Westmill

Westmill is a village and civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England. It lies in the valley of the River Rib, south of Buntingford, its post town. At the 2021 census, the parish had a population of 290.

Geography The Prime Meridian passes to the east of Westmill, as does the Roman road Ermine Street, which ran from London to Lincoln and York.British History Online. Westmill. Retrieved 29 July 2014. Its route is followed here by the A10 trunk road. There is an infrequent bus service to Buntingford.Retrieved 29 July 2014.

West Mill railway station on the Great Eastern Railway's Buntingford Branch Line from St Margarets to Buntingford opened on 3 July 1863. Passenger traffic thrived until the mid-1950s and the rise of car ownership. The line and station closed to passengers on 16 November 1964. The station buildings had been demolished by 1968.Disused Stations site. Retrieved 20 October 2014.

Historic buildings The large medieval parish church, dedicated to St Mary the Virgin and restored in the 19th century, shows signs of a Saxon origin.Friends of Westmill Church. Retrieved 29 July 2014. It is one of a large number of historic buildings in the village. One, a thatched cottage named Button Snap at Cherry Green, was owned by the writer Charles Lamb from 1812 to 1815.Listed Buildings in Westmill, Hertfordshire Retrieved 29 July 2014. It was through the widow of his godfather, Francis Fielde (died 1809) that Lamb, as he put it, "came into possession of the only landed property which I could ever call my own."Charles Lamb: Selected Writings, edited and introduced by J. E. Morpurgo (New York, NY: Routledge, 2003 ), p. 281.

The church is part of a joint benefice of Aspenden and Buntingford.St Mary the Virgin, Westmill. Retrieved 29 July 2014. The commons were enclosed in 1819.

The former 16th-century watermill is now a private house.

Facilities The village has a pub/restaurant, the Sword Inn Hand, which dates from the 14th century,Sword inn Hand, TripAdvisor.Retrieved 20 October 2014. and a village hall,hertsdirect.org. Retrieved 20 October 2014. where a children's nursery is held.Westhill Nursery prospectus. Retrieved 20 October 2014.

Notable residents The antiquary Nathanael Salmon (1675–1742) was a curate in the village for several years, but refused to take the oath of allegiance to Queen Anne in 1702 and later practised as a doctor in St Ives. His History of Hertfordshire appeared in 1728. Westmill was the 1833 birthplace of the child diarist Emily Pepys, whose father Henry Pepys, later bishop of Sodor and Man, then bishop of Worcester, was the rector from 1827 to 1840.Henry Pepys's ODNB entry: Retrieved 16 September 2011. Subscription required.; the name was pronounced "Peppis", not "Peeps" by this branch of the family: Gillian Avery: Introduction. In: The Journal of Emily Pepys (London: Prospect Books, 1984. ), p. 11. He donated a stained-glass window in memory of four of his children, who died in childhood. This can be seen behind the altar.Friends of Westmill Church... The murder of a small girl by her nine-year-old brother, Billy Game, at Westmill in 1848 became the subject of a ballad.Murder at Westmill (1848). Retrieved 29 July 2014.

Westmill

Bron en licentie