Parks & Gardens
Hermitage Road and Windmill Hill
This photograph is taken on Windmill Hill looking down toward Hermitage Road. The two are linked by the wealthy quaker banker called Frederic Seebohm who had a large house on Bancroft, known as the Hermitage. He gave part of his back garden to form Hermitage Road in 1875. (Roughly the same time the windmill on Rawlings Hill burnt down) He aquired the land and built the Hitchin Girls’ Grammar School in 1907 and then his two daughers donated the rest of the hill to the people of Hitchin in 1921.
The photograph here is of Windmill Hill looking up from Hermitage Road. Originally called Rawlings Hill, because of the Mill there, it was then known as Windmill Hill after if burnt down as mentioned above. The miller’s cottage was still standing on the Hollow Lane side of the hill until 1950; and there was a house built on the hill in the 1920’s, but was unpopular and is no longer there. The two photographs illustrate quite well I think, just how green the centre of Hitchin is.
Widmill Hill Steps
These steps and surrounding retaining wall of Windmill Hill (Off Hollow Lane) were built in 1931 and probably the wonderful apartments of Garrison Court were built at the same time too. This view is not often shown in photographs of Windmill Hill due to it’s supposed less dramatic prospect or vista; but is actually preferred because it is quieter than the Hermitage Road side.
William Ransom Physic Garden
Physic being Greek for ‘Body’ I think belies the garden’s supposed usage. Ornamental, rather than functional. It is called the ‘William Ransom Physic Garden’ after the 19th Century Millionaire Hitchin Physician and Chemist, William Ransom, who founded the pharmaceutical chemist in Bancroft (Which is now Sainsbury’s and the new Lavendar Fields apartments); and is laid out with plants and herbs that the 17th Century Herbaslist Nicholas Culpeper might have used medicinally too.
The garden was opened by Prof Harold Ellis on 20th May 1990 after the land was given over from Hitchin Museum that lies immediately to it’s west. It opens daily as part of the Hitchin Museum Experience and is a wonderful haven of tranquility. Note worthy is the Bronze/Brass sundial that has been made to resemble a Physican’s/Herbalist’s/Chemist’s Mortar and Pestle. Art using form to immitate function. A nice touch I think.
The River Hiz at Ransom’s Rec
The River Hiz begins in Priory Park/St. Ippolyts and then wends its way through Hitchin and runs northwards bordering the eastern edge of Bancroft Park and is culverted under Grove Road that takes it up to the west boundary of Ransom’s Rec (Park) and on up to join with the River Purwell at Grove road, then it runs North West. Not exactly a raging torrent is it! More of what I would called a stream or rivulet. But nice none the less. Ransom’s Rec(reation) ground was originally Camps Milking Farm with a pond in the middle of it, before being opened in 1929 as the public park.
Seebohm Garden
In a tiny little bit of Hitchin off Biggin Lane by the actual Biggin, lies a petite semi-secluded park, known as the Seebohm Garden. It is only occasionally used by one or two older Sikh men drinking strong lager away from prying eyes, other times by teenagers/school children hanging around; at other times it’s also used by elderly people to have a rest from their heavy shopping bags, before carrying on home. This bit on the photograph above, shows the ivy creeping up the concrete steps that lead down from Biggin Lane to this little utilised green space. A nice quiet area used for some respite away from the madness and hectic pace of life in the modern world.
Roof Top Garden
Within about a year or two, the owner of the building that houses the Triangle Café and other shops has created a nice little roof top garden/haven. This can only be seen from the tower of St.Mary’s Church, but it amazes one that it can be tasteful and fitting in with its surroundings even though it can’t be seen from ground level; whereas a few other buildings in Hitchin lack taste, style or blend in with their neighbours. Why a nice 18th century building was allowed to be pulled down to put up the hideous concrete carbuncle that is Churchgate beggars belief!