Box Wood, Stevenage Road, Walkern

North of Aston, South of Great Ashby, East of Stevenage, West of Walkern.

Listed Asset of Community Value, East Hertfordshire District Council, 27th July 2020.

FAIRLANDS FARM
&
THE ORANGE GROVE OF BOXE

The area of Box Wood has its own history but shares a close and often common ancestry with Fairlands Farm. It is unsurprising that both have faced similar threats and challenges. Most recently these arose from post-war development and aspirations of early 21st century speculators, but our story goes much further back.

Chells Manor lies to the west of the current Box Wood site. In various times past it had been wooded and cleared for farmland until, during the 1980s, East Hertfordshire District Council approved a major housing development that took over the land. Box Field Farm had sat where The Emperor's Head public house, local shops, a GP surgery and community hall now exist. It shared marches with Chells Farm to the south, Mossbury Farm to the west and Fairlands Farm just next to that.

Join our virtual voyage through time and space and uncover some of the hidden histories of Fairlands, Chells and Box. With travels to lands far and wide, past and present, perhaps everything you think you know is a lie?

Let's find out...

For whom the Chells toll!

Chells Manor separated from Boxe Manor for unknown reasons around the time of Edward the Confessor. Chells was recorded as Seclua, and for some years its name was thought to have meant sloping. Seclua though appears from the Latin and identifies the site as a place of crime.

Certainly, as a very ecclesiastical society during Edward's reign, crime would have been the sin of the church. Peter de Valognes was the appointed Sheriff for Edward's eventual successor, William The Conqueror and held a small amount of land in Chells.

Whether its small population reflected that this was some form of an open local gaol for serving at His Majesty's pleasure, or that the overlords and landowners were also the local law enforcers may be a clue to the emergence of the settlement. For whatever reason, the hamlet became established and in Stevenage Town Centre another pub, irreverently nicknamed 'Ted the Grass' by its patrons, took Edward's name.

The Doomsday Book documents a tiny population in Chells. Its area was 2.3 ploughlands, around a quarter of the total land of Boxe.

The book records the owners of Boxe at the times of the Norman invasion of 1066 and following Williams reassignment of land by 1086. The population of Boxe was 14 households, estimated as about 70 people. The records suggest its area was somewhere around 900 acres.

Together Chells and Boxe were similar in size to neighbouring Stigenace, but unlike all their neighbouring manors, neither had sufficient woodland for any to be recorded against their entries in the book.

One of three entries for Boxbury in William The Conqueror's Doomsday Book.

Treasure Hunt.

Although small in comparison with most of its neighbours, Boxe did reasonably well. Under the ownership of the Norman knight William De Boxe, the Manor was able to acquire a holding of 60 acres of land near Hoddesdon, which Hugh De Boxe managed. The land at Hoddesdon is still identified as Box Wood. A planning application there in 2018 recognised the environmental benefits of protection of ancient woodland, but although planning officers recommended refusal of the application, planning permission was granted by the planning committee.

For many years, the prospect of planning decisions has worried those with interests in protecting the natural and historical environment around them. For the current Box Wood at Stevenage, this is no exception, but the development of Box Field farm led to something quite special that was surely exciting for the ground workers who worked on the site at the time.

In 1986 a hoard of around 2,500 Roman coins, dating from AD193 to AD263, was discovered. It undoubtedly caused delays to the building project. The find provided the public house and roads in the surrounding area (such as Pacatian Way, Valerian Way and Augustus Gate) with their names.

Several friends of Fairlands Farm contributed to Stevenage Museum's 2020 Project, A History of Stevenage in 100 Objects.

The discovery was excellent news for the woodland site. The final step in the completion of the development plan was an extension to Gresley Way, from its existing junction with Fairlands Way and Stevenage Road to Walkern. Plans proposed by developers in 1983 for the Road 12 had not been popular.

Cutting through both Box Wood and Pryor's Wood to reach the bread factory in the industrial area to the North-West pf the wood would have been devastating for the natural environment. Like the defeated and eventually abandoned 'Road 9' plan to cut through Fairlands Valley, Gresley Way's intended purpose was to provide a transport link for the factories in the North-East of 'New' Stevenage to connect with Six Hills Way and Broadhall Way for access to the A1(M) southbound to London and A602 towards Hertford and the South-East.

Gresley Way Sept 2020

Encouraged by the discovery of the Roman coins and the conditions imposed for the completion of Gresley Way, archaeological excavations in 1988 uncovered evidence of a Neolithic settlement in the area. In October that year, the 'Earthworks in Boxwood' in the southern half of the site was listed as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, dated to before 1800 BC. It prompted extensive study of local history. 8 years later the results of the research were published.

