The Society and its members have published a number of works. Most can be purchased at our monthly meetings, or from the Three River Museum.
Plague Cottages and Pandemics
by Alison Wall (ISBN 978-1-8356-3023-5), £12.99 from bookshops and online retailers.
For a signed copy at the discounted price of £10.99, e-mail alison.wall28@gmail.com
Alison Wall has just self-published her book after many years of research.
She has two main reasons for doing so. Firstly (as far as she is aware) there is no book that specifically looks at the role of the plague/pestilence/pest houses, from the seventeenth century. Secondly there are still quite a number of these houses still standing, so it is important that their history is acknowledged and they are valued by future generations. Rickmansworth’s Pest House was by the river Chess, but was demolished in the 1960s.
Incidental mention is made of them, for example by Samuel Pepys in his diary for 1665: “a mayde ran away and was taken back to the pest house by the pest coach.” But he provides no detail of what the pest house was like or who was accommodated there.
Alison discusses the history and beliefs of disease, starting with Aristotle and Galen and explains the differing beliefs about cures for disease over time. The events leading up to the Great Plague of 1665 are included in the early chapters, with lists of where the demolished and still standing pest houses are located.
The text then moves on to the care of those with smallpox and other infections, with the evolution from pest houses to isolation hospitals. ‘Fever nurse’ training was introduced specifically to train nurses to deal with infections like diphtheria. Fever nurses were trained to undertake tracheostomies, if they were required for those with diphtheria.
The story moves to the present day and how we have faced the recent COVID-19 pandemic. The similarities and differences between 1665 and 2020 are debated, with final thoughts about how we should address future pandemics. A key difference suggested was that in 1665 they knew not to house those infectious with the plague, in the hospitals. They understood the risks of spread and recognised the importance of health protection.
Pre-Reformation wills from Rickmansworth parish (1409 to 1539)
Edited by Dr Heather Falvey
Life and death in the medieval parish of Rickmansworth
Medieval wills provide insights into the lives of ordinary people: their family and social networks, their religious convictions and piety, their wealth, their personal and domestic possessions, their livestock and the tools of their trade. For many places such documents have not survived, but they have for the medieval parish of Rickmansworth, which encompassed the settlements at Batchworth, Chorleywood, Croxley, Maple Cross, Mill End and West Hyde, as well as Rickmansworth itself.
In all there are 213 surviving wills of Rickmansworth parishioners dating from 1409 to 1539, and probate documents relating to 35 others. As well as revealing details of life (and death) in the parish the wills also tell us about the church of St Mary’s, which was rebuilt (twice) in the nineteenth century. The wills also provide names of numerous relatives, servants and friends in the locality.
Although testators rarely stated where they lived – all were expected to attend St Mary’s and would be buried there – it is clear that they came from all over the parish. Tax assessments from 1524 do reveal in which settlement taxpayers lived and so people named in wills made about that time can be located more definitely.
Our latest book, Pre-Reformation wills from Rickmansworth parish (1409 to 1539), provides the text of all of these documents, including the tax assessments, and the introduction discusses life in the medieval parish.
Pre-Reformation wills can be purchased for £7.50 from the Three Rivers Museum, at any of the Society’s meetings, or by e-mail rick.hist.soc@btinternet.com. Or you can use the order form here: Rickmansworth Wills website order form
Roll of Honour 1914-1919 – Rickmansworth Urban District and Rickmansworth Rural Parish
by Pat Hamilton, Michael Collins, Robert and Sal Williams, edited by Brian Thomson.
Croxley Green in the First World War by Brian Thomson.
A Village Boyhood in Croxley Green by Frank Paddick.
Passing Through – the Grand Junction Canal in west Hertfordshire, 1791 to 1841, by Fabian Hiscock. Published by Hertfordshire Publications (University of Hertfordshire), £16.99 (also at local Waterstones branches)
Rickmansworth Park, Hertfordshire by Adrienne Jacques
Loudwater, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire by Adrienne Jacques
Croxley Great Barn
Copies of Rickmansworth Historian Nos 1-30 are held in the local libraries and in the Museum. Of particular note:
Rickmansworth Historical Society Newsletters No. 1 to No. 100
For details of articles in these newsletters see “Index to Newsletters”.
The Bury, the story of Rickmansworth’s manor house,
Rails to Chorleywood, by Hugh Howes and the Friends of the Chorleywood Signal Biox
Rickmansworth Historical Society 