Robin Hood House (Little Gaddesden)
By Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2014-08-25. Revised by Henrik Thiil Nielsen, 2020-12-22.
Robin Hood House was originally a village pub, the Robin Hood, but was subsequently converted into a private residence and greatly expanded. It now functions as a dementia care home, owned and run by Benslow Care Homes.
As can be seen on the Google map of the county on the page on Hertfordshire place-names, Robin Hood House is just outside the historical Hertfordshire/Buckinghamshire border according to the boundary data provided by the Historic Counties Trust. I follow the Victoria County History which includes it in Hertfordshire (1908).[1] It is certainly now in Hertfordshire.[2]
In the 6" O.S. map Hertfordshire XXVI, published 1883-84 (see Maps below), the name is cited as 'Robinhood House'. This is the earliest occurrence of the name (in any form) known to IRHB, but an earlier 6" map of the area, published c. 1878, is not available online. This could very well include the Robin Hood public house, as it then was. Template:PnItemQry
Quotations
[1908:]
Following the high road north from Hemel Hempstead may be seen near the beginning of the village Robin Hood House, a large old house of timber and stucco. It was once the Robin Hood village public-house, but has been greatly added to, and is now the residence of Mr. Alexander Murray-Smith.[3]
[1911:]
Robin Hood House, originally an inn, stands at the end of the village, ¾ mile S. of the church. It is a two-storeyed building with attics, and is covered with cement; the roofs are tiled. It is probably of the 17th century, but the only old features now visible are some beams in the ceilings and some flat, shaped balusters in a staircase leading from the first
floor to the attics.
Condition—Good.[4]
Gazetteers
Sources
- [Gardner, Herbert Colstoun, ed.] An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Hertfordshire (Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England)) (London, 1911), p. 208.
- Page, William, ed. The Victoria History of Hertfordshire. Vol. II (The Victoria History of the Counties of England) (London, 1908), p. 144. Web version a British History Online.
Maps
- 25" O.S. map Hertfordshire XXVI.9 (c. 1878; surveyed 1876–78). No Copy in NLS
- 25" O.S. map Hertfordshire XXVI.9 (1899; rev. 1897) (georeferenced)
- 25" O.S. map Hertfordshire XXVI.9 (1899; rev. 1897)
- 25" O.S. map Hertfordshire XXVI.9 (1924; rev. 1922)
- 6" O.S. map Hertfordshire XXVI (1883-84; surveyed 1877-78)
- 6" O.S. map Hertfordshire XXVI (1899; surveyed 1897)
- 6" O.S. map Bedfordshire XXXIV.SW (1901; rev. 1900)
- 6" O.S. map Bedfordshire XXXIV.SW (1901; rev. 1900) (georeferenced)
- 6" O.S. map Bedfordshire XXXIV.SW (1925; rev. 1922)
- 6" O.S. map Bedfordshire XXXIV.SW (c. 1948; rev. 1928)
- 6" O.S. map Bedfordshire XXXIV.SW (1950; rev. 1946).
Background
Notes
- ↑ Page, William, ed. The Victoria History of Hertfordshire. Vol. II (The Victoria History of the Counties of England) (London, 1908), p. 144. Web version a British History Online.
- ↑ Benslow Care Homes: Robin Hood House (company website).
- ↑ Page, William, ed. The Victoria History of Hertfordshire. Vol. II (The Victoria History of the Counties of England) (London, 1908), p. 208.
- ↑ [Gardner, Herbert Colstoun, ed.] An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Hertfordshire (Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England)) (London, 1911), p. 144.
Robin Hood House, once an inn – the Robin Hood – then a private residence, now a privately owned and run dementia care home / Benslow Care Homes: Robin Hood House.
"Robin Hood", Little Gaddesden. Postcard published by Wm. F. Piggott, Leighton Buzzard, [''s.d.''] / Hertfordshire Genealogy.
