Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

St Margaret's Convent was a convent of the Benedictine order near Great Gaddesden in Hertfordshire, England. Founded in 1160, it was abolished as a consequence of King Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s. It was also known as The Priory of Ivinghoe, St. Margaret's, in the Wood and Muresley Priory.It was founded by Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester. Some accounts point to an earlier foundation by Thomas Becket before 1129. It therefore predated the nearby Ashridge Priory. In 1280 King Edward I gave lands in Surrey to the convent, but it was always known for its poverty.Names of some of the prioresses survive, from Isoda, elected in 1250, to Margaret Hardwick, in place at the time of closure under the first Act of Suppression of 1535, when the convent had five nuns, and an annual income of £18 8s 9d. It was sold to Sir John Dauncey in 1538, along with the Manor of Muresley. It changed hands over the centuries, finally passing to the Earls of Bridgewater and Lord Brownlow in 1823.The buildings are described as being of Totternhoe stone with mullioned windows, square mouldings and trefoil-headed stained glass windows. The structure survived as a manor house until at least 1802, but had been almost completely demolished by 1862.Several place names persist from the convent, including St Margaret's Lane and Farm; and the district north-west of Great Gaddesden is still known as St Margaret's. The modern Buddhist monastery of Thai Forest Tradition, Amaravati Buddhist Monastery is situated only a quarter of a mile from the site.

Great Gaddesden is a village and civil parish in Dacorum Hundred in Hertfordshire, England. It is located in the Chiltern Hills, north of Hemel Hempstead. The parish borders Flamstead, Hemel Hempstead, Nettleden and Little Gaddesden and also Studham in Bedfordshire. The Church of St. John the Baptist was probably the site of a pre-Christian sanctuary. The church shows features of every period since the 12th century. Part of the chancel with Roman bricks dates back to the early 12th century. The old church was extended by the south aisle in the 13th century and the north aisle in the 14th century, while the west tower was built in the 15th century and the north chapel in the 18th. The medieval convent of St Margaret's stood northwest of the village. For a while the site served as a WW2 Royal Canadian Air Force transit camp and later a boarding school for children with special needs, and it is now a Theravadin Buddhist monastery of Thai Forest Tradition, the Amaravati Buddhist Monastery, complete with temple. Gaddesden Place, east of the village, was built from 1768 to 1773 for the Halsey family. It is surrounded by a large park. In 1905 a fire destroyed the interior of the main house. The River Gade takes its name from Gaddesden. Its clear water is used for watercress beds along the river, and at Water End, south of Great Gaddesden, is an old corn mill. The bridge over the river at Water End has a medieval appearance but was built in the 19th century.

Frithsden is a small hamlet in Hertfordshire, England. It is located in the Chiltern Hills, about two miles north of Berkhamsted, to which it belongs. It is in the Dacorum Ward of Nettleden with Potten End. The village name is derived from the wood le Fryth (me. frith »wood«). It is first mentioned 1291 as Frithesdene (»valley of the wood«). It is pronounced locally as 'Frizden' West of the hamlet bordering to Ashridge Park are the Frithsden Beeches, a wood left to nature, with large beeches. Scenes for Sleepy Hollow, Jonathan Creek and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire have been filmed in this wood.Frithsden, together with the neighbouring hamlets Nettleden and Potten End, is famous for its black cherries and the villagers hold in July their annual cherry fair. They also claim to have originated the Cherry Bounce and the Cherry Turnover. The village has also a winery, the Frithsden Vineyard.

Nettleden is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Nettleden with Potten End, in the Dacorum district, in the county of Hertfordshire, England. It is in the Chiltern Hills, about four miles north-west of Hemel Hempstead, near Little Gaddesden, Great Gaddesden and Frithsden. In 1931 the parish had a population of 133.

Nettleden with Potten End is a civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, covering the villages of Potten End and Nettleden and the surrounding rural area. The parish of Nettleden with Potten End was created on 1 April 1937 from the former parish of Nettleden and parts of the parishes of Great Berkhampstead Rural and Northchurch. The village of Potten End had previously straddled Great Berkhampstead Rural and Northchurch parishes. From its creation, the parish of Nettleden with Potten End was included in the Berkhamsted Rural District until that district was abolished in 1974 to become part of Dacorum.Nettleden with Potten End parish council generally meets at the Church Room in Potten End, the larger of the two villages.

Potten End is a village in west Hertfordshire, England. It is located in the Chiltern Hills, two miles (3.2 km) east-north-east of Berkhamsted, three miles (4.8 km) north west of Hemel Hempstead and two miles south east of the National Trust estate of Ashridge. Nearby villages include Nettleden, Great Gaddesden and the hamlet of Frithsden. The village is part of the parish of Nettleden with Potten End within the borough of Dacorum.

Gaddesden Place, near Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, England, was designed by architect James Wyatt and built between 1768 and 1773, and was the home of the Hertfordshire Halsey family. The house is set in an elevated position overlooking the Gade Valley and is said to enjoy one of the finest views in the Home Counties.

The Hoo is a Grade II* listed country house in Great Gaddesden, Hertfordshire, England. It dates from around 1683. In 1944 it was in use as a maternity home.

Danais (Latinised as Dacorum) Hundred was a judicial and taxation subdivision (a hundred) of Hertfordshire, in the west of the county, that existed from the 10th to the 19th century. It gave its name to the local government district of Dacorum. Danais was Latinised to Dacorum in 1196. The name Danais means the Hundred of the Danes and refers to its incorporation into the Danelaw for a period in the tenth century.The territory of the hundred is interwoven with that of Cashio, which suggests that Cashio was carved out of Danais in the early eleventh century in order to provide a single jurisdiction for the Abbot of St Albans.The parishes in Danais at the time of Domesday were: Abbots Langley (partial) Aldenham Barworth Bushey Caddington Flamstead Great Gaddesden (partial) Kensworth Redbourn (partial) Shenley Wheathampstead Windbridge (partial)In the 16th century, Dacorum absorbed the hundred of Tring, and afterwards the hundred also included the following parishes: Aldbury Great Berkhampsted Little Gaddesden Hemel Hempstead King's Langley Puttenham Redbourn (remainder) Shenley Wigginton Great Gaddesden (remainder)

The Borough of Dacorum is a local government district in Hertfordshire, England that includes the towns of Hemel Hempstead, Berkhamsted, Tring and Kings Langley. The district, which was formed in 1974, had a population of 137,799 in 2001. Its name was taken from the old hundred of Dacorum which covered approximately the same area. It is the westernmost of Hertfordshire's districts, being bordered to the west by the Chiltern and Aylesbury Vale districts of Buckinghamshire.

Little Heath is a partly wooded area with scattered housing, just south of the village of Potten End, Hertfordshire, England. It represents the top of the Chiltern Hill plateau and has distinctive geological beds that remain while they have been eroded elsewhere. The exposed structure of ancient coastal deposition known as Little Heath Pit has been classified as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) because of its unique geology.The land is a detached part of the Ashridge estate and owned by the National Trust. The woods are dotted with many deep pits called dells which are the remains of gravel extraction during World War 1 for production of sandbags. There are up-market detached residences and a tea room with a small plant nursery.Two World War II anti tank bollards lie at the bend in Bullbeggers Lane on the south-western side of the wood.

Little Heath Pit is a 0.3-hectare (0.74-acre) geological Site of Special Scientific Interest at Little Heath near Potten End in Hertfordshire. It is part of the Ashridge Estate, owned by the National Trust, and the local planning authority is Dacorum Borough Council. It is listed in the Geological Conservation Review.The lowest layer is gravel dating to the beginning of the Pleistocene 2.6 million years ago. At this time the North Sea covered much of south-east England and the site was in an inter-tidal area, but since then the Chiltern Hills have risen 170 metres. Above this gravel layer is sand, and then another layer of gravel laid down some 20,000 years ago. This was the height of the last ice age, when the site was cold tundra like western Siberia today. According to Natural England the site is "controversial" as the new excavation shows gravel of possible marine origin rather than glacial till as previously believed.The size of the site is unclear. In April 2012 the Planning Inspectorate gave consent for the erection of fencing round the site to allow re-excavation of the site while protecting it against badger damage and protecting the public against accidentally falling into the deep pit. The size was given as 360 square metres (0.036 hectares). The excavation and erection of the fence were carried out shortly afterwards. However, the Natural England (NE) citation gives the area as 0.3 hectares and the NE map shows a larger area of 1.2 hectares.There is access to the site from Bullbeggars Lane. The surrounding area is wooded and covered in deep pits called locally 'dells''. These are the remains of working to extract the gravel during World War One to make sandbags of use at the front.