Baldock (or Baldwick), Hertfordshire

Map

The overlays that highlight 17th century London features are approximate and derived from Wenceslaus Hollar’s maps:

Open location in Google Maps: 51.989254, -0.189268

6 Annotations

First Reading

TerryF  •  Link

Baldock
"Baldock, or Bagdad as the Knight Templars used to call it, grew where the Great North Road crossed the Icknield Way. And a rather untidy crossing it was with the Great North Road turning right onto Icknield for a couple of hundred yards, before turning left to resume its proper direction again.[...] "When, in later years, the Templars fell from grace, the property was transferred to the Knights Hospitallers. The town grew slowly through the centuries and perhaps gained most importance in the coaching days when it was the first main halting stage on the Great North Road out of London. [...] "Baldock gets an eye-brow raising mention in Pepys's diary for August 6th 1661: 'Took horse for London, and with much ado got to Baldwick. There lay, and had a good supper by myself. The landlady being a pretty woman, but I durst not take notice of her, her husband being there.'" http://www.biffvernon.freeserve.c…


Second Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

'Daniel Defoe, in his book *A tour through the whole island of Great Britain*, passed through Baldock and commented:
"Here is that famous Lane call'd Baldock Lane, famous for being so unpassable, that the Coaches and Travellers were oblig'd to break out of the Way even by Force, which the People of the Country not able to prevent, at length placed Gates, and laid their lands open, setting Men at the Gates to take a voluntary Toll, which Travellers always chose to pay, rather than plunge into Sloughs and Holes, which no Horse could wade through."'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bal…

Third Reading

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References

Chart showing the number of references in each month of the diary’s entries.

1661

1663

1667