Stevenage – A modern town

Considering Stevenage is a relatively new town, the area is actually steeped in a rich history. We know about Roman involvement in and around the Stevenage area, but the town has connections to the Tudor period and eras that were to follow.

Tudor, Stuart and Georgian times in Stevenage

In 1558 Thomas Alleyne, then the Rector of Stevenage, founded a free grammar school for boys, Alleyne’s Grammar School, which, despite becoming a boy’s comprehensive school in 1967, had an unbroken existence until 1989, when it was merged with Stevenage Girls School to become the Thomas Alleyne School. Francis Cammaerts was Headmaster of Alleyne’s Grammar School from 1952 to 1961. The school, which has been since 1989 a mixed comprehensive school and is now an academy as of 2013, still exists on its original site at the north end of the High Street in Stevenage old town. It was intended to move the school to Great Ashby, but the Liberal Democrat and Conservative Coalition government from 2010 to 2015 scrapped the move owing to budget cuts.

During the 17th century, the Elizabethan house at 37 High Street in Stevenage was the home of greengrocer and churchwarden Henry Trigg. He was a philanthropist who donated another of his properties to serve as the Stevenage workhouse. When Henry died in 1724 his coffin was placed in the rafters of the adjoining barn to prevent resurrection men from stealing his remains. In 1774, Trigg’s house became the Old Castle coaching inn, and was used as a staging post by the Royal Mail. From 1999 until 2016 it served as a branch of the National Westminster bank, and as of 2022 it has been converted into a dentist’s surgery.

Stevenage enjoys many trade links with other regions

Stevenage was to prosper from the many trading posts that it had. This was mainly owing to the town’s proximity to the Great North Road, which had a turnpike in the early 18th century on the site of the Marquess of Granby pub.

There were many inns in the High Street of Stevenage that served the stagecoaches, with more than twenty passing through Stevenage each and every day in 1800. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the road now known as Six Hills Way was frequented by highwaymen who would use the ancient burial mounds as a hiding place. Here they would rush out from cover to rob the travellers and tradesmen of their money and goods. James Whitney, the namesake of the Highwayman pub in Graveley, was hanged at Newgate in 1693 for robbing travellers in this area.

Stevenage suffers a devastating fire

On 10 July 1807, the Great Fire of Stevenage, as it became known, destroyed more than forty properties in Middle Row, including Hellard’s alms house that had been in existence since 1501. The fire is believed to have been started when a young girl employed as a chambermaid at one of the many Stevenage coaching inns emptied some embers from the fireplace into the street. Sparks from the embers ignited the thatched roof of a nearby shop, and quickly spread to the other timber framed buildings in the north end of Stevenage old town due to a strong wind. The terrible fire was only stopped from destroying the entire street by demolishing a house, thus serving as a firebreak. After the fire was extinguished by Stevenage’s volunteer firefighters using a hand-operated fire engine made in 1763, the houses and inns were rebuilt with brick facades and tiled roofs. This practice was also seen after the Great Fire of London. Troopers from the Hertfordshire Yeomanry assisted the firefighters in the operation to extinguish the flames.

From the Victorian era to modern Stevenage

In 1850 the Great Northern Railway was constructed and the era of the stagecoach ended. Stevenage grew only slowly throughout the 19th century and a second church was constructed at the south end of the High Street. In 1861 the novelist Charles Dickens stated that, “The village street was like most other village streets: wide for its height, silent for its size, and drowsy in the dullest degree. The quietest little dwellings with the largest of window-shutters to shut up nothing as if it were the Mint or the Bank of England.”

At the turn of the century, the twin poachers Albert and Ebenezer Fox were active in the area. Poaching was a way of life for many at this time and would often mean the difference between starvation and survival. While the twins were incarcerated in jail for their crimes, they were studied by police commissioner Edward Henry to confirm his theory on the usefulness of fingerprinting in forensic science.

In 1928 Philip Vincent bought the HRD Motorcycle Co Ltd out of receivership, immediately moving it to Stevenage and renaming it the Vincent HRD Motorcycle Co Ltd. He produced the legendary motorcycles, including the Black Shadow and Black Lightning, in Stevenage until 1955.

Today, Stevenage has a bustling town centre and some impressive retail parks, with shoppers travelling from London to sample the wares on offer.