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Sandridge, a village about three miles north-east of St. Albans, has managed to retain its identity despite the encroachment of ribbon development from the city and the spread of the Marshalsvwick estate. It is an ancient settlement. situated on the old Roman road from Verulamium to Royston, and bordering on the wild and lawless Nomansland. which: separates the Village from Wheathampstead.
The Village was not a prosperous one and infant kept the Population down to about 800 until the late 19th Century when the development of the Bernards Heath area of St. Albans almost the numbers living in the parish. This area subsequent!y became the separate Parish of St. Saviour's.
The church of St. Leonard was extensively restored in 1886-7. but there are still remnants of Roman bricks in the chancel and in the chancel arch. The Norman church was consecrated at the turn of the 12th Century. There is a Norman font. and some medieval tiles in the chancel and vestry. The church is set in an attractive part of the village, off the main road. Its lychgate is flanked on one side by the old vicarage. now a Salvation Army home for the elderly, and on the other by one of the village's historic pubs. Unfortunately. much of the churchyard was levelled and cleared of gravestones in the 1960s. The "new" cemetery is a short walk away. with an entrance from House Lane and burials here date from the early 1930s.
Amongst the memorials of interest are those from the Thrale and Cox families, the two families in the parish since the 16th Century. The Cox chest tomb, which is literally covered with inscriptions. is under the trees to the left past the lychgate. A chest-tomb marking the entrance to the Thrale vault can be found on the right through the
lychgate. The Thrales have been the subject of substantial research in their own right over the When Cussans visited the churchyard in the mid-19th Century he noted 22 ta the Thrale family, ta the south and south-west of the church tower. extending over a period of 150 years but, unfortunately, the great majority of these have since disappeared.
Cussans also noted that other memorials in the churchyard at that time were chiefly to Pearman, Smith, George, Baldock and Patmore. |
Thrale history
