The Town That Might Have Been Home

Yes, there was a time when I considered buying a house in Baldock, just a few minutes on the train from where I worked. In the end I bought somewhere even closer, where I could walk to and from my job. But I retain a fondness for this unique place.

There are many old, rather quaint, houses and shops, though none of them dating back to the founding of the settlement by the Knights Templar in 1140. Most of the profits they made through the town were used to fight their "Holy war" against the Saracens, but even so the town flourished and by the 14th century was a very prosperous place indeed. However the Black Death greatly reduced the population and by 1548 it was described as "a market town much decayed".

The wide spacious streets remain as they were laid out in the medieval period, which gives it a much different feel to the usual narrow streets found in the centre of other historic British towns, but the buildings themselves mostly date from Baldock's second wave of prosperity.

Like many other Hertfordshire towns, Baldock became wealthy in the 18th century thanks to London's seemingly unquenchable thirst for beer, or more precisely porter, which was brewed with the slightly scorched malting barley which was a speciality of the county. There are many fine houses dating from this period that were built for the merchants who profited from this business.

Some of the old maltings buildings are also still in existence today, like the one above which stands on one of the main crossroads in the town.

The 1720s saw better roads being built through the introduction of the turnpike system, whereby tolls were charged to those using the highways. These road improvements were vital to the malting trade and also account for the many coaching inns along the town's main street, some of which still await the thirsty traveller!

Since those prosperous times the town has grown only slowly. Baldock was never connected to the canals, which helped grow the malting business in towns like Hertford, Ware and Bishop's Stortford, and the coming of the railway had little effect on the town.

The happy result has been that many quaint corners still exist, even within the town centre.

And there are still a few old traditional shops in existence for those who seek them out, like this hardware store that seems to stock everything you could possibly need!

Above are the old almshouses (or even "almes howe-ses") built in 1621 to house some of the elderly and poor of the town. You can read about them below complete with a lot of interesting spelling....

Elsewhere in the town you might come across interesting details on a large building in the Classical style....

….now where would that be? On a church? A Town Hall? A stately home?....

No, the Tesco Extra supermarket! This grand building was originally built in 1920 for a photographic processing works, and then became a hosiery factory before its latest incarnation as a superstore. Incongruous as shopping trolleys look when they are parked beneath the classical columns, it's great that the façade of the building remains virtually unaltered.


Take care.