Ayot St Lawrence

Shaw's Corner was the primary residence of the renowned Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw; it is now a National Trust property open to the public as a writer's house museum. Inside the house, the rooms remain much as Shaw left them, and the garden and Shaw's writing hut can also be visited. The house is an Edwardian Arts and Crafts-influenced structure situated in the small village of Ayot St Lawrence, in Hertfordshire, England. It is 6 miles from Welwyn Garden City and 5 miles from Harpenden. Built as the new rectory for the village during 1902, the house was the home of playwright George Bernard Shaw from 1906 until his death in 1950. It was designed by a local firm of architects, Smee, Mence & Houchin, and local materials were used in its construction. The Church of England decided that the house was too large for the size of the parish, and let it instead. Shaw and his wife Charlotte Payne-Townshend relocated in 1906, and eventually bought the house and its land in 1920, paying £6,220. At the same time the garden was extended and Shaw bought land from his friend Apsley Cherry-Garrard, bringing the total to 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres). Shaw is known to have written many of his major works in a secluded, home-built revolving hut located at the bottom of his garden. The tiny structure of only 64 square feet (5.9 m2), was built on a central steel-pole frame with a circular track so that it could be rotated on its axis to follow the arc of the Sun's light during the day. Shaw dubbed the hut "London", so that unwanted visitors could be told he was away "visiting the capital".After Shaw's and his wife's deaths, their ashes were taken to Shaw's Corner, mixed and then scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden. In 1967 the house was designated a Grade II* listed building.

Old St Lawrence Church is a ruined building in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire, England. It is protected as a Grade II* listed building, and dates back to the 12th century.The building was partially demolished in 1775 by Sir Lionel Lyde, 1st Baronet, who had acquired a country home, Ayot House, close by. It was replaced as the village's parish church by new St Lawrence Church, a neoclassical structure which Lyde had built on a site slightly further from his house. The last baptism to take place at Old St Lawrence Church was on the 21st February 1773 for Susan George. New St Lawrence Church was consecrated in 1779.

St Lawrence Church is an eighteenth-century, neoclassical church in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire, England. It is also known as New St Lawrence Church to distinguish it from the ruined Old St Lawrence Church.

Ayot Park is a grade II listed park and garden at Ayot St Lawrence in Hertfordshire, England. It contains the grade II* listed Ayot House along with an earlier manor house and a walled kitchen garden which are also listed. The estate was acquired in 1723 by Cornelius Lyde and after his death it passed to Sir Lionel Lyde who was both his nephew and son-in-law. Sir Lionel built the grade I listed St Lawrence Church which faces the house across the park. It was consecrated in 1779.

Stocking Springs Wood is a 1.1-hectare (2.7-acre) nature reserve between Ayot St Lawrence and Ayot St Peter in Welwyn Hatfield district in Hertfordshire. It is managed by the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust.The site is hornbeam woodland, and it is divided into sections which are coppiced every sixteen years. Older trees are gnarled in shape as a result. In spring there are bluebells and wild daffodils on the forest floor, and other plants such as wood anemone and early purple orchids are indicators that the woodland is ancient. Breeding birds include nuthatch, great spotted woodpecker and treecreepers.There is access from Codicote Road west of Hill Farm Lane and from a bridleway from Ayot St Lawrence to Codicote Road.

Kimpton is a village in Hertfordshire, England, six miles south of Hitchin, seven miles north of St Albans and four miles from Harpenden and Luton. The population at the 2011 Census was 2,167.

Wheathampstead railway station was a railway station serving Wheathampstead on the Great Northern Railway branch line to Dunstable. While little of it remains now, east of Wheathampstead is the Ayot Greenway which follows what was the line towards Welwyn Garden City. The station opened with the rest of the Hatfield section of the line on 1 September 1860. Although a small goods yard and cattle dock were built, the close proximity of the road and housing meant that it remained a single platform only, with no passing loop unlike the stations at Harpenden East and Ayot. The station closed to passengers in 1965 with the track lifted a short time afterwards. Local volunteers, with financial support from the Parish Council, local businesses and local residents, have restored the platform. A short length of railway line has been laid, together with a restored wagon, a platform shelter, information boards and a picnic table. The site is included in the Wheathampstead Village Centre Heritage Trail.

Devil's Dyke is the remains of a prehistoric defensive ditch which lies at the east side of the village of Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire, England. It is protected as a Scheduled Monument. It is generally agreed to have been part of the defences of an Iron Age settlement belonging to the Catuvellauni tribe of Ancient Britain. It has possible associations with Julius Caesar's second invasion of Britain (54 BC)

Wheathampstead is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, north of St Albans. The population of the ward at the 2001 census was 6,058. Included within the parish is the small hamlet of Amwell.

Codicote ( KO-dih-kət) is a large village, and civil parish about seven miles (11 km) south of Hitchin in Hertfordshire, England. It has timber-framed and chequered brick houses, of special interest being the 18th-century Pond House and the half-timbered Taverners Place (formerly used as a Chinese restaurant called "As You Like It", which was redeveloped in 2016; previously the George and Dragon Inn). Codicote Lodge is 18th-century and Codicote Bury 17th-century. The church, mostly rebuilt in 1853, retains 13th-century work in its nave and aisles. A most unusual structure north of the village is the Node Dairy and Stud, erected in 1927. It is circular in design, and thatched, with a circular courtyard and a tower which is, in fact, a silo.

St Helen's Church is the oldest church in Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire, England, although the date of its origins is unknown. The wooden Anglo-Saxon structure pre-dated the Norman conquest of England, but no records survive which establish the date upon which it was founded. It is a Grade I listed building.Restoration was begun during the early part of the 13th century, the original Saxon church having become dilapidated. The Normans rebuilt and lengthened the chancel in around 1238. The east window triple lancets which still survive in the structure today date from this time as do the window and doorway with its dog-tooth decoration on the north side of the sanctuary. However, from the Lincoln Cathedral Registry—Wheathampstead fell with the See of Lincoln until 1845—the building of the central tower dates to about 1290 AD, which is the first definitive date that can be ascribed to the church. St. Helen's is built of flint rubble, or Totternhoe clunch, with flint facings and limestone dressings. There being no stone of this type in the area, it is thought that the medieval builders used stone from the Midland quarries shipped down the Great Ouse to Bedford and from there conveyed by horse and cart along the Roman roads to Wheathampstead. Within the church is a statue dedicated to the memory of Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the polar explorer, who is buried in the north-west corner of the churchyard. Also buried in the churchyard is British journalist, author and WWI correspondent William Beach Thomas.

Ayot St Peter is a village and civil parish in the Welwyn Hatfield district of Hertfordshire, England, about two miles north-west of Welwyn Garden City. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 166. At the 2011 Census the population including the nearby Ayot Green and Ayot St Lawrence was 245.