| Tring | |
|---|---|
| Market town | |
 Tring High Street | |
  Tring Location withinHertfordshire | |
| Area | 36.21 km2 (13.98 sq mi) |
| Population | 12,427 [1] |
| • Density | 321.32/km2 (832.2/sq mi) |
| OS grid reference | SP924117 |
| Civil parish |
|
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | TRING |
| Postcode district | HP23 |
| Dialling code | 01442 |
| Police | Hertfordshire |
| Fire | Hertfordshire |
| Ambulance | East of England |
| UK Parliament | |
| Website | www |
| |
Tring/trɪŋ/ is a market town andcivil parish in the Borough ofDacorum,Hertfordshire,England. It is situated in a gap passing through theChiltern Hills, classed as anArea of Outstanding Natural Beauty, 30 miles (50 km) fromCentral London.
Tring is linked to London by theRoman road ofAkeman Street, by the modernA41 road, by theGrand Union Canal and by theWest Coast Main Line toLondon Euston. Settlements in Tring date back toprehistoric times and it was mentioned in theDomesday Book; the town received its market charter in 1315.[2] Tring is now largely acommuter town within theLondon commuter belt.As of 2021, Tring had a population of 12,427.[3]
The name Tring is believed to derive from theOld EnglishTredunga orTrehangr, 'Tre' meaning 'tree' and the suffix 'ing' implying 'a slope where trees grow'.[4]
There is evidence ofprehistoric settlement withIron Agebarrows and defensive embankments adjacent toThe Ridgeway, and also later Saxon burials.[5] The town straddles the Roman road calledAkeman Street, running through as the High Street.Tring was the dominant settlement in the area, being the primary settlement in theHundred of Tring at the time of theDomesday Book (1086).[6] Tring had a large population and paid a large amount of tax relative to most settlements listed in that survey.[7] Landholdings included the manor of Treunga,[8] assigned toCount Eustace II of Boulogne byWilliam the Conqueror.
In 1315 the town was granted amarket charter byEdward II. This charter gaveFaversham Abbey the right to hold weekly markets on Tuesdays, and a ten-day fair starting on 29 June, theFeast of Saints Peter and Paul. It also prevented the creation of any rival markets within a day's travel of the town.[2] The tower of the Church of St Peter and St Paul was built between 1360 and 1400.[2]
Until 1440, there was a small village east of Tring called Pendley (orPenley,Pendele, orPentlai). The landowner Sir Robert Whittingham received a grant offree warren fromKing Henry VI. Heenclosed 200 acres (about 80 hectares) and tore down the buildings on the land, returning the estate topasture, and built a manor house,Pendley Manor. This house was variously inhabited by theVerney,Anderson andHarcourt families until the mid-19th century.[9]
Tring Park Mansion was designed by SirChristopher Wren and was built in 1682 for the owner Henry Guy, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber toCharles II.[10]John Washington, the son of the Reverend Lawrence Washington and Amphyllis Twigden, was born and brought up in Tring. In 1656 he left Tring to go on a trading voyage toVirginia, but after a shipwreck on thePotomac River he remained in Virginia, married and started a family which eventually included his great-grandson,George Washington, the firstPresident of the United States.[11]The town's prosperity was greatly improved at the start of the 19th century by the construction nearby of theGrand Junction Canal, and soon afterwards in 1835 theLondon and Birmingham Railway. Industries which benefited includedflour milling,brewing,silk weaving,lace-making andstraw plaiting.[5]
In 1835, the medieval Pendley Manor was destroyed by fire. A local landowner, Joseph Grout Williams, commissioned a new manor house to be built inJacobean Revival style, and this building still stands today on Station Road.[12]
In 1836 Thomas Butcher, awholesaleseed andcornmerchant, and his son also called Thomas, established aprivate bank, Thomas Butcher & Son in Tring High Street. The business was subsequently run by the next generation of the family, Frederick and George, and was also known locally as Tring Old Bank. By 1900 it had branches inAylesbury,Chesham andBerkhamsted. From this time it became the subject of successive bank consolidations, eventually becoming a branch of theNational Westminster Bank, the last to be represented in the town.[13]
In the late 19th century the estate became the home of theRothschild family, whose influence on the town was considerable. The site forTring Market House was presented by to the town byNathan Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild.[14] His son,Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, built a private zoological museum in Tring. This housed perhaps the largest collection of stuffed animals worldwide. It has been part of theNatural History Museum, London since 1937, and in April 2007 the museum changed its name to theNatural History Museum at Tring in order to make people more aware of the museum's link to London's Natural History Museum. In 1902 the 2nd Lord Rothschild also released theedible dormouse (Glis glis) into Tring Park. He used to ride around the town in a carriage drawn byzebras.[15] In the town centre of Tring there is a pavement maze in the shape of a Zebra's head in order to remember the link that Tring has to the Rothschild family.
