Bayfordbury, Hertford, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

A mid-18th- and 19th-century landscape park with pleasure grounds and a notable mid-19th-century pinetum, surrounding a mid-18th- and early 19th-century country house.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Bayfordbury lies 2 kilometres south-west of the centre of Hertford, at the north edge of the village of Bayford. The roughly 130 hectare site is bounded to the north-west by the B158 Lower Hatfield Road, and on the other sides largely by agricultural land. The house and pleasure grounds occupy the north end of a plateau which slopes down across parkland to the north and west, and east into a valley through which the Bayford Brook runs from south to north. The east side of the valley and the level high ground beyond is occupied by further parkland and the pinetum.

The setting is largely rural, with the main London to Hertford railway line close by to the east, and the landscape parks of Panshanger and Balls Park (see the description of both these sites elsewhere in the Register) lying 2 kilometres away to the north-west and north-east respectively. Panoramic views extend from the north-west, entrance front of the house and the west and north parkland, across the agricultural land of the shallow River Lea valley.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

Gardener's Magazine, (11 December 1909), pp 969-70

H Clinton-Baker, Illustrations of Conifers (1909-12)

Country Life, 57 (17 January 1925), pp 92-9; (24 January 1925), p 125

JF, The Clinton-Baker Pinetum, (January 1978) [copy on EH file]

Conifers at Bayfordbury, (Hatfield Polytechnic Field Station 1980)

Garden History 12, no 2 (1984), pp 140-1

Maps

A map of an estate belonging to William Baker esq ..., 1758 (Hertfordshire Record Office)

Dury and Andrews, A topographical Map of Hartford-shire, 1766

Map of estates situate in ... Hertingfordbury, Bayford, ... belonging to William Baker, 1807 (Hertfordshire Record Office)

A Bryant, The County of Hertford, 1822

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1883; 2nd edition 1899; 3rd edition 1925

OS 25" to 1 mile: 2nd edition 1898; 3rd edition 1923 

Description written: August 1999

Edited: October 2000