Baldock ( ) is a historic market town in the North Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England. The River Ivel rises from springs in the town. It lies north of London and north northwest of the county town of Hertford. Nearby towns include Royston to the northeast, Letchworth and Hitchin to the southwest and Stevenage to the south.
History and etymology
Baldock has an exceptionally rich archaeological heritage. Paleolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements show the site of Baldock has been continuously occupied since prehistoric times.
The earliest monument in the area is a narrow cursus, probably from the middle Neolithic. At the beginning of the Iron Age there was a hillfort at Arbury Banks, 5 km to the northeast of Baldock, that dominated the area. In the Late Iron Age (c. 100 BC), the local power base shifted from the hillfort to the vicinity of Baldock. The soil was easily farmed and transportation was more convenient. In the later part of the middle Iron Age (from prior to c.100 BC) Baldock became the site of a large oppidum, arguably the largest such site in Britain. The oppidum in turn became a sizeable Roman settlement, which although not administratively important, seems to have been a significant cult centre. The Baldock area is also host to the highest quantity of finds of ancient coins in Hertfordshire after the Verulamium region. The site was used until the fifth or sixth century. The Roman settlement gradually disappeared and there is no entry for Baldock in the Domesday Book.
Baldock was founded by the Knights Templar (after whom the town's secondary school is named) as a medieval market town in the 1140s. It was laid out by the Knights Templar on land in the manor of Weston in the hundred of Broadwater, granted by the earl of Pembroke, Gilbert de Clare, before his death in 1148. The 1850 tithe map, drawn up before the parish boundaries were extended in the later 19th century, clearly shows the boundaries of the land grant made from the manor of Weston in the 12th century; it is a triangular parcel of land beside the old Roman Road, cut out from an older estate.
The popular story for the origin of the name Baldock is that it is a derivation from the Old French name for Baghdad: Baldac or later Baudac. While Damascus was the farthest location of Templar military activity during the Crusades, they would have been aware of the significance of Baghdad, which was widely regarded as the most prosperous market in the world. Perhaps the Templars hoped that the name would confer a similar prosperity on their own market town in England. Founding contemporaneous documents use the spelling Baudac, but it is first recorded as "Baldac" in the Pipe Rolls of Hertfordshire in 1168.
Walter William Skeat writes in The Place-names of Hertfordshire (1904):
Others, however, consider it more likely that the Knights Templar used a name already in use, particularly since the location was already a crossroads. In addition the settlement was already thriving as a late Anglo-Saxon part of Weston. Alternative etymologies have been suggested, including Middle English balled, meaning "bald", together with Old English āc, meaning "oak" (the site may have been identified by a large old tree near the Anglo-Saxon graveyard or where the Templar church was built); and a conjectured Old English personal name *Bealdoc, from beald, meaning "bold", with a diminutive -oc suffix. These derivations, however, are not entirely satisfactory.
The modern layout of the town and many buildings in the centre date from the sixteenth century, with the earliest dating from the fourteenth century.
It was where the old Great North Road and the Icknield Way crossed. The A1(M) motorway (1963), was called the Baldock Bypass for some years. In March 2006, a new bypass removed the A505 road (part of the old Icknield Way to the east of Baldock) from the town.
Thanks to its location, the town was a major staging post between London and the north: many old coaching inns still operate as pubs and hotels, and Baldock has a surprising number of pubs for its size. The High Street is very wide, a typical feature of medieval market places where more than one row of buildings used to stand. In the case of Baldock, the bottom of the High Street had three such rows, until Butcher's Row was demolished by the turnpike authorities in the 1770s.