Hotels in Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire lies in the wooded lower basin of the River Thames with the chalky outcrops of the Chiltern Hills in the northwest and Greater London in the south. Generally the county is well endowed with woodland, with beech on the Chilterns and oak and hornbeam on the heavier clay areas.

First occupied by Belgic settlers (German and Celtic peoples) in the 1st century BC, the banks of the River Ver were chosen by the Romans for their important settlement, Verulamium, in 54 AD. Destroyed by Queen Boudicca in 60 AD, the town was rebuilt and remained very much unchanged until the 8th century, when King Offa of Mercia founded a Benedictine abbey on a hill on the opposite bank of the river, where St Alban is said to have been martyred in 309. The town that developed around the abbey is now St Albans, where the first reading to the English barons of the Magna Carta took place in 1215.

Due to its close proximity to London, the once rural county is now more urbanised, with St Albans acting as a dormitory suburb to London. Despite recent development many old market towns and villages have survived, some boasting fine brick-and-timber houses and cottages. The county also has some splendid country mansions set in extensive parklands, dating from the 18th century.