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Watford is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, situated northwest of central London and inside the circumference of the M25 motorway. This Watford is not to be confused with Watford, Northamptonshire which is about 50 miles to the north. Cassiobury Park was once the manor estate of the Earls of Essex and is a public park in the town centre. The town developed from an Anglo-Saxon settlement between a ford of the River Colne and the crossroads of two ancient tracks. St Albans Abbey claimed rights to the manor of Cashio, which included Watford. The parish church of St Mary the Virgin was built in 1230 on the same site as an earlier Saxon church, along with stalls for a weekly market.[1] The town grew modestly, assisted by travellers passing through to Berkhamsted Castle and the royal palace at Kings Langley, with the main developments being the 17th-century houses of Cassiobury and The Grove. Both the Grand Junction Canal in 1798, and the London and Birmingham Railway in 1837, allowed the town to grow faster, with paper-making mills, such as John Dickinson and Co. at Croxley Green (a suburb of Watford), influencing the development of printing in the town which continues today. Two industrial scale brewers Benskins and Sedgwicks flourished in the town until their closure in the late 20th century. Today, Watford is a major regional centre for the northern home counties. Garston and Leavesden Green are neighbourhoods in the northern part of Watford. They have been redirected here. For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Watford. [edit] Research Tips
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