Read All About It.

Martin Mawhinney's 1994 authoritative 'The Book of Walkern, Chells and Box' provides a detailed account of the ownership of the land of Box up to this time. In it 'The people and places spring to life, their fears and fortunes, sickness and sins, and their surviving records and remains are rediscovered through word and picture.'

As our primary source of reference, some reliance is placed on that work.

Further context is added from our knowledge and research. Bringing the story up to date, we record what has happened to Box in the intervening years, with additional information that would have not been readily accessible without the digital revolution.

We are grateful to our friends of Stevenage High Street, members of the former Stevenage Historical Society and Stevenage Farmers Market volunteers for their additional input and fact-checking.

Our thanks also extend to Stevenage Writers Group for their additional support and the many contributors to the Friends of Box Wood Facebook group, who sourced various records we have been fortunate to examine.

Stevenage History Shop Baker Street
Stevenage History Shop Baker Street

Box Wood Billy.

Public interest over Box Wood dates back at least as far as the origins of Fairlands Farm.

Around the end of the English Civil War, in 1651, a long-running dispute between the churches of Stevenage (St. Nicholas) and Walkern (St. Mary's) over the tithes of Box Manor was 'finally' settled in favour of Stevenage. This should be of little surprise, as John Thurloe, Secretary of Oliver Cromwell, lived in the vicinity of Stevenage, though records show the collection of the tithes and taxes of Box Manor continued to change right through to the 21st century.

Many of the changes of tenure at Box come from natural changes of ownership: deaths, marriages and family ties. The destruction of the wood in 1939 and a little mathematics points to another reason for exchange of ownership. 1340 great oaks were felled for the war effort. Mawhinney records these were dated around 250 years old. The dendrochronology dates them as having been planted during the reign of William and Mary.

When the Dutch William of Orange was mounting his coup against his father-in-law King James II, as he was about to set sail from the Netherlands and expected to land along the south coast, James' loyal supporter Archibald Douglas was appointed to recruit an army from the home counties.

It is to then (1688) that the Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire Regiment traced its origins. The army raised by Douglas, refused to march to London, displaced him as Colonel and within 3 months had switched their allegiances to the new crown of King William III. [https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/bedfordshire-and-hertfordshire-regiment]

A historic Dutch atlas of 1665 is held by the David Rumsey Collection in Stanford.

It contains a double-page spread of Hertfordshire. 'Wefton, Boxcheffeld, Walkorne, Fincherende and Stevenedge' are located in the surrounding area, within the 'Broadwater Hvnd.'

The Hundred stretched from 'Byfhops Hatfeild' to Baldock and depicts extensive woodland surrounding Walkorne at the time.

Of all the Hundreds within Hertfordshire, Broadwater was the only one unedged by any of the neighbouring counties.

The map provides a beautiful illustration of the four-colour theorem. Although it would be almost 2 centuries later when Frances Guthrie hypothesised only 4 colours are needed to colour any planar map, it was not until 1976 at the University of Illinois was this eventually proven. It was the first computer-assisted proof of a mathematical conjecture.

Like other monarchs, William was known to entrust land to men who had served under him and it is possible that the oak trees planted then were done so by men of the King's Regiment, who may have travelled to Ireland to liberate the people from the tyrannical James. Under the command of The Duke of Marlborough, the troops were first sent to Flanders before joining the Williamite campaign in Ireland. As infantry under the Duke, they served alongside the Earl of Peterborough’s Regiment of Horse, and William's 16,000-strong infantry formed from Danish and Dutch Regiments and 3,000 French Huguenots troops, a number of which were uncovered as spies.

Lying between Box Wood and Weston, the early 21st-century community of Great Ashby lies to the North East of Stevenage straddling the administrative wards of Woodfield (Stevenage Borough) and Chesfield (North Hertfordshire District). It is romantic to think that it may attribute its name to Thomas Ashby which genealogy research points towards his coming from landed gentry in Leicestershire. However, its naming is more mundane. Developers named the area for the abundance of ash trees and 'Great' is taken from 'Great Extension,' a moniker for the post-war expansion out of London.

Photo: Rob Gant
Photo: Rob Gant

As we made these discoveries, on 1st September 2020, an orange Harvest Moon was observed shining over the Beane Valley. glowing beneath the constellation of Libra. Catalogued in the 2nd century by Ptolemy, the constellation’s name means “the weighing scales” in Latin, and is usually depicted as the scales held by Astraea, the Greek goddess of justice. In less enlightened times, superstition may have suggested this was a sign.

