Walkern, Hertfordshire

Just as a matter of interest, anybody near the above?

My brother lives in Hatfield,  Herts  :;smile:

It's the village that my paternal grandfather was born in. During the war he used to take us there for a break from sirens and bombs, and my mother told me about something I had no memories of. It seems that I had fallen into a weir and my grandfather had to jump in up to his waist to salvage me. In 2009 , when we came to England to visit my wife's relations who live on the south coast, we took our rental car to look at Walkern and asked a few people if they knew where a weir was. Nobody knew, they were nearly all relatively recent arrivals who commuted to London for work, but eventually we saw a chap mowing the lawn of a church and asked him. He pointed at a thick hedge and said that he thought that might be it, so I grabbed my camera, left my wife in the car and 'bush bashed' about 50 metres when I saw a green concrete sort of dam with a sluice running down from the top. My reaction astonished me! I had an instinctive urge to pull back from the edge! I was shaking!  Now I can swim and I have swum all over the world but I was frightened of that water! It made me wonder how far back your subconscious goes?

Ciderman how interesting.  There are lots of those little places. 

My brother lives in similar location. His garden goes on for miles, well not literally . He has left part of it wild and has an old shed there. A family of foxes live there.  A similar wooded area opposite his house. It can be spooky.

Lots of history in that location. 

Ask Purwell he lives in that area  :;smile:

I imagine that was part of the mill race and of course there was a brewery in Walkern. I live about 6 or 7 miles away from there but don't know a great deal about the village.
I will see what I can find out.

Found an article about the mill here: http://www.walkernhistorysociety.co.uk/index.php/history-and-timeline/buildings/walker-mills/water-mill/

Thanks Purwell that's an interesting site. I'll peruse it further later.
My great grandad was a dray driver for Wrights Brewery. In 1885 he fell off after delivering casks to the Boot Inn in Aston, and ran himself over the neck!