@Rv1333 haha think you ment to say at the end "this guys mental wicked sweet Awesome " 🤣 but yeah I had to rewind as when I first watched it like wait what did he say what I thought he said nahh surely not hahah nope he did indeed 🤣
If anyone is interested in aircraft and wants to find out more about Dehavilland, the excellent dehavilland aircraft museum is a few miles down the road next to the M25 at Salisbury Hall near London Colney which was the companies original R&D site. They have a RU-vid account too.
For me Hatfield is notable for the road sign on the A1(M) leaving London - 'Hatfield and the North' - which meant 1970s holidays in places like Scarborough. It's also the name of a very charming 1970s Canterbury scene jazz-influenced rock band, whose music I enjoy very much.
Great band :) Sadly, all the road signs seem to say "The North. Hatfield", nowadays, but that doesn't stop me sticking my copy of The Rotter's Club on the stereo from time to time. On a separate note, as a kid I was at school with Jamie McMullen of the brewing family. Fascinating, eh?
@@highpath4776 Cruel but funny. I remember as a boy having a book about the Comet and how it was going to completely revolutionise air travel. (I don't think there was a second edition.) Unusually, the book was in landscape format, with proportion about 1 to 2. Which, if you think about it, is _really_ sensible for a book about airliners. I don't think I have ever seen that format used again.
The structure behind the trees is a Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range Station (VOR). Its a type of short-range radio navigation system for aircraft, enabling aircraft with a receiving unit to determine its position and stay on course by receiving radio signals transmitted by a network of fixed ground radio beacons. EDIT - After some replies to this comment I decided to dig deeper and actually I found out that this was labelled on old maps as a VDF or VHF Direction Finder. Its a ground based radio aid that consists of a directional antenna system and a VHF radio receiver, tuned to the operating frequency of an air traffic services unit. Thus, when a transmission is received from an aircraft, the VDF provides the direction that transmission came from. Whilst very similar to VOR, the VDF requires an operator on a voice channel to pass the information to the aviator. In effect, VOR is a more sophisticated VDF. Physically they both consist of multiple directional antennas mounted in a radial pattern around a central brick and/or concrete box style structure, and are commonly mistaken for each other.
All the VOR facilities I've seen are usually quite a bit bigger than this, however this may be all that's left of it. Everything I can find online simply says it's an airfield ground station.
'Tring' always makes me think of a bicycle bell. I have successfully avoided Hatfield for many years. Last time I went there, the De Havilland company buildings were still there, and there was a De Havilland Mosquito as a gate guardian. On the day of the Buncefield explosion, I was at work at Ipswich docks. I was getting ready to go home after a nightshift, and, at about 6 am, there was a crack, and something rattled the windows of the gatehouse I was in. A few moments later, I got a phonecall from the dock radar control, which was about a mile away from me, and was asked if anyone was letting off fireworks, as something had rattled their windows. Nobody was letting anything off locally, but about 90 miles away, all hell had broken loose. Somewhere, there is an ancient logbook with my note about the odd noise in it. Tidy video as always, Jon and a lot of fun. Nice one. 👍👍👍
It always reminds me of George Stevenson arguing that The Great Western Railway was pointless, because his railway could build a branch to Bristol from Tring.
I live about 5 miles from Hemel and whilst I don't recall any large explosion I must have subconsciously heard it as I woke up. I do recall the bedroom door rattling. All I could think of was that a plane has crashed near by. Of course De Havillands still partly exists in the form of Harry Potter World at Leavesden the ex De Havilland engine works. Where I did my appriceship and about 10 years after me Bradley Walsh. I believe he started at the Rolls Royce social club there.
Couple of days after Buncefield failed to destroy the surroundings I was driving back from Watford up the A1 and the whole sky had a very leaden smoky feel to it, all the way back to my gaff in north Herts. It was very bizarre, but not as bizarre as McD’s running out of burger buns because they had a warehouse next to the site. One of my old co-workers also had a computer room next to the site and his pics of the place once he was allowed back in are something else. Excellent your mum joke too, proper chortle at that.