Other histories of Walkern have claimed Ashby was the owner of the site from around 1681 until 1727 however, Ashby seems to have been a commissioned officer for the Treasury, a land carriageman based in Southwark, who died in service at the start of 1679. A royal warrant from Treasurer Danby to the Customs Commissioners on 10 February that year instruct that Humphry Jones be employed as his replacement ['Entry Book: February 1679, 1-15', in Calendar of Treasury Books, Volume 5, 1676-1679, ed. William A Shaw (London, 1911), pp. 1221-1232. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-treasury-books/vol5/pp1221-1232 accessed 7 September 2020].

Three years after James's defeat at The Battle of The Boyne, the land was leased to William Watson of Weston. Treasury records show Watson, a Page of the Bedchamber, and three others were paid a sum of 82l./4s./0d. 'for attendance on the King into Ireland.' [Entry Book: April 1691, 21-30', in Calendar of Treasury Books, Volume 9, 1689-1692, ed. William A Shaw (London, 1931), pp. 1114-1130. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-treasury-books/vol9/pp1114-1130 accessed 7 September 2020].

We cannot say if it is a coincidence or a stranger truth, but Friends of Fairlands Farm had met to discuss Box Wood on the 330th anniversary of William III's battle. Perhaps Ptolemy knew a lot more about the influence of the celestial bodies than science tells us today? Astraea may be the judge to whom we should perhaps provide our evidence.

Other records held by British History Online indicate that Watson became a Lieutenant and was warranted a pass to depart to other lands with 5 horses. Family records suggest his parents moved to the Americas, from Dundee, Scotland while he was an infant and following an indentured service to the Crown was able to settle in Prince George's County, Maryland with his wife Catherine, also a Scot. They had at least one child and William died in 1743, aged 70 [https://www.geni.com/people/William-Watson-Jr/6000000000490566989]. Direct descendants of William Watson, Jr. have been traced to living in Seattle, during the 1950s.


William III and Prince George of Denmark at the Battle of the Boyne
Jan Wyck

Ancient Earth, Fierce Wind and Enemy Fire.

Mawhinney's extensive research reveals much detail about the Earthworks, the histories of Boxbury and Chells Manor farms, and the Forestry Commission's post-war reparation of the wood.

The ancient site had narrowly escaped being hit by 5 German bombs which were dropped over the area, but even after the war finished other threats to the ancient site were still to be fought, albeit with much more civility.

Box was bare for over a decade, but during the early 1950s, several factors combined to encourage its restoration. Some were positive, such as Queen Elizabeth II's coronation. On the other hand, the winter storm of 1953 was no delight. A natural disaster claimed 307 lives in Britain at the end of January 1953 and over 1600 souls were lost in the Netherlands.
The coastal defences of the East of England and North-West of Europe were no match against devastating hurricane winds that had produced the worst storm in Ireland for 300 years, tore away the Orkney coastline, and demolished approximately 1.8 million square meters of woodland in Scotland, before proceeding across the North Sea towards Europe. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-21272289

So in 1954, JW Smith & Sons, proprietors of Boxbury, perhaps also seeing the expansion of Stevenage New Town, relinquished ownership of Box Wood. By 1956 the conveyance was complete. A new 999-year freehold was generated and held by members of the Pearman family. The leasehold was taken by the Forestry Commission and they began the process of densely replanting with fast-growing non-native species. Children from the local area were invited in school classes to help plant trees around the sawpit.

In 1961 the Forestry Commission circulated The History of Box in the County of Hertfordshire by W. O. Wittering in its departmental journal. The detailed report had originally been prepared for the commission's assessment of the site almost a decade earlier. https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/documents/6836/FCJO030.pdf

Musical Interlude

While the 1960s and 1970s saw a major period of growth for Stevenage, culturally television came of age and the entertainment industry had a significant boon.
One of the most successful internationally acclaimed bands to rise to fame was Earth, Wind & Fire, said by Rolling Stone magazine to have 'changed the face of black pop.'


Professeur Yevgeny Petrov directs the provincial orchestra of Nijni Novgorod playing a melody of their best-known tunes. Look at all those cool bow ties.


Dynamic Guinness World Record holder, Peter Bence, published his awesome performance of EWF's 'September' shortly after we received news of Box Wood's registration as an Asset of Community Value.

Growing Pains.

The Forestry Commission transferred its lease of the matured new woodland into private ownership three decades later, while local wildlife groups, the local Museum, the County Archaeological Department and Walkern Parish Council were combining their resources in efforts to prevent developer proposals for Gresley Way from destroying the site.

