Watford

Watford, a market town in the Watford parliamentary division of Hertfordshire, England, 171 m. N.W. of London by the London & North-Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1891) 17,063; (1901) 29,327. It lies on the small river Colne in a pleasant undulating and well wooded district. The church of St Mary, with embattled tower and spire, is of various dates, and contains good examples of monumental work of the early 17th century; and in the churchyard is buried Robert Clutterbuck (d. 1831), author of the History and Antiquities of the County of Hertford. There are several modern churches and chapels. The chief building within the town is the Watford Public Library and School of Art. There are large breweries, also corn-mills, malt-kilns and an iron foundry. Bushey, on the south side of the Colne, lying for the most part high above it, is a suburb, chiefly residential, with a station on the North - Western line. The church of St James, extensively restored by Sir Gilbert Scott, is Early English in its oldest part, the chancel. Here a school of art was founded by Sir Hubert von Herkomer, R.A., but it was closed in 1904, and subsequently revived in other hands. Other institutions are the Royal Caledonian Asylum and the London Orphan Asylum. At Aldenham, 2 m. N.E., the grammar school founded in 1599 now ranks as one of the minor English public schools.