Abbots Langley - History

History

This village has had a long history of successful human habitation. The first traces of human habitation in the area were recorded by renowned archaeologist Sir John Evans (1823 – 1908). The village sits on a saucer of clay covered by a layer of gravel, and as a result water supply has never been a problem; records show that in earlier times water could be drawn from a well just 20 ft deep

In 1045 the Saxon thegn Ethelwine 'the black' granted the upper part of Langlai to St Albans Abbey as Langlai Abbatis (Latin for Langlai of the Abbot, hence 'Abbot's Langley') the remainder being the king's Langlai. By the time of the Domesday Book in 1086 the village was inhabited by 19 families.

The area was split into four manors, Abbots Langley, Langleybury, Chambersbury, and Hyde. In 1539, Henry VIII, seized Abbots Langley and sold it to his military engineer Sir Richard Lee. The Manor of Abbots Langley was bequeathed by Francis Combe in his will of 1641 jointly to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and Trinity College, Oxford. The manors of Langleybury and Chambersbury passed through the Ibgrave and Child families, and in 1711 were conveyed to Sir Robert Raymond then Solicitor General later Attorney General and Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench. On the death of his son without issue in 1756 the manors passed to the Filmer family. The Manor of Hyde passed to Edward Strong in 1714, through his daughter to Sir John Strange, who left the manor to be shared between his children and their descendents (including Admiral Sir George Strong Nares) and then to the possession of F.M. Nares & Co which sold the estate to the British Land Company in 1858.

Kitters Green developed as a separate hamlet by Manor House. The land between Kitters Green and Abbots Langley was bought from the estate of Sarah Smith by the British Land Company in 1866. It laid out plots for development along Adrian, Breakspear, Garden and Popes roads. The development of these plots led to the merger of the two settlements and the loss of Kitters Green's separate identity.

The recent Katherine Place development has brought in some high class retailers to the centre and was sold for £2.93 million in December 2005. To the south of the village are Leavesden Film Studios, on the former Rolls-Royce airfield, where scenes from movies including GoldenEye, Sleepy Hollow and the Harry Potter series have been filmed.