Bishop's Stortford is the largest town in East Hertfordshire and immensely commutable, be you a City financier or Ryanair cabin crew. It lies three miles west of Stansted Airport, immediately adjacent to the M11 and is blessed with a fast connection to Liverpool Street. The town started out as a riverside settlement by a ford and soon after 1066 was purchased by a bishop, hence the name. As well as its bishop it also has a castle, has been visited by kings and queens and was home to several knights of the realm, so that's all the major chess pieces covered ♗♜♔♛♘. Additionally it has two pawn shops ♟♙ but that's probably pushing the allusion too far. [Discover Bishop's Stortford][history][10 photos]
If planning a day out it's always a good sign when a town has both a museumand a Tourist Information Office. I'm not quite sure how many tourists are genuinely expected to turn up in Bishop's Stortford - maybe air travellers who've got off the train one stop early - but there is indeed a decent amount to see. But do make tracks to the little shop because amongst the jars of honey and I❤️BS mugs are a decent collection of leaflets including the glossy town guide and four freely-grabbable town trails. The latter put most towns of a similar size to shame, indeed if you follow all four you'll have seen pretty much everything with a good idea of its history, suggesting the council very much wants you to linger here. I did just that.
To picture the layout of Bishop's Stortford think of a large circle with the southeastern quarter removed. All the oldest stuff is in the centre with successive hoops of development added since, now all the way out to the ring road that defines the town's perimeter. Straight down the middle go the railway and the river, which of course is the River Stort, although unusually the river is named after the town rather than the other way round. The missing quadrant is all Green Belt and rural, this because it's in Essex rather than Hertfordshire. The M11 runs tangentially to the east and beyond that is the budget friendly hub of Stansted Airport, its runway thankfully angled away from the town. I think I only looked up twice.
The oldest structure in town is Waytemore Castle, imprecisely dated but probably from the 1080s, topped off by a rectangular keep during the reign of Henry I. The mound is 13m high and a classic Norman motte, but these days just a grassy lump with remnants of flint defences around the upper rim. The earthwork is surrounded by low railings to prevent excess access, but a set of fifty-or-so steps ascends one side so up I trooped for a view across the town. It wasn't quite as quiet as usual up top thanks to the Friends of Castle Park undertaking bagfuls of scrub clearance and a group of Stortford lowlife drinking from dubious cans. But I still enjoyed scrambling round what's left of the ramparts, admiring the many spring flowers on the slopes and spotting Waitrose in the near distance.
As usual Christianity got in early and planted a church on high ground, in this case at the top of the High Street. St Michael's has roots in Saxon times but the current building is early 15th century Perpendicular and the widely-visible spire considerably more recent. I've seen more exciting interiors but I liked the board with the list of vicars which starts with "A Priest (name unknown) 1086" and then rattles through a heck of a lot of men called John. Remember the name Francis William Rhodes from 1849 because we'll get to his famous son in four paragraphs time. Stortford's other tall buildings are the silos at the Allinson's bakery, a surprisingly central industrial site, which alas doesn't mill at weekends so I can't tell you how good it smells. It is however a great improvement on the maltings and breweries that the town used to be famous for, but also notorious for.
The most imposing of the town's other buildings is probably the Corn Exchange, typical of market towns of this era (which in this case was 1828). This swooshing classical building evolved into the town's magistrates courts, then fell into disrepair and narrowly avoided demolition in the 1960s. These days it appears to contain two restaurants and a betting shop, with an upper terrace where a trio of residents were enjoying something alcoholic in the sun. Several considerably older buildings are scattered nearby, many of them former pubs including the half-timbered Black Lion which is medieval and the George Inn where Charles I dropped by in 1629. Even the Tourist Information Centre used to be the Reindeer Inn, a lewd dive described by Samuel Pepys who we know to have partaken in the 'entertainment' provided by landlady Betty Aynsworth.