The former livestock market place is now the home of a weekly Friday market and a fortnightly Saturdayfarmers' market. Some of the former livestock pens have been retained. The old livestock market office is now the home of the Tring Local History Museum, which opened in September 2010.[16]
Tring is a part of theUK Parliamentconstituency ofHarpenden and Berkhamsted.Victoria Collins has been theMember of Parliament (MP) since the July2024 election.[17]
Tring has three tiers of local government at parish (town), district, and county level: Tring Town Council,Dacorum Borough Council, andHertfordshire County Council. Since the local elections on 2 May 2019, Tring Town Council comprises 11Liberal Democrats and 1Conservative.[18]
| Tring | |
|---|---|
| Local Government District (1859–1894) Urban District (1894–1974) | |
 Council offices 1952–1974: 9 High Street, Tring | |
| Population | |
| • 1891 | 4,525[19] |
| • 1971 | 8,815[20] |
| History | |
| • Created | 2 February 1859 (Local Government District) 31 December 1894 (Urban District) |
| • Abolished | 31 March 1974 |
| • Succeeded by | Dacorum |
| • HQ | Tring |
| Contained within | |
| • County Council | Hertfordshire |
The parish of Tring formerly included a large rural area as well as the town itself, includingLong Marston andWilstone. The parish was administered by itsvestry, in the same way as most small towns and rural areas. It was included in theBerkhamstedPoor Law Union from 1835.[21]
The "Upper Hamlet" of the parish of Tring, covering the town, was made a local government district with effect from 2 February 1859, governed by alocal board.[22] Following thePublic Health Act 1872, such local government districts were also calledurban sanitary districts. Under theLocal Government Act 1894, urban sanitary districts becameurban districts on 31 December 1894. The 1894 Act also stipulated that a parish could not be partly in an urban district and partly outside it. The old parish of Tring was therefore split, with the part outside the urban district becoming a separate parish calledTring Rural with effect from its first parish meeting on 4 December 1894. The Tring Rural Parish, covering Long Marston, Wilstone and the surrounding areas, was included in theBerkhamsted Rural District.[23]
Tring Urban District Council held its first meeting on 3 January 1895 at the Vestry Hall in Church Yard. The first chairman was Frederick Butcher, who had been the last chairman of the old local board.[24] Tring Urban District Council continued to meet at the Vestry Hall until 1910, and had an office on Western Road.[25][26] It then moved its meeting place to theMarket House at 61 High Street, which had been built between 1898 and 1900.[27][28] The council remained at Market House until 1952, when it moved to the formerTring Park estate office at 9 High Street, remaining there until the council's abolition.[29][30][31]
Tring Urban District was abolished under theLocal Government Act 1972, becoming part of thedistrict of Dacorum on 1 April 1974. Asuccessor parish was created for the former urban district, with its parish council taking the name Tring Town Council.[32] The former urban district council's offices at 9 High Street became private offices, with the building being renamed the Counting House. Tring Town Council is based at the Market House at 61 High Street.[33]
Tring is in west Hertfordshire, adjacent to theBuckinghamshire border, at a low point in the Chiltern Hills known as the 'Tring Gap'. This has been used as a crossing point since ancient times, being at the junction of theIcknield Way and under the RomansAkeman Street, the majorRoman road linking London toCirencester. It is transected east and west by the ancient earthwork calledGrim's Dyke.[8] It is located at the summit level of theGrand Union Canal and both the canal and railway pass through in deep cuttings.Tring railway cutting is 2.5 mi (4.0 km) long and an average of 39 ft (12 m) deep and is celebrated in a series of coloured lithographs byJohn Cooke Bourne showing its construction in the 1830s.[34]
The fourTring Reservoirs – Wilstone, Tringford, Startops End and Marsworth – were built to supply water for the canal. These have been a national nature reserve since 1955, and identified as aSite of Special Scientific Interest since 1987.[35] Nearby, within the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty[36] that almost surrounds the town, is theAshridge Estate, part of theNational Trust and home toAshridge Business School.
The civil parish includes the hamlets of Little Tring, New Mill and Bulbourne to the north of Tring andHastoe to the south.
| Climate data for Tring | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 6 (43) | 7 (45) | 10 (50) | 12 (54) | 16 (61) | 19 (66) | 21 (70) | 22 (72) | 18 (64) | 14 (57) | 9 (48) | 6 (43) | 13 (55) |
| Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 3 (37) | 3 (37) | 4 (39) | 5 (41) | 8 (46) | 10 (50) | 12 (54) | 13 (55) | 11 (52) | 8 (46) | 5 (41) | 3 (37) | 7 (45) |
| Averageprecipitation mm (inches) | 69.3 (2.73) | 59.4 (2.34) | 46.5 (1.83) | 70.1 (2.76) | 58.1 (2.29) | 58.9 (2.32) | 46.0 (1.81) | 68.9 (2.71) | 51.7 (2.04) | 84.3 (3.32) | 93.9 (3.70) | 80.9 (3.19) | 788.0 (31.02) |
| Source:[37] | |||||||||||||
Heygates Mill is aflour mill. Originally it was a windmill, and the company was run by William Mead. The windmill was demolished in 1910 to make way for a wheatstorage silo. In those days, Mead lived on-site, in a house next to the yard, and owned half the area taken by the mill of today. The remaining space was occupied by boat-builders, Bushell Brothers, who builtnarrowboats for the canal. The Heygate family took over Mead's business in 1945, and today mills 100,000 tons of wheat a year, resulting in 76,000 tons of flour. This is mainly bakers' flour, but there is also a commitment to wholemeal digestive for biscuits, bulk outlets and a large output of 1.5 kg bags from the pre-packed flour plant.
