The Tunnels of Hertford -
If Hertford Castle is at the centre of a labyrinth then there is no visible evidence so its time to move on to Bayley Hall. The Achesons claim that they or the family have owned this place and have lived there.
I have done no checks through the Land Registry but available records indicate that it was owned by Hertfordshire County Council until 2004 when sold to Rialto Homes. It is possible that a close family relative may have boarded there when it was the Headmasters House prior to the school’s move to Richard Hale School in 1930.
What is not in doubt is the underground passage described in the opening to this essay. This is the extract from Hertfordshire Archives at County Hall.
HERTFORD D/EGr/40
plasterwork No. D/EGr/57 showing Sundial, No. D/EGr/13 plasterwork, No. D/EGr/59,
D/EGr/61, D/EGr/69 and D/EGr/54 Bayley Hall, Hertford 1820, Bayley Hall 1898 Subterranean
passages in Cellar, Salisbury Arms? Plan 1898 showing the Bayley Hall Picture of
Date range: 1898 -
Source: Access to Archives (A2A): not kept at The National Archives Conveyancing
papers DE/L/Q12 Bayley Hall, Hertford. Hale's Grammar School. [Hertfordshire Archives,
A miscellaneous collection...] Date range: 1898 -
There are also said to be tunnels leading to Hertford Castle and All Saints Church. If there had been one to the latter this too would have been crushed when Gascoyne Way was bulldozed through. The only evidence of this is a quote from a Museum curator who said: ‘I only know for sure about the Bailey Hall tunnel which I believe was used by the judges when it was a law court so that they could get to All Saints Church nearby’.
I can find no evidence that Bayley Hall was used as a Law Court although there is a significant lack of records during the English Civil Wars and if as believed the present building dates to 1650 being the close of hostilities it might have been used by the bailiff and as a court prior to this time. As mentioned after 1610 the current inhabitant of the castle wanted the Assizes moved and there appeared no other place until the Shire Hall was built in 1627. In the absence of any other evidence I will have to declare an open verdict.
Of equal uncertainty is the existence of a tunnel between Bayley Hall and the castle. In her recent book ‘Hertford’ only recently published in November 2007 and containing a mountain of information Jacqueline Cooper believes that the ‘tunnel’ is more likely to be part of the drainage system. The proximity of Bayley Hall to the outer walls of the castle and therefore the old double moat gives some substance to this explanation.
The Tunnels of Hertford -
Although no precise date is given by the time of the survey conducted in 1608 the moats were described as ‘ditches’ and in a later partial document of 1686 reference is made to ‘banks and bottoms’ possible the residual dry double moat. A much later 1766 town map shows the moats completely filled in so any drainage into the moat and then to the River Lea from which it fed would now be redundant.
Bell Lane down to Fore Street
This problem is not helped by the 1996 Department of National Heritage List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historical Interest. It states in a historical note on Bayley Hall: ‘Basement originally contained kitchens, plain flagged and board floors, 2 brick vaults, and said to contain passage, now blocked, leading to Hertford Castle.’
These pieces of evidence concur with the earlier notes on the use of brick for public buildings and those intended for nobility.
However the much quoted and published map of Bayley Hall includes an underground passage leading not to the Castle but under Bell Lane. This continues up to what is now a Branch office of Santander.
This is part of a row of tenements with attractive pargetting said by a local historian to have been built on the instructions of Lord Burghley during the reign of Queen Elizabeth as accommodation for members of the Court and Privy Council which met at the Castle during the plague years in London. See photo on left.
This is also disputed by the authors of the Listed Building Index who say: ‘This range of substantial mid seventeenth century urban tenements is of a scale rare in Hertfordshire. Although local historian H C Andrews linked the buildings with residency constructed for court officials during late sixteenth century outbursts of plague, there is little architectural evidence for a structure earlier than mid seventeenth century, although a number of earlier timbers are visible.’
Once again it is inconclusive.
However Bell Lane does connect both these Elizabethan properties and the east side of the Salisbury Arms (then the Bell) which runs half its length and is of late fifteenth century origin. In common with many inns the Hotel has a cellar which is noted in the listing above: ‘Cellar with concrete floor and largely twentieth century brick lining; medieval stonework reported in earlier list description not seen.’
It is not therefore too much of a stretch of the imagination to conceive of a tunnel connecting the three buildings for use by officials for the conducting of business, for accommodation and for leisure at a time when plague was rife. Being able to move about town without fear of bumping into an infected person might well have seemed a very attractive option.
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Tunnels 2 Tunnels 4
