Template:Wp-Stevenage-History

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Pre-Conquest

Stevenage lies near the line of the Roman road from Verulamium to Baldock. Some Romano-British remains were discovered during the building of the New Town, and a hoard of 2,000 silver Roman coins was discovered during house-building in the Chells Manor area in 1986. Other artefacts included a dodecahedron toy, fragments of amphorae for imported wine, bone hairpins, and samian ware pottery associated with high status families. Archeological excavations have confirmed the existence of a small Roman farmstead, a malting kiln and a Celtic round house in the Chells area, and a cemetery containing 25 cremations. The most substantial evidence of activity from Roman times is Six Hills, six tumuli by the side of the old Great North Road that are presumably the burial places of members of a local family.

The first Saxon camp, a little to the east of the Roman sites, was in a clearing in the woods where the church, the manor house and the first village were later built. Settlements also sprang up in Chells, Broadwater and Shephall. Before the New Town was established, Shephall was a separate parish, and Broadwater was split between the parishes of Shephall and Knebworth.

Middle Ages

According to the Domesday Book, in 1086 the Lord of the Manor was the Abbot of Westminster Abbey. The settlement had moved down to the Great North Road. In 1281 it was granted a Royal Charter to hold a weekly market and annual fair, still held in the High Street.

The earliest part of St Nicholas's Church dates from the 12th century, but it was probably a site of worship much earlier. The list of rectors (parish priests) is relatively complete from 1213. Around 1500 the church was much improved, with decorative woodwork and the addition of a clerestory.

North of the Old Town is Jack's Hill, associated with the legendary archer Jack O'Legs of Weston. According to local folklore, Jack stole flour from the bakers of Baldock to feed the poor during a famine, like Robin Hood.

The remains of a medieval moated homestead in Whomerley Wood comprise an 80-yard-square trench almost five feet wide in parts. It was probably the home of Ralph de Homle. Pieces of Roman and later pottery have been found there.

The oldest surviving house in Stevenage is Tudor House in Letchmore Street, built before 1500. During the 16th century it was a butcher's shop owned by a man named Scott. From 1773 onwards it served as the town's workhouse, and later became a school from 1835 until 1885. It was the headquarters of the local town gas company from c.1885 until 1936, when it was converted into a private dwelling.

Chells Manor, a medieval hall house located three miles from the Old Town, was built in the 14th century for the Wake family on the foundations of a much older moated manor house mentioned in the Domesday Book. The site of the lost village of Chells was redeveloped during the extension of the New Town in the 1980s, and a hoard of Roman coins was discovered. In the present day, Chells is a suburb of New Stevenage.

Tudor, Stuart and Georgian eras

In 1558 Thomas Alleyne, then the Rector of Stevenage, founded a free grammar school for boys, Alleyne's Grammar School, which, despite becoming a boys' comprehensive school in 1967, had an unbroken existence (unlike the grammar school in neighbouring Hitchin) until 1989, when it was merged with Stevenage Girls' School to become the Thomas Alleyne School. Francis Cammaerts was Headmaster of Alleyne's Grammar School from 1952 to 1961. The school, which has been since 1989 a mixed comprehensive school and is now an academy as of 2013, still exists on its original site at the north end of the High Street. It was intended to move the school to Great Ashby, but the Coalition government (2010–15) scrapped the move owing to budget cuts.

During the 17th century, the Elizabethan house at 37 High Street was the home of greengrocer and churchwarden Henry Trigg. Trigg was a philanthropist who donated another of his properties to serve as Stevenage's first workhouse.[1] When Henry died in 1724 his coffin was placed in the rafters of the adoining barn to prevent resurrection men from stealing his remains. In 1774, Trigg's house became the Old Castle coaching inn, and was used as a staging post by the Royal Mail. From 1999 until 2016 it served as a branch of NatWest, and as of 2022 it has been converted into a dentist's surgery.

Stevenage's prosperity came in part from the Great North Road, which was turnpiked in the early 18th century on the site of the Marquess of Granby pub. Many inns in the High Street served the stagecoaches, 21 of which passed through Stevenage each day in 1800. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the road now known as Six Hills Way was the haunt of highwaymen who would use the ancient burial mounds as a hiding place. James Whitney, the namesake of the Highwayman pub in Graveley, was hanged at Newgate in 1693 for robbing travellers in this area.

On 10 July 1807, the Great Fire of Stevenage destroyed 42 properties in Middle Row, including Hellard's almshouse of 1501. The fire is believed to have been started when a young girl employed as a chambermaid at one of the coaching inns emptied embers from the fireplace into the street. Sparks from the embers ignited the thatched roof of a nearby wheelwright's shop, and quickly engulfed the other timber framed buildings in the north end of the Old Town due to a strong North wind. The conflagration was only stopped from engulfing the entire street by demolishing a house to serve as a firebreak. After the fire was extinguished by Stevenage's volunteer firefighters using a hand-operated fire engine made in 1763, the houses and inns were rebuilt with brick facades and tiled roofs. Troopers from the Hertfordshire Yeomanry assisted the firefighters in the operation.

Victorian era to 20th century

In 1850 the Great Northern Railway was constructed and the era of the stagecoach ended. Stevenage grew only slowly throughout the 19th century and a second church (Holy Trinity) was constructed at the south end of the High Street. In 1861 Dickens commented, "The village street was like most other village streets: wide for its height, silent for its size, and drowsy in the dullest degree. The quietest little dwellings with the largest of window-shutters to shut up nothing as if it were the Mint or the Bank of England."

At the turn of the century, the twin poachers Albert and Ebenezer Fox were active in the area. While in jail, they were studied by police commissioner Edward Henry to confirm his theory on the usefulness of fingerprinting in forensic science.

In 1928 Philip Vincent bought the HRD Motorcycle Co Ltd out of receivership, immediately moving it to Stevenage and renaming it the Vincent HRD Motorcycle Co Ltd. He produced the legendary motorcycles, including the Black Shadow and Black Lightning, in the town until 1955.