Ringshall, Berkhamsted

Ringshall is a hamlet in the Chiltern Hills of England. It is located on the border of the counties of Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire; parts of the village lie in the civil parishes of Edlesborough and Ivinghoe in eastern Buckinghamshire, while the rest of the village is mainly within the parish of Little Gaddesden (where the population was included) in the west of Hertfordshire. Ringshall lies within the HP4 postcode and the postal address designated by Royal Mail is "Ringshall, Berkhamsted".

Ringshall
Hamlet
Cottages on Beacon Road in Ringshall
Ringshall Location within Hertfordshire
OS grid reference	SP9814
Civil parish	Little Gaddesden[1]
District	Dacorum
Shire county	Hertfordshire
Ceremonial county	Hertfordshire
Region	East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Berkhamsted
Postcode district	HP4
Dialling code	01442
Police	Hertfordshire
Fire	Hertfordshire
Ambulance	East of England
UK Parliament	Hemel Hempstead
List of places UK England Hertfordshire 51°49′N 0°34′W

History

The Gatehouse on Nettleden Road, Ringshall

Bluebells in Dockey Wood

Ringshall is one of four place-names in the parish of Edlesborough Northall and Dagnall that have an origin with the suffix healh; the others being Dagnall, Hudnall and Northall.^[2] Ringshall-Hall Farm is situated in the Edlesborough part, but the hamlet was always appendant to Ivinghoe.^[3] The Ivinghoe part of the hamlet was transferred to Little Gaddesden in 1895,^[4] but some houses have since been built along Beacon Road in the area that remained as part of Ivinghoe parish.

Landmarks

Ringshall is close to Ashridge House, a former stately home that is now in use as a management college. A crenellated Gothic Revival stone gatehouse stands in Ringshall at an entrance to the Ashridge estate which was probably designed 1808-1813 by James Wyatt, architect of Ashridge House.^[5]

Ringshall lies on the edge of the Ashridge Commons and Woods, an extensive a country estate of dense woodland which is managed by the National Trust. Moneybury Hill, a woodland next to Ringshall, is especially noted as it was landscaped by the celebrated English landscape architect Capability Brown between 1759 and 1768 for the Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater. Nearby Dockey Wood is also noted as an example of bluebell woods.^[6][7]

From the 1930s to the 1990s, the Deer Leap swimming pool operated in Ringshall, drawing large numbers of visitors to the hamlet.^[8]

References

1. "Parish Council".
2. A. Mawer and F. M. Stenton, The Place-Names of Buckinghamshire, English Place-Name Society volume 2, 1925, pp.94-95.
3. George Lipscomb, History and Antiquities of the County of Buckingham: Volume III, J. & W. Robins, 1847, p.402.
4. Vision of Britain: Little Gaddesden Relationships Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine
5. Stuff, Good. "Deer Leap Lodge, Little Gaddesden, Buckinghamshire". www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk. Retrieved 26 April 2018.
6. "Capability Brown: Ashridge - Moneybury Hill, Ringshall, Near Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, HP4 1LX". www.capabilitybrown.org. Retrieved 26 April 2018.
7. "Shedding light on bluebells". Hertfordshire Life. Retrieved 26 April 2018.
8. Refusal of planning permission at Deer Leap swimming pool site 1998 and dismissal of appeal 1999, Dacorum Borough Council

Further reading

• J. Leonhardt, A Century Remembered: The Millennium Book for Little Gaddesden, Ringshall, Hudnall and Ashridge, Rural Heritage Society, 2002, ISBN 0-9542174-0-3.

External links

Media related to Ringshall at Wikimedia Commons