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The Queen’s army passed through Redbourn and attacked St Albans up Fishpool Street, which was defended, and up Catherine Street, which was not. A fierce battle raged in St. Peters Street and the Yorkists were driven out to Bernard’s Heath and there, "amid the falling snowflakes, the combat went on for hour after hour, maintained on either side with that deadly animosity and bloodthirsty doggedness inseparable from civil wars".¹⁵ Warwick at first made no attempt to relieve his hard pressed left wing with his main body of troops lying idle at Sandridge. Instead he withdrew this main body to join the right wing on Nomansland, where the captive king was sitting under a large oak tree. The vacillating Warwick then decided to meet the victorious Lancastrians on Dead Womans Hill. The battle was not then lost, but treachery sealed the fate of the day. A Kentish squire, commanding a section of the right wing, went over to the Lancastrians with the whole of his force. The cry of “treason!” passed along the line, and sent the already demoralised soldiery into blind panic. At Nomansland Warwick managed to rally some of his forces and succeeded in effecting a more orderly retreat. Instead of the thirty thousand men, Warwick was left with four thousand shattered wretches under his banner, The King, having been reunited with his Queen and son, upon whom he conferred a knighthood, proceeded to the abbey. Thus was the second battle of Sandridge, the first occurring in B.C.54.

This visit of King Henry VI was, until recently the only recorded visit of the reigning sovereign to Sandridge; but on 20 July 1952 Queen Elizabeth II passed through the parish and village on her way from St Albans to St. Paul’s Walden.

Book One. 750​-​1539

Chapter Three
FEUDAL LANDSCAPE

When one gazes on the parish countryside of today, one may be sure that there are several features upon which the people of the feudal period also gazed with some speculation, and perhaps conjectured upon their origin. One such feature is the Devils Dyke which lies between Lower Beech Hyde and Marford, and is part of the boundary between Sandridge and Wheathampstead. Excavations have revealed quantities of pottery and other relics which are believed to belong to the first century before Christ. Nearby is a smaller earthwork known as the Slad, nowadays partially filled with water. It is believed that Julius Caesar, when fighting the chieftain Casslvellaunus in B.C. 54, attacked and carried his enemy’s stronghold¹ which was bounded by the Devils Dyke and the Slad. The whole character of the former Dyke is so closely identified with that of Beech Bottom Dyke "that no one would hesitate to attribute both to the same authorship."²

Beech Bottom stretches away from the Harpenden Road in a north-easterly direction; after a mile it fades out. The dyke is no less than one hundred feet wide from lip to lip, and still in its partially filled state, reaches a depth of thirty feet. The excavated earth was piled partially on both margins. It was clearly intended by its constructors to serve as a boundary and a traffic barrier rather than a military work. It would mark the northern boundary of a tract of relatively open land lying between the parallel valleys of the Ver and The Lea.³

Another feature, which would be visible to the eyes of our predecessors, is the Roman road from Verulamlum to Colchester. It ran through the entire length of Sandridge parish from a south-westerly direction, following the line of the present road over Coleman Green, and crossing the river Lea at Waterend.

Footnotes

15. Sandridge Church by C.H. Ashdown, F.R.G.S., in the Sandridge Magazine, March 1915, p.18.↩︎

1. Caesar Commentarii de Bello Gallico 5. 21.↩︎
2. R.E.M. and T.V.Wheeler, Verulamium, p.19.↩︎
3. Wheeler, Verulamium, p.18.↩︎