4:40 When De Havilland left this building, it was used by the University of Hertfordshire Art and Design department from '94-onwards - I studied Industrial Design there, and we got to sit at the original De Havilland drawing boards in our class area. There were still some old design drawings left behind in old filing cabinets - it was very inspirational to study Design there. Hi to our tutor, Mike Goatman.
I live in Hertfordshire and recognise all the places. I could think of far worse places than Hemel and yes I agree with you Jon, St Albans is a traffic nightmare .
Could have diverted off the A4251 between Berkhamsted and Tring and popped to the village of Aldbury, gorgeous little village with a central duck pond and featured in the Avengers with Diana Rigg many times, fab video as always Jon, thank you 🙏
John, you should of gone to Hatfield House, which is where Queen Elizabeth the first was staying when she became Queen. There's an oak tree where she was sitting under when she was told she was Queen. I used to work farming this land a few years ago, and although the oak tree is still there and open to the public it is not the original tree, the remainder of which is still growing in a secluded part of the estate which is not open to the public, even I who worked there wasn't allowed anywhere near it. All the fields on this estate had names like "druids bottom" and the like apart from one, which was called "search lights" This massive field (not open to the public) was where they tested a new invention in the first slight disagreement called the tank. Next to the field are dug western front trenches to test these beasts, which are now overgrown with huge trees. I felt privileged to be able to explore them. All part of the Lord "Bob's your uncle" (although that's another story) Salisbury estate. And yes, I did meet him and his son and they were both pompous arses.
"you should of gone to Hatfield House, which is where Queen Elizabeth the first was staying when she became Queen." Is that the old house next to the current one as I thought Hatfield House, the bigger one, was Jacobian?
The DeHavilland plant was the site of one of the more unique episodes of the second small disagreement. A once and future career criminal named Eddie Chapman was working as a double agent for MI5, and he had been tasked by the Germans with blowing up that factory. Apparently, they found Mosquitoes very annoying and wanted to stop their production. With the help of a magician named Jasper Maskelyne, they dressed up the building to look from the air or from a distance like it had been heavily damaged. The Germans were sufficiently impressed with Chapman’s “sabotage” that they awarded him the Iron Cross. By the way, before this, Maskelyne had a hand into tricking Erwin Rommel into expecting an attack from the wrong direction at the Second Battle of El Alamein.
Fun fact about the old Hatfield Aerodrome: Some scenes from Band of Brothers (you know, that film which documented a small part of the second disagreement) where filmed there. Saw many changes to that area during my time there, especially during 2001 onwards when it became more commercialized (Ocado warehouses etc). WItnessed the old hanger being converted into the David Lloyd gym (or whatever it is now).
Thanks Jon for the thoughts on that first small 1914-1918 disagreement. On the day this video was released an over one hundred year old desire was completed in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador with the repatriation from France and internment of an unknown Newfoundlander at the local War Memorial. During the times of those two small disagreements Newfoundland was a separate country, in 1949 Canada joined Newfoundland. In a consession to Canada, in Newfoundland and Labrador the morning of July 1st is Memorial Day while in the afternoon it is Canada Day.
Hi John, I have not been having a good week. Work shit, sick child, unwell me.. But you hippo comment just made my day.. Thank you so very much for that. You are one of my best seen channels. Thank you for lifting me.
I grew up in Tring, went to primary school in Berko, and secondary school in Hemel, so really liked this one. I’m also an aviation enthusiast with a bit of a fascination with old airfields, so I’m glad you covered DeHaviland at Hatfield, thank you!
Berkhamsted was called Great Berkhamsted because there's another Berkhamsted (called Little Berkhamsted), a village on the other side of the county near Hertford. I used to live in Little B as it's is known locally; a nice place, though naturally often confused with its bigger namesake.
IIRC, the explosive mist around buncefield was ignited by some automatic electic timing equipment which caused a spark. The rest, as they say, was nearly all history. Thanks Jon.
Worth mentioning that the Rothchilds accidentally introduced the edible dormouse into the Chilterns area accidentally and that whilst very cute is a thorough pest.
In the subsequent report on the A413 from Buckingham to Wendover Mr AS visits the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre but goes to Aylesbury on the A41. That would have taken him to Waddesden. Another Rothchilds village. Then went to Wendover right next the Halton another Rothchilds village. That only leaves Mentmore and he would have done a clean sweep of Rothchilds places.