Plans were altered and finally for the housing developers, on 30 March 1987, planning permission was granted by East Hertfordshire District Council for application '3/86/1954/RP | PHASE 3 PERIPHERY ROAD FROM WALKERN ROAD (B10379 ROUNDABOUT TO CONNECT WITH MARTINS WAY STEVENAGE. | Land North Of Walkern Road West Of Box Wood South Of, Lobbs Hole Stevenage.' [sic]

This was a significant success for Box Wood's protectors. The application ensured that the necessary road link would be built to the west of the 60-acre site just outside the Walkern Parish boundary as it was then. The road followed a line just west of an old farm track in Box Field which still exists today.

Box Wood History Spy NLS

The track was essentially for farm use, but its existence on the edge of Box Wood is noteworthy. The neighbouring landowners and occupiers had to work cooperatively to ensure the wood remained healthy and verminous species such as wood pigeon and black squirrels. Sustainably managing the wood, the health and biodiversity of the plantation were maintained and as many as 100 deer were known to frequent the site.

When the housing development was completed, the developers offered the new leaseholder of Box Wood an opportunity to purchase this 6-acre strip of wooded track, but it was declined.

We are told that the new leaseholder's private enjoyment of the woodland eventually waned. Management of the wood became increasingly challenging as the loss of the neighbouring agricultural community was replaced by a higher density urban population with less rural knowledge. North of Box, more farmland disappeared piece by piece as more and more housing was built. The lessor's contractor saw fields of the farm he grew up on getting replaced by tarmac, bricks and mortar.

Accumulated damaging effects to the flora and fauna pressured his contractor to quit servicing the wood. It was not long before the leaseholder decided to sell the remainder of his lease. A reputable countryside agent was appointed and a guide price equating to £3,000 per acre was set. This seemed a fair price, considering the restrictions on the land, the neighbouring community, and the average value of woodland across Hertfordshire at the time. The 60-year-old trees were by now 120 feet tall, many suffering from disease and requiring thinning. The Muntjac deer that had frequented the area were now scarcely to be seen.

A diseased and fallen tree

Mawhinney was certainly wise by not laying down a firm conviction when he concluded 'the site is more or less safe from development [as] the wood which protected the earthworks for so many centuries is now protected by them,' as he would not have foreseen the consequences of the leaseholder's decision to sell.

Unaware of the nature of the business that was set to buy the lease, there was much speculation over the buyer's intentions when plots within the wood were seen to be up for sale online. The marketing suggested plans were being made to fell the wood and build homes atop the ancient monument.

Unfortunately, by the time he and the freeholder learnt of this and what appeared to be happening, his contract to complete the sale had already been signed.

Back To Black.

At the start of the year, no-one anticipated the global impact of what was about to occur. Almost seven centuries after the global pandemic, Black Death in the 1340s, that led to the abandonment of the Box settlement, a war against another invisible enemy emerged.

In deciding that 2020 would be its Year of Culture, Hertfordshire had not thought that most of the planned events would have to be rethought or cancelled altogether. The CoVID-19 global pandemic saw major changes to peoples working and social lifestyles, but the effect would inadvertently support friends of Box Wood in their aims to protect the site.

To limit the spread of the disease, emergency measures introduced by Parliament meant many businesses premises closed and increased levels of working from home. Increased use of social-media tools connected individuals with their friends, colleagues, and family members. The effect would accelerate the level of interest and support for community groups already online, and through various channels making better use of local amenity space for daily exercise was encouraged.

Having been walked through and appreciated for decades, residents made good use of Box Wood for their health needs. When it transpired that the site was being sold, fear that the woodland could be lost caused a great deal of concern.

News of the sale of the site followed shortly after the grant of a major planning application south of the wood, in Aston Parish. Approval of that development had been resisted for many years, but inevitably had finally received the planning authority's permission.

Estate agents exacerbated concerns by displaying computer-generated images of houses within the woodland. They split the 60 acres in various ways in various attempts to sell inferior leases on smaller plots through automated auctions on their websites.

The issue received significant coverage by the local press. As word spread and petitions were raised, local MPs, Stephen McPartland in Stevenage and Sir Oliver Heald QC for North East Hertfordshire, local county councillors for Walkern, Ken Crofton, and Chells, Robin Parker, as well as the leader of Stevenage Borough Council, Sharon Taylor OBE, all spoke with the same encouragement to East Hertfordshire District Council. They urged it to exercise all its legal powers to protect the site.

East Hertfordshire could hardly resist the call to action, as it and other lower-tier authorities, as well as Hertfordshire County Council, had recently declared a Climate Emergency, so the threat of loss of the woodland was taken seriously by all.