In the days of the Tring windmill, only two men operated the system, milling tenstone per hour. Now, computerised, more than twelvetons per hour are produced. Heygate's Tring mill has 80 employees and sixteen trucks delivering throughout thesouth of England.
Pendley Manor, a hotel, conference and arts centre, is situated about 1 mile (1.6 km) east of the town, near the railway station.
Tring Brewery has been operating in Tring since 1992.
The UK headquarters ofHuel Ltd. is in Tring.[38][39]
Tring is home to the Tring Book Festival; a two-week festival held in November. Tring is part of the Dacorum Local Food Initiative.
Local news and television programmes are provided byBBC East andITV Anglia. Television signals are received from theSandy Heath TV transmitter,BBC South andITV Meridian can also be received from theOxford TV transmitter.[40][41]
Tring's local radio stations areBBC Three Counties Radio,Heart Hertfordshire,Greatest Hits Radio Bucks, Beds and Herts (formerly Mix 96) and Tring Radio, a community based radio station that broadcast from the town.[42]
The town is served by the local newspaper,Hemel Hempstead Gazette & Express.[43]
Tring railway station is located about 2 miles (3.2 km) east of the town and lies on theWest Coast Main Line. It is served byLondon Northwestern services fromMilton Keynes Central toLondon Euston; in addition,Southern operates the cross-London service toEast Croydon viaClapham Junction. The station is served by slow and semi-fast trains.
The station was originally opened in 1837 by theLondon & Birmingham Railway, under the direction of the railway engineerRobert Stephenson.[44]
The remote location of Tring railway station was due to changes to the route of the railway imposed on Stephenson by local landowners such asLord Brownlow, who wished to protect hisAshridge Estate.[45] The location is sometimes wrongly attributed to objections, which were said to have been made byLord Rothschild to protect his land in Tring; in fact, Lord Rothschild was not born until 1840, three years after the railway had opened, and the Tring lands were only acquired by his fatherLionel in 1872. He did, however, object to a much later plan to build a steam tramway between Tring station andAylesbury.[46]
An extension of theMetropolitan Railway was once considered fromChesham, making Tring station the terminus, with connections to the main line companies serving the north; this project was not realised.[47]
Bus services in Tring are operated byArriva, Red Rose Travel and Red Eagle. Key direct destinations includeAylesbury,Dunstable,Hemel Hempstead,Luton andWatford.
In 1973, theA41 Tringbypass was opened.[48] The bypass runs throughTring Park and was originally conceived as the first stretch of a newmotorway, the A41(M), which was planned to run from the M25 atHunton Bridge to Aylesbury; the project was not realised and the bypass was downgraded totrunk road status. In 1993, the A41 bypass was extended with 12 miles (19 km) of grade-separated dual carriageway that links the Tring bypass to the M25.[citation needed]
Tring School is a state secondary school and sixth form with approximately 1,500 pupils (ages 11–18). It is located on Mortimer Hill on the east side of the town. It is now designated a Specialist Humanities College with History, Geography and English as its lead subjects. It has had Academy status since September 2012.
Tring Park School for the Performing Arts (formerly known as theArts Educational School, Tring Park) is an independent specialist performing arts and academic school. It is located inTring Mansion, and has 300 pupils.
Tring has four state junior schools: Bishop Wood CE Junior School, Dundale Primary and Nursery School, Goldfield Infants and Nursery School andGrove Road Primary School.
Tring has a youth club – The Tring Youth Project – for those between 11 and 18 at the Temperance Hall in Christchurch Road.
Tring also has a theatre youth group, Court Youth Theatre, which is connected to the Court Theatre, Pendley Manor. This has three sections to it: juniors, intermediates and seniors.
There is also an air cadet squadron in Tring (2457 Squadron) on New Road.
Edward Lear makes reference to Tring inA Book of Nonsense:
There was an Old Person of Tring,
Who embellished his nose with a ring;
He gazed at the moon,
Every evening in June,
That ecstatic Old Person of Tring.[49]
The 1980 television series,Shillingbury Tales was filmed in the village.[citation needed]
Tring Sports Centre is in the grounds ofTring School.
Tring is home to threefootball clubs:Tring Athletic, Tring Town and Tring Corinthians; all of which play in theSpartan South Midlands Football League. Tring Tornadoes is a youth football club, which field sides for boys and girls up to 16. The town is also home to a rugby club, Tring R.U.F.C., which won promotion to London Division One in 2008; Tring Hockey Club, with three men's and two ladies' sides; Tring Park Cricket Club, in theHome Counties Premier Cricket League; and a squash club
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