discover the facilities currently offered.

www.dacorumheritage.org.uk

The Dacorum Heritage Trust is hoping to set up a museum for the Borough of Dacorum - but as yet has no permanent display site. It holds regular historical exhibitions, has touring displays in local libraries, and has produced a number of publications. Its website currently includes the history of Coopers, the Berkhamsted based company founded in the mid nineteenth century which sold sheep dip (and later other products) world-wide.

An important feature of the site is the War memorials and Rolls of Honour which provides information on the men of Hemel Hempstead who died and who are commemorated on local war memorials.

Some of the earlier books and booklets were published by the Trust's predecessor, the Dacorum Museum Advisory Committee. A list of their books still in print can be found on their web site.

The books reviewed on this site (some out of print) are listed below:

Miss Salisbury's Notes on the History of Bourne End, 1985

Highways & Byways of Dacorum, 1985

Hemel Hempstead Volunteer Company 1915-1919 [undated]

Dacorum at War Exhibition Handbook 1987, revised 1995,

parts reprinted with picture in The Home Front.

Education in Dacorum 1992

The ABC of the History of Schools in Dacorum  1992

Roman Britain Exhibition 1993

Mrs Pipkin Remembers 1993

Berkhamsted Castle 1066-1495  1995 & 1998

Archaeology of Dacorum 1996

The Archaeology of the A41 Berkhamsted and Kings Langley Bypasses

Times Highway 1998 (Hardback Book)

Canal Memories through Dacorum 1999 - accounts of the Grand Union Canal

and the people who worked on it.

Railways of Dacorum 2nd edition 2000

The Early History of Machine Paper-Making 2nd edition 2003

Paper and Papermaking: An A-Z of People, Places and Terms 2004

A Walk along the High Street, Hemel Hempstead 2007

Lefevre James Cranstone: A Victorian Quaker Artist 2007 (Paperback Book)

Paper Pioneers 2008

A Walk along the Canal Towpath from Kings Langley to Winkwell 2008

Men of Iron. The History of Boxmoor Ironworks 2010

From the Newsetter March 2011

     News from the Dacorum Heritage Trust

The Dacorum Heritage Trust newsletters are now available online. The December issue gives details of the Tring Local History museum, and the March issue includes the history of Birtchnell Menswear shop. This Victorian building in Berkhamsted High street collapsed while undergoing building modifications in January. Percy Birtchnell was a local historian who wrote A Short History of Berkhamsted.

 

From the Newsetter March 2011

 

Dacorum Heritage Trust - Latest News

Dacorum Heritage Trust
I have just had the latest newsletter (No. 72, Autumn 2013) from the Dacorum Heritage Trust - which provides a museum service for Hemel Hempstead, Berkhamsted, Tring, and the other villages in the modern borough of Dacorum. It includes the exciting news that public discussions are now underway with a view to the Bury, Hemel Hempstead, becoming a museum for the Borough.

The information of immediate importance is that the newsletter contains information that there will be limited viewing of the medieval wall paintings at Piccotts End, Hemel Hempstead, on 12-15th September, but numbers are limited and you need to book in advance if you want to go.

The newsletter itself is double length and covers the 20 years the Trust has been in existence, and if you have been interested in the way heritage issues have been developing in the area it is well worth a read. The web site (address unchanged at http://www.dacorumheritage.org.uk/) has been redone, although it is obviously still waiting for more information to be uploaded. For instance the links page does not yet include all the member society sites - there is no link to the Tring Local History Society, The Tring Local History Museum, or the Natural History Museum at Tring. Perhaps it might be appropriate to include links to other sites which are relevant to Dacorum's Heritage - such as A2A (which included part of the DHT own catalogue) and to other museums in Hertfordshire. Perhaps even the Tring pages on this site ot the Leverstock Green Chronicle might get a mention. It will be interesting to see if the new curator, Dr Paul Hyman gives the site a more outwards looking feel. The first curator, Matt Wheeler, seemed to realise that there were people all over the world who were interested in the heritage of the area, but who would find it difficult to actually visit the area. After he left the Trust seem to become more inward looking - with an emphasis on school education, and the heritage page in the Gazette. I am sure that there will be great improvements under the new curator and will report here again once the new web site has settled in.

 

 

 

  

May 2010

 

Link to book - Paper pioneers