The limited powers of the council allowed it to enact a Tree Protection Order on the site and exercise jurisprudence with an 'Article 4' direction. These ensured any development activity would have to be considered and approved by the local authority. Meanwhile, friends of Box Wood set up a campaign website as their Facebook group grew to almost 2,000 members.


Nadia Lines, 2020 competition winner: 'Woodland for Sale'

Fairlands Farmhouse had already been designated as an Asset of Community Value in 2017. so, when news of the sale was reported to it, we knew of another avenue that could be explored using 'Community Right to Bid' legislation within the Localism Act 2011. The CIC could potentially nominate Box Wood as an Asset of Community Value. Working swiftly, on Sunday 12th July 2020, a site visit took place to consider the possibilities with friends from SG1radio.co.uk, who were visiting the site on the same day.

Immediately afterwards, our directors held an emergency meeting and decided to proceed. The nomination was submitted the following day. Officers at East Hertfordshire District Council swiftly assessed the application, judged it to be valid and, in consideration of the evidence, approved the registration on 27th July 2020.

Unfortunately, the pandemic caused some disruption to issue of the formal confirmation, so a public notice did not appear until 4 weeks later. Nevertheless, details had been sent to the land registry to register the charge.

The delay nevertheless kept hold of the public interest and granted us additional time for our historical research. Restricted to online resources which, but for the pandemic, may not have been so readily accessible, we may not have gained the new insights into our local history that we discovered.

For whom the bluebells sing!

"Box Wood is an important part of furthering the recreational, social wellbeing, cultural and sporting interests of the local community. The evidence submitted by the nominees strongly supports the criteria and it is clear that Box Wood falls under the definition of a community facility as outlined within the Council’s District Plan. In this sense it supports the community of Walkern, but also has a wider reach into the surrounding towns and villages." - East Herts District Council (August 2020)

Hertfordshire's Sping/Summer 2019 North & East Hertfordshire Bus Guide depicts bluebells in the woods.

Hertforshire's North and East Hertforshire Bus Map for Sping/Summer 2019 depicts bluebells in Box Wood and Pryors Wood.

Hard to Pin down.

Various map resources have been key to our findings. Queries about administrative boundaries brought to light numerous long-standing errors in the position of Great Ashby District Park, over Pryor’s Wood and Box Wood which had found their way into Google and Ordnance Survey maps over time.

With museums, galleries and libraries closed to the public, many resources were made accessible online through technological advances. The digital revolution proved its worth to our research as we sought to find some truths.

Online collections at Stanford, the British Library and National Library of Scotland helped create views of the area. They give clues to the eastward migration of Box since the Elizabethan era.

Laying Saxton's 1577 map of Hertfordshire over current satellite images, Stevenhaught is discovered east of where the town developed in the following centuries.

Geo-referencing tools, allowing side by side comparisons, transparency overlays and 3-dimensional views, provide fascinating insights unavailable to previous researchers.

Naturally situated at the highest point of the land, in an area now known as Pin Green, Stevenhaught would have had a clear vantage point across the lands to the south. Box Wood filled up the northern area of Fairlands Valley from Sishes Wood, south-eastwards to Aston End. Walkorne appears further east near where Yardley now lies though its manor appears at the location of Boxbury Farm.

What happened during the early days of Fairlands Farm becomes more difficult to discover, the further back we try to go, but set on the edge of the Tudor Box Wood, the original beams are likely to have been made from the trees of Box Wood. If only they could tell us what they know?

OS Hills map c.1900 overlaid on topographical terrain map with National Library of Scotland Georeferencing tools.
OS Hills map c.1900 overlaid on topographical terrain map with National Library of Scotland Georeferencing tools.

What does the future hold?

For now, until 26th July 2025, the Asset of Community Value designation means if the new current owner superior leaseholder, SIPP Investments Ltd, decides to sell all or some of their leasehold they must inform East Hertfordshire District Council. Then Council would then start the clock running on a six-week moratorium.

In that time community organisations can provide the council with an Expression of Interest, which would then extend the moratorium period to six months. This would allow to fully consider if a community purchase could be made from the vendor and raise funds to make an offer. The seller, however, would not be under an obligation to sell to the community group and may continue to market the site.

New growth feeds from the root of an ancient felled oak.
New growth feeds from the root of an ancient felled oak.

2020 teaches that we can never be certain what the future will bring, and we don't know what the next chapter of Box Wood's story will say, but we can look back in years to come and say we did our best.

Inspired to get involved?

We are always eager to hear from volunteers and welcome any donation you are able to contribute!