Was that hippo joke a reference to The Mary Whitehouse Experience? It might just be me in my old age fug but that is immediately where my mind went! Another cracking video.
Berko Castle is where the Norman Conquest basically ended. Everyone knows about the Battle of Hastings where it started, but Berko is where it ended, and we've been French ever since.
It's where the last person of any other power at the time surrendered to William ... the Archbishop of York, the castle was to retain and defend the route north
@@davidioanhedges Scandinavians are Germans. You're thinking of Germany the nation (I assume), whereas I am talking about ethno groups tracked via linguistics and culture. Norse are part of the "North Germanic" group which split off from the Germanic branch of Indo-European Language/Culture. Additionally the Normans were not just Norse, they were a mixture of Norse, Frank and Gaul.
@@jimmydesouza4375 They are Germans or even Germanic in no way - unless you believe certain German leaders from the 1940's ...all heavily debunked - Scandinavian culture is distinct from Germanic culture The Normans had been in the area for long enough to intermarry, and spoke Norman French, they were a mixture
There are still a few buildings left. The original control tower and its adjacent hanger are there (albeit converted into a gym), and the art deco gatehouse is now a KFC.
Wow didn’t realise Bunnsfield was 19 years ago. I was bringing my eldest daughter back from Uni in Manchester the day that happened. We were on the M11 but you could see the black smoke plume even when we got home to Sevenoaks area. Usual scaremongers stories then followed by the Press about no fuel etc. can’t say I noticed a problem. Still it made a story.
I grew up in Hemel Hempstead but managed to escape about a decade before it exploded. I'd been wishing for it to do that my whole childhood. I'm surprised that Cow Roast, the oddly named hamlet between Berko and Tring didn't get a mention, even if just in passing.
At 5:50 that's the remains of a counterpoise topped shelter for a CVOR (Conventional VHF Omnidirectional Range) or, more likely, a HRDF (High Resolution Direction Finder). I install and maintain; ILS, DME, NDB, VOR, DF and other aircraft navigation aids/beacons, if you'd like any more info. Sweet video as always, thanks very much for your hard work!
Great video Jon as always. But you missed a very important historical building at Hatfield, The factory building with its attached control tower seen at 5:03 with the BOAC comet parked outside. This still exists and is now a leisure centre with the tower still attached just off Mosquito Way. N51 45.900 W0 14.675 The object in the field is a VDF (VHF Direction Finding) this fed to an instrument in the control tower that displayed what direction a radio transmission was from. The controller could then tell the pilot what direction they were from the airfield.
Worked in Hemel too, the back way round to the old high street via the oil depot roads could sometimes be quicker when I was driving. The smell was still in the air 18 months later when I was going south on the M1 on a Megabus
Tring is one of my favourite places to pop out to (being about 20 mins drive away) - the Natural History Museum really is worth a visit, and is incredible value at being priced at Free. I'd also recommend the most excellent Culture Bakery on the high street, along with a fantastic restaurant called Crockers. If you enjoy being outside, the College Lake nature reserve is most lovely.
I did 5yrs penance in Hatfield uni 92-97. To alleviate the problem me and my housemates would drive the back roads to Hertford via Wild Hill, Essendon & Bayfordbury. Our ‘landlord’ Steve, studying for a Construction degree (his dad bought him a cheapo end-of-terrace house: 93 Garden Avenue, Hatfield) got caught out by the second of the two 90 deg bends in Essendon going North on a wet day, took out some bloke’s fence and narrowly missed writing his mums Golf off. A lesson for the kids of today: when driving too fast for your own skills, always wait until you’ve unwound the steering wheel from full lock to straight ahead *before* burying the throttle in 2nd gear, that way you won’t under steer off the road in heavy rain and narrowly miss a very heavy and thick fence post…
Well done for properly pronouncing Stevenage (by including the sigh at the start) Never figured out how to spell that correctly. Something like hhhhhhh...stevenage
Hi Jon, "hippos like my mum" well my dad is a walrus what that make me🤣🤣Hatfield that an original name, was there a field and some left there hat there and some said lets build a town there and said ware not ware that's taken were no that's taken. as always a great video and full respect for 1914-18 small disagreement. catch you soon take care
Probably about 10th. Actually, John must knock tens of thousands of pounds off the value of the properties in the villages and towns he visits. Few escape without a serious kicking!!
By 1952 jet aircraft were about to take off he quotes, but unfortunately due to technical problems several of the comets didn't stay in the air. The pioneering efforts were then overtaken by Boeing, who learned from the Comet weaknesses and cornered the market with the 707. Karma has eventually occured and Boeing have been overtaken by Airbus . I've switched to you tube specifically as I can't stand any more of watching the England football team, lucky to be only 1-0 down I reckon .😬🤣
hatfeild is famous for queen Elizibeth the 1st, and hatfeild house, as well as the aircraft inferstructure, and back in the day, when there was an epilog before the tv shut down for the night, a vicar from st etheriedle church, used to give a sermon, and bill sykes used to drink in the 8 bells pub,
Should have mentioned when talking about St Albans that not only has it had one battle named after it but two. 1st Battle of St Albans 14 May 1455 and 2nd Battle of St Albans 17 Feb 1461.
We flew back from Amsterdam and the pilot told us to look out to the left so we could see the fire. We were actually on a temporary flight path diverting aircraft further east than normal.
i was on a flight from Heathrow to Ausralia and saw the smoke from the fire and funny enough i had on several occasions had worked in there on the pipework as a welder and when they were building the terminal i had tried to get a job there but no luck.
The nutter was short of a Zebra for his coach and also needed a Horse to lead the Zebras which are not suited to domestication so he painted stripes on a horse. Within the Museum you will find a case with two dressed fleas, really worth a look. Cheers
I was woken up by the Buncefield explosion (I was living in St Albans), although I didn't realise the significance at the time. A few hours later when I was outside in St Albans we decided to go back inside as the thick black smoke was worrying.
Yes, same in Tring. Loud noise and front door opened & slammed shut again. I thought the children were messing about & told them to leave the door alone, turned over and went back to sleep …. Then they couldn’t go to school for about two and a half weeks due to the big black cloud hovering over Berkhamsted.
Buncefield was always a bit leaky mate, I used to drive past it on the M1 regularly and there was often a haze over the motorway and stink of petrol. When it went up it woke me up, I live in Letchworth for context.
I was in Letchworth and didn't wake up perhaps because my bedroom was on the far side relative to the explosion. That day a large black cloud pretty much filled the western part of the sky.
Before it got built on the Hatfield runway was used by various film companies. You could often see squadrens of spitfire planes lined up ready for takeoff. The were made of plywood and about 3 inches wide to get the side angle shots.
Very interesting episode this week. I heard the fuel explosion (Sunday morning around 8am)* from Surbiton** and thought a plane had crashed on the other side of the A3. *06:01 UTC on Sunday, 11 December 2005 per Wikipedia. I knew it was Sunday morning. Bloody thing woke me up. 🙂 **42 Km / 26 miles away.
In the aerial view of Hatfield, the large building with a tower is the fire station. Look straight left and there is a parade of shops. The shop with the red name is Ladbrokes.
Out of curiosity, have you ever thought about potentially doing a Secrets of the Motorway Northern Ireland Edition? On another note, another great video as always :)
Sunday afternoon is complete now with another video from Jon. Interestingly, the correct pronunciation of St Albans is not 'Saint Albans' as its spelling might suggest, but is in fact 'Snorbans'...well at least according to some people I know who live there...
The opposite for me, meant I was already well away from the South and heading to the barbaric lands of Newcastle Brown, stottie cakes, weird accent, and women in ridiculously short skirts in the middle of the winter. Fun times.
My family lived in the old station house in Hertford (North) from 1947-1984 until it was demolished and I used to play on the old railway leading upto the new Hertford North
I’m amazed that how you are covering the East of England that you already doing. I have been to Hertfordshire and it’s a nice county with lots of places to visit.
You may also like to know that at least some of the residents of Stevenage have re-christened the town to the tongue in cheek version, the beautiful French village of St. Evanage. And further, you should know that a film shot in Stevenage was one of the first popular cinema releases with 'mild nudity', in 1968. It's called 'Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush'. It's worth reading the summary of the plot on the Wikipedia page for a good laugh.