Tring

Tring is a market town and a civil parish in the Borough of Dacorum, in Hertfordshire, England. It is located in a beautiful gap through the Chiltern Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, about 30 miles from Central London. Tring has been connected to London for years by many routes, including an old Roman road called Akeman Street, the modern A41 road, the Grand Union Canal, and the West Coast Main Line to London Euston.

People have lived in Tring since prehistoric times, and the town was mentioned in the Domesday Book. It received the right to hold a market in 1315. Today, Tring is mainly a commuter town for people who work in London. In 2021, the town had a population of 12,427.

Toponymy

The name Tring likely comes from an old language called Old English. It may have been Tredunga or Trehangr. In this language, "Tre" means "tree" and the ending "ing" suggests a place where trees grow on a slope.

History

There is evidence that people lived in Tring long ago, with places marked from the Iron Age and later Saxon burials. The town is built on an old Roman road called Akeman Street, which runs through the High Street today. Tring was an important place by the time of the Domesday Book in 1086.

In 1315, Tring was allowed to hold a market every Tuesday and a big fair each year. The Church of St Peter and St Paul was built during this time. Later, a grand house called Tring Park Mansion was built in 1682. The town grew when new canals and railways were built in the 1800s, helping businesses like milling, brewing, and making silk and lace.

In the late 1800s, a wealthy family named the Rothschilds lived nearby and helped shape the town. They gave land for a market house and built a special museum for animals, which is now part of the Natural History Museum, London. Today, Tring still has markets and a museum that tells the town’s history.

Governance

Tring is part of the UK Parliament constituency of Harpenden and Berkhamsted. Victoria Collins has been the Member of Parliament since the July 2024 election.

Tring has three levels of local government: Tring Town Council, Dacorum Borough Council, and Hertfordshire County Council. Since the local elections on 2 May 2019, Tring Town Council has 11 Liberal Democrats and 1 Conservative.

Geography

Tring is located in west Hertfordshire, close to the border with Buckinghamshire. It sits in a low area called the 'Tring Gap' in the Chiltern Hills, a beautiful natural area. This spot has been an important crossing point for a very long time, where old paths like the Icknield Way and the Roman road Akeman Street meet.

The town is crossed by the Grand Union Canal and a railway, both running through deep cuts in the land. Nearby, there are four special reservoirs that help supply water to the canal. These reservoirs are now a nature reserve and an important scientific site. Close to Tring is the Ashridge Estate, which is looked after by the National Trust and home to the Ashridge Business School.

The area around Tring includes small villages like Little Tring, New Mill, Bulbourne, and Hastoe.

Flour mill

Heygates Mill is a flour mill; it was once a windmill run by William Mead. It was torn down in 1910 to make space for a wheat storage silo. Back then, Mead lived in a house next to the mill, and half the mill's land belonged to him. The other half was used by boat-builders, Bushell Brothers, who made narrowboats for the canal.

Later, the Heygate family took over Mead's business in 1945. Today, the mill processes 100,000 tons of wheat each year, making 76,000 tons of flour. Most of this flour is used by bakers, but they also make wholemeal flour for biscuits and sell pre-packed bags.

In the old days, just two men could mill ten stone each hour. Now, with computers, the mill produces more than twelve tons per hour. Heygate's Tring mill employs 80 people and uses sixteen trucks to deliver flour all over the south of England.

Economy

Tring has a famous hotel and arts center called Pendley Manor, located close to the train station. There is also a brewery named Tring Brewery that has been in the town since 1992.

The main office of Huel Ltd is in Tring. Every year, Tring holds a two-week book festival in November and is part of a local food project called the Dacorum Local Food Initiative.

Transport

Railway

Tring railway station is about 2 miles east of the town and is on the West Coast Main Line. London Northwestern Railway runs trains between Milton Keynes Central and London Euston.

History

The station opened in 1837 by the London & Birmingham Railway, led by engineer Robert Stephenson.

The station is a bit far from town because local landowners, like Lord Brownlow, wanted to keep their Ashridge Estate protected. Some people thought it was because of Lord Rothschild, but he wasn’t even born yet when the railway opened. His father, Lionel, did object to a later plan for a steam tramway to Aylesbury.

There were plans to extend the Metropolitan Railway to make Tring station the end point, but those plans never happened.

Buses

Bus services in Tring are run by Arriva, Red Rose Travel, and Red Eagle. You can ride buses to places like Aylesbury, Dunstable, Hemel Hempstead, Luton, and Watford.

Roads

In 1973, the A41 Tring bypass opened. It goes through Tring Park and was first planned to be part of a new motorway, the A41(M), from the M25 at Hunton Bridge to Aylesbury. But those plans changed, and the bypass became a regular road. In 1993, the bypass was made longer by 12 miles to connect to the M25.

Education

Tring has several schools for children of different ages. Tring School is a larger school for students aged 11 to 18, and it specializes in subjects like history, geography, and English. There is also Tring Park School for the Performing Arts, a special school focused on performing arts, located in Tring Mansion.

The town has four schools for younger children, and there are places for teenagers to gather, such as the Tring Youth Project and Court Youth Theatre. There is also an air cadet group for young people interested in learning more about aviation.

Media

Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC East and ITV Anglia. Television signals are received from the Sandy Heath TV transmitter, and viewers can also get BBC South and ITV Meridian from the Oxford transmitting station.

The town's local radio stations include BBC Three Counties Radio, Heart Hertfordshire, Greatest Hits Radio Bucks, Beds and Herts, and Tring Radio, a community-based station that broadcasts from the town. The local newspaper is the Hemel Hempstead Gazette & Express.

Sport

Tring has many sports clubs. There are three football clubs: Tring Athletic, Tring Town, and Tring Corinthians, all playing in the Spartan South Midlands Football League. The Tring Tornadoes is a youth football club for boys and girls up to age 16.

The town also has a rugby union team called Tring R.U.F.C., which played in London Division One after winning promotion in 2008. Tring Hockey Club has teams for both men and women, and Tring Park Cricket Club competes in the Home Counties Premier Cricket League. There is also a squash club. Tring Sports Centre is located on the grounds of Tring School.

In popular culture

Edward Lear wrote about Tring in his book The Book of Nonsense. He wrote a fun poem about an old person from Tring who had a ring on their nose. The poem says the old person would look at the moon every June night and feel very happy.

Notable people

Tring has been home to many interesting people throughout history. Some of these include Sir Francis Verney, an English adventurer and pirate, and John Washington, the great-grandfather of George Washington, the first President of the United States.

Other notable individuals from Tring are Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, a banker, politician, and zoologist, and Robert Holmes (scriptwriter), a television writer known for his work on Doctor Who.