e centre of the village, is E.E. and
Dec. with a few Perp. features. A doorway in the _Brocket Chapel_ is
supposed to be Saxon, but I cannot say whether the supposition is
correct; the chapel also contains an altar-tomb with effigies of Sir
John Brocket and his wife, