Hello Peter. I meant the Epping Green in Essex, just south of Harlow. However, your notice of the one near Hertford is rather interesting as regards the original enquiry. I just wonder why I didn't receive your earlier email on the subject, or John Henley's earlier email, for that matter. The EG near berkhamsted I know little about. I did manage to find one or two bits on the web that might be conduits of further info. We'll start with http://tinyurl.com/5bh4q4 (The hertfordshire-genealogy.co.uk's Little Berkhamsted page), as it includes a scan of Bryant's map of the locality, including Epping Green which is clearly shown as an outlying part of that village/town. With that in mind, this link then look promising: http://www.littleberkhamsted.org.uk/index.php Unfortunately it stopped responding at 23.00 - seems like it got turned off! This Geograph photo is followed by a modern map of the area: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/157669 Studying the contours around Epping Green shows it to be lying on the top of a roughly east-west ridge above the Lea Valley, which flows eastwards a little to the north. Several tributary streams flow northwards from the ridge into this stretch of the Lea, in more or less parallel courses that seem to separate the settlements of Bayford, Little Berkhamsted, and Essendon, all three of which have the centre of their settlements perched on local 'promontories' of the ridge, keeping to about the 100m contour. Notably, a series of farmsteads are also perched on the 'noses' of several smaller outcrops of the ridge between these settlements, yet at the same height, thus extending a line of settlement which seems to mark a midway point between the floodplain and marshland below, and the exposed heathland (or wild forest) above, generally speaking. (This is a very similar arrangement to the Cobbin Valley farming area between Waltham Abbey and Epping in Essex, where a similar study shows local ancient farmsteads sited on local 'promontories' (minor outcrops) of the ridges surrounding the valley, at roughly regular distances and mostly either just below or just above the 300 foot contour, each one placed on or near to a small stream that flows down to Cobbins Brook. In this case, these streams flow roughly towards each other, the ridges above the valley being in fact two 'fingers' of a larger ridge. But I'm getting too far off T!) Epping Green, the one in Herts, seems to lie beyond this line of settlement, on a sort of remote plateau at the top of the ridge. It would thus seem to have possibly been settled after the more established villages on the ridge brows below, though Tyler's Causeway (shown on both the Geograph and the Bryant maps) may complicate this if it is indeed an ancient trackway, which the map (even modern ones) seems to suggest. I suspect that its east-west section south of Epping Green is a diversion (probably due to development or expansion of Epping Green Farm), and that it would originally have gone east-north-eastwards, following the line of the local administrative boundary towards Old Claypits Farm on the road east from Epping Green to Broxbourne. If this is correct, then the causeway would more or less follow the highest point of the ridge along its length, including a small summit just south of the above farm, which would have been a very sensible path to take back in the days when the ridge was 'wilder' than it is today. (Further along the ridge to the west, on the road from Essendon to Welham Green, is a hamlet called "Wildhill," whilst to the east, just north of Ashendene Farm - which can just be seen on the right edge of the Geograph map - is a featureless place called "The Wilderness"- ooer!) Another possibility, especially when looking at the Bryant map, is that the causeway was a drover's track. These would have been extremely wide (just imagine a herd of cattle being driven along, especially in relatively open countryside). The cattle would have been driven from the west, and looking at Bryant's map it is easy to imagine that the track actually branched into several forks below Epping Green Farm, some heading east, some north-east, and some in between. Therefore, Epping Green could have been sited on this (possibly) ancient trackway (or drover's track, quite possibly just as ancient) at a point where it acted as a route to the settlements (or rich pastures) of Lt. Berkhamsted and Bayford, neither of which would have been visible from this point, being slightly downhill, below the horizon. In this case, Epping Green could be as old as the main settlements. However, whilst there might well have been some sort of isolated 'marker' or 'outpost' there to show the way to the villages below, an actual settlement might not have arrived till later, as its name suggests, though an Anglo-Saxon name proves nothing, as I discuss further below. In other words, I take the meaning of this Epping to be the same as the Epping in Essex, meaning the 'settlement of the upland people'. Where these people came from (and who considered them to be 'upland') is not as easy to guess at as it was with Epping in Essex (see my earlier post); they could have come from any of the main villages or, indeed, from similarly sited settlements on the other side of the ridge, the nearest candidate being Newgate Street (which again lies on a local outcrop of the ridge, a little above the 100m contour, between Grimes