Bushey

Bushey (population 24,000) is a town in the Hertsmere borough of Hertfordshire in the East of England. Bushey is near Watford and is part of the London commuter belt. This article covers both Bushey the neigbouring town of Bushey Heath.

History

The first written record of Bushey is an account in the Domesday Book, which describes a small agricultural village named 'Bissei' (which later became ?Biss(h)e? then ?Bisheye? during the twelfth century) . However, chance archaeological findings of Stone Age tools are evidence that the area was inhabited as far back as the Palaeolithic period. The town also has links to the Roman occupation of Britain, with the main road running through it being Roman; sites of possible Roman villas being unearthed in the area; and a Roman tessellated pavement was discovered near the road 'Chiltern Avenue'.

Related Topics:
Domesday Book - Palaeolithic - Roman - Britain

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The origin of the town?s name ?Bissei? is not fully known. An early theory in Reverend J.B. Johnstone?s book 'The Place-Names of England and Wales' states that it may have meant ?Byssa?s Isle?, and that it started life as a Lake-Village surrounded by marshes, streams and lakes. However, a more modern theory is that it is simply derived from the Old English word bysce and Old French boisseie, meaning a ?place covered with wood?. The latter theory could prove more apt, as the town is located on the border of the Chiltern Valleys, which were once covered in dense forests of oak, elm, ash, and juniper.

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Bushey Heath?s story begins in the Napoleonic Wars during a large food shortage. To help solve the problem, the government awarded the waste land to the east of Bushey to Bushey landowners to be used as farming- this land was more generally known as Bushey Common. It is doubtful that any of it was actually used to produce food due to the poor, clayey soil conditions, but being 500 feet above the sea and having beautiful and broad views was to give birth to the attractive neighbourhood we know today.

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The 19th and 20th Centuries marked the time of most change in Bushey, especially between the years 1860 and 1960. The population rose 28-fold within 200 years, from 856 in 1801, to just under 24,000 today. This expansion was due to many reasons, one of the main ones being the boom in industry caused by the railway in the early 20th century. A result of this was that many new jobs were created in and around Watford, and the first council houses were built in Bushey in the early 1920?s. More housing was later built for the service families working in defence organisations in Stanmore and Northwood. The expansion eventually died down, due to much of the land in and around Bushey being protected under the green belt after the Second World War.

Related Topics:
Stanmore - Northwood - Green belt - Second World War

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This same green belt legislation was also partly responsible for the abandonment of the pre-war Edgware to Bushey Heath extention as part of the program of the Northern Line underground railway. The green belt put great restrictions on new development, and the plan was to use the new railway to stimulate new housing around the new route; without the new housing the route was deemed no longer viable. However, as work was advanced at the onset of war the Bushey Heath depot was completed for use as bomber manufacture, and following the Second World War and green belt coming into force it was converted into the Aldenham bus depot (of Cliff Richard's Summer Holiday fame), which it remained until 1985, when it became derelict. It was redeveloped in 1996 and is now the Centennial Parkhttp://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=centennial+park&spn=0.022923,0.053571 industrial estate. The Bushey Heath station would have been located at the intersectionhttp://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=51.64245+-0.3200 of the 'Elstree road' and 'Northwestern Avenue'. Conceptual plans existed in the 1903 act of Parliment for a Edgware to Watford railway that would have seen the railway extended at a later date though Bushey village and on to Watford market, though even less came of this than the partially completed Edgware to Bushey Heath stretch.

Related Topics:
Green belt - Edgware - Northern Line - Second World War - Cliff Richard - Summer Holiday - Act of Parliment - Watford

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