Unusual Buildings at Wood Lane End, Hemel Hempstead, Herts

Abstract

The Roman site at Wood Lane End is situated on the east side of Hemel Hempstead (TL 082079) adjacent to the Industrial Estate and close to the MI intersection (FIG. I). It occupies the plateau on a 450 ft. contour about midway between the rivers Ver and Gade. Close by the land dips in a south-easterly direction to form the start of a shallow valley running across the Gorhambury estate towards Verulamium three miles away. The site is equidistant ( 2½ miles) between the Roman villas at Gorhambury outside Verulamium and Gadebridge situated alongside the Gade stream just to the north of Hemel Hempstead. The subsoil is of the Batcombe series—a pebbly loam over a bedrock of clay with flint. In places small pockets of gravel are encountered while occasionally fingers of chalk rise close to the surface. As elsewhere on the plateau the subsoil is surprisingly well drained, the drainage of the area being towards the Ver valley. The soil is suited to arable cultivation though its productive capacity is limited by the varying degrees of stoniness. The earliest cartographic evidence of the Wood Lane End area comes from the Tithe apportionment map of 1843 (DSA4/48). It would appear then that the site was located in a field called Hales Wood, but despite its name it was classified as arable, and was 7·021 acres in extent. None of the adjacent field names gives any indication of Roman or earlier features and neither do the boundaries of the 1843 map reflect the alignment of the Roman buildings. They relate solely to the roads, as shown on the nineteenth-century map.