Brook and what seems to be called Pons brook (though 'Ponsbourne' might rather mean 'the bridge over the stream'), both of which feed into Cuffley Brook to the south. But the Green's association with Little Berkhamsted probably answers this question. Very briefly, stepping back for a moment to look at this upland area in general, the 100m contour only seems to act as a focus for settlement where the gradient is higher than a certain amount; when the slopes are very gentle no such line of settlement is obvious. The settlement of Bayford may reflect this; it is a little below the 100m contour, but at a point where the slopes below are relatively gentle (compared with Lt. B and Essendon), with no prominent brow for the settlement to sit on. The feeling would be of a people coming to the area via the largest local river, settling its surrounding ridges in such a way that they can look out over the valley from a high point that is near a local source of water, but not so high as to become isolated from the community at large. This pattern seems to have extended along tributaries and minor watercourse as time went on. The names of the places would suggest that this was an Anglo-Saxon thing, but I suspect that it's much older than that, possibly Iron Age or earlier - a study of the Roman camp at Cheshunt Park in relation to its local contours will soon show that the Romans had exactly the same idea - its site has a commanding position above a great curve of the Lea Valley all the way from below Cheshunt, right around to Ware, and on to Hertford. This would be very valuable to an occupying military force which sought to keep an eye on the indigenous local brutes, settled along the valley sides below. The very existence of this Roman fort strongly suggests that there were locals settled in the valley below to keep a thumb on. It also seems to suggest that local traffic would then have travelled along the valleys rather than the ancient ridgeways, which didn't seem to be as overlooked by the Romans. Perhaps the Romans effectively made the tops of the ridges (being above their military camp) a no-go area, causing them to become wildernesses for many centuries? If I'm right about the settlements being broadly pre-Roman, then their broadly Saxon names must suggest either a recolonisation, or an invasion and displacement of the locals, after what used to be called the Dark Ages. If the Angles and Saxons merely mingled with the already-present locals, then why don't the placenames reflect this? Did the locals not have names for their settlements? Apparently not. Perhaps the places once had dual names, both local and A-S, for a time, but the A-S ones survived because the newcomers wrote things down in charters and deeds whilst the locals didn't. But I apologise for being so extremely off-topic (genealogy, that is) - but the original enquiry was for the identification of a placename! Try as I might, I can't find any name in the Epping Green (Herts) area on a 1:25,000 scale map that could be twisted into Liewseppinge. I would also suspect that any reference to this Epping Green would have included the word Green (unless it dated to a time before this Epping had a green, whenever that may have been); therefore I still think that Liewseppinge was most likely in Essex after all. I would still like to see a photo or scan of the document in question! Cheers, Lawrence -----Original Message----- From: JFHH [mailto:johnfhhgen@uwclub.net] Sent: 04 November 2008 19:13 To: Spring; La Greenall Cc: essex-uk@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [Ess] Place name in Herts. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Spring" <spring@surfbvi.com> > Lawrence > > I asked the Clerk to Little Berkhamsted and Hertingfordbury Parish > Councils if there was any historic connection between his Epping Green > and the Eppings a few mile away in Essex, but he knows of none. > > Peter Has anyone tried the VCH [Victoria county History] of Herts? It should be online at British History Online - it is: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/catalogue.aspx?type=1&gid=16 but sadly http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43638&strquery=eppin g#n3 has nothing more than this: Epping Green, a hamlet, lies 1 mile south of the village, and another hamlet, Howe Green (probably Le Hoo of the 15th century), lies a mile to the north. Epping House, to the west of Epping Green, was the property of William Horne, attorney-general, who died in 1860. It now belongs to Mr. B. H. Henderson. (fn. 3) and A house was licensed as a Presbyterian meetingplace in Little Berkhampstead in 1672, and one at Epping Green was certified as a place of worship for Protestant Dissenters in 1810. (fn. 53) From: 'Parishes: Little Berkhampstead', A History of the County of Hertford: volume 3 (1912), pp. 427-430. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43638&strquery=eppin g. Date accessed: 04 November 2008. From: 'Parishes: Little Berkhampstead', A History of the County of Hertford: volume 3 (1912), pp. 427-430. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43638&strquery=eppin g. Date accessed: 04 November 2008. ------- Google maps shows both Epping Green Herts, just south of Little Berkhamstead, and Epping Green, Epping, Essex. regards John Henley No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG. 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