Place:Nettleden, Hertfordshire, England

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Nettleden is a village in Hertfordshire, England. It is in the Chiltern Hills, about four miles north west of Hemel Hempstead, and surrounded by the parishes of Little Gaddesden, Great Gaddesden and Berkhamsted. In 1937 it merged with Potten End and became Nettleden with Potten End civil parish which since 1974 has been in the Dacorum non-metropolitan District.

The village name of Nettleden is Anglo Saxon in origin, and means 'valley where nettles grow'. In manorial records of the late 12th century the village was recorded as "Neteleydene".

Until 1895 the village was a detached hamlet and a chapelry in the parish of Pitstone in Buckinghamshire, with its boundary surrounded by the county of Hertfordshire. Nettleden was transferred from Buckinghamshire to Hertfordshire, and made a parish in its own right, in 1895. The church, St. Lawrence, was first mentioned in 1285 when it became a part of the endowment of Ashridge Monastery in Little Gaddesden. The church, except for the tower, was largely rebuilt in brick by John, Earl of Bridgewater (successor to the third Duke of Bridgewater) in 1811.

When Nettleden became a parish the hamlet of St. Margaret's, formerly belonging to Ivinghoe in Buckinghamshire, was connected to Nettleden. At this place Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester, founded the nunnery St Margaret's de Bosco. After the Dissolution in 1539 St Margaret's came into private hands. During the Second World War the St Margaret's Camp was a London County Council Senior Boys School for evacuees - boys from London. The school closed one week after the end of the war in Europe when all the boys were returned to their homes in London.

Today the village sits in a very attractive location, on the periphery of Ashridge in Little Gaddesden. From Nettleden to Frithsden in Berkhamsted parish goes the Roman Lane or Spooky Lane, named after the ghost of an Ashridge monk. In the early 19th century the lane was dug deep in the hill with high revetted walls on both sides and a bridge was built over the lane, in order that people using the driveway leading to Ashridge do not meet the villagers. Another feature of Nettleden is the steep Pipers Hill east of the village.

Research Tips

• The hundred of Dacorum: Introduction as provided by British History Online in the Victoria County History of Hertfordshire, volume 2, pp 141-142
• The parish of Nettleden ibid, volume 2, pp 317-318
• Ordnance Survey map of Hertfordshire 1900 provided by A Vision of Britain through Time
• Ordnance Survey map of Hertfordshire 1944 provided by A Vision of Britain through Time