Bishops's Stortford owes a lot of its early growth to being halfway between London and Cambridge. Numerous coaching inns sprang up and were well used, at least until 1670 when the town's smelly reputation caused a fresh bypass to be built on the other side of the river. The new overnight hotspot thus became Hockerill Crossroads, each quadrant occupied by a separate beer/stabling establishment of which only The Cock Inn survives. As for The Red Lion that's now an Indian restaurant, the Crown Inn is a dental surgery and the Coach & Horses is a demolished gap beside an estate agent. Apparently Dick Turpin was a regular visitor to The Cock, which is credible given he grew up across the border in Essex, but if he turned up today I'm not sure Sky Sports and a night of ukulele music would be his thing.
The town's shops are pretty good, as you'd expect given it's a long drive to Harlow or Chelmsford. Anywhere with a population under 40,000 with a Marks & Spencer must be hitting above its weight. The main drag is Potter Street where Boots and Waterstones bump up against B&M Bargains, and which annoyingly doubles up as part of the one-way system because an ancient street pattern leaves no room for easy circulation. The town's covered mall is Jackson Square, a 70s replacement for superfluous council offices which last month extended with anchor tenant TKMaxx so must be doing well. For sit-down dining you want North Street where a lot of the town's older buildings are, while those with disposable income to burn are catered for in the twee zigzag of Florence Walk, almost like they saw you coming.
Famous residents of Bishop's Stortford include actress Lynda Baron, DJ Greg James and singer Sam Smith. But by far the most consequential was the seventh child of the aforementioned vicar at St Michael's, namely CecilRhodes the diamond merchant, politician and apartheid-enabler. The family lived at Netteswell House on South Street, a building since sanctified as a tribute to his greatness in the days of Empire - come see the birthplace of the founder of Rhodesia! It's since been absorbed into a considerably more modern arts centre, a weird hybrid where touring comics play to packed houses in one part and the older wing houses two floors of the town's museum. It's a collection that bats above the average.
Cecil's story is told in considerable detail in the very room where he was born, which adds an extra frisson. The displays are commendably free of jingoism but also unexpectedly light on criticism, suggesting they've not been updated for some time. I kept reading ("founded De Beers") ("ruled the country") ("restricted voting rights") expecting to see some recognition of a tarnished reputation, or indeed any focus on the native population, but none was forthcoming. They have at least removed his name from the building, originally the Rhodes Memorial Hall, then the Rhodes Memorial Museum and Commonwealth Centre, later the Rhodes Centre and now the entirely anodyne South Mill Arts Centre.
Elsewhere I was fascinated by the tale of the Gilbey family who lived on Windhill and were big names in the stagecoach industry before that went bust. But Sir Walter Gilbey created an even greater fortune in the 1880s by importing inexpensive wines which tempted the middle classes away from ale, and also upsold Gilbey'sGin to create the global brand we know today. On the upper balcony I admired the Bishop's Stortford Mural, an 8-metre-long embroidery sewn locally in the 1980s, also the ancient stocks rescued from a local village, also a 'contemporary reminiscence box' created by local teenagers. The latter contains nothing you would have picked in your youth, instead showcasing objects including a liquid eyeliner brush, a PlayStation game, an empty Amazon package and a can of carbonated lemon drink.
But the town's finest attraction, for residents and visitors alike, has to be the River Stort itself. It's special because it's navigable, this because the town's malt trade was suffering in the 1760s so an entrepreneur called George Jackson funded a transformation from river to pseudo-canal. It didn't make him exceptionally rich but it did turbo-charge business locally and earn him a knighthood. The towpath means it's extremely easy to walk alongside and can be tracked a lot further than your average river, potentially all the way to Hoddesdon. In the town centre it feels a bit hemmed in, and by the station is now overlooked by 740 newbuild flats on the site of the old goods yard. This stretch is quite joggy, doggy and cycly, so do keep going.
Beyond the railway line is a rumbling weir to cross and reedy woodland to walk through, then the first of the Stort Navigation's locks at South Mill. The Canal & River Trust have done a fine job of installing information boards all the way down, so you'll discover where best to look for pike, what's left of the millwheel and why the Minister of Transport turned up in 1924. I merely walked as far as Rushy Mead Nature Reserve, a tranquil scrape of sedge beds and flooded alder, but it's only an hour further to Sawbridgeworth if you're not too tired from exploring Bishop's Stortford instead. Which as I hope I've proved above is clearly worth doing. Just because it's the commuter belt doesn't mean it isn't innately fascinating.
