Wheathampstead

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.

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)

Nomansland Common (sometimes simply called No Man's Land) is an area of common land in Hertfordshire, England to the south of Harpenden and the south-west of Wheathampstead Geologically, the common is part of the Harpenden Dry Valley. In the last ice age a glacier dammed the river (which then flowed from Dunstable) south of Sandridge into St Albans Vale, creating a lake. When the dam melted and water drained away, it left the thin, stony soil still found on the common today. Nomansland has, throughout its history, been recognised for uniquely poor soil quality for agricultural purposes, although flint axe heads suggest that the common may have been cleared for grazing as long ago as 4000 BC. In World War II attempts were made to plant crops on the common, but the common yielded less than half of the produce per unit area as other arable land, despite heavy use of fertilisers. After the end of the war, the land was re-seeded as grass and returned to recreational use.

Marshalls Heath is a hamlet and a 4-hectare (10-acre) Local Nature Reserve in Wheathampstead parish, Hertfordshire, England. The nature reserve is owned by Wheathampstead Parish Council and managed by the council together with the Friends of Marshalls Heath. It was purchased from The Queen's College, Oxford, in 1966.The site is acid heath on both sides of Marshalls Heath Lane. It is secondary woodland and scrub, but the many species recorded include forty on national lists of threatened species. Yellow hill ants are very common, and it is one of the key Hertfordshire sites for butterflies and moths. The site was managed by the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust between 1972 and 1993, when the council terminated the agreement with the trust.

St Leonard's Church is in Sandridge, a village in Hertfordshire, England. It is an active Anglican parish church. The building is Grade II* listed: notable features include its chancel arch made from recycled Roman brick.

Sandridge Lychgate is a war memorial in the village of Sandridge, Hertfordshire, England. The timber lychgate with its flanking walls is listed Grade II, and is the entrance to the churchyard of St Leonard's Church, Sandridge. It records the names of the community's 24 fallen soldiers and also those of survivors of World War I.

The Queens Head is a public house in the village of Sandridge to the north of St Albans, Hertfordshire, England. The timber framed building is weather-boarded. It is listed as grade II by Historic England and is dated as "C17 and earlier". The nearby medieval church and its 20th century lychgate are also listed buildings.

Sandridge is a village and civil parish between St Albans and Wheathampstead in Hertfordshire, England.

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.

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.

Ayot St Lawrence is a small English village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, two miles (three kilometres) west of Welwyn. There are several other Ayots in the area, including Ayot Green and Ayot St Peter, where the census population of Ayot St Lawrence was included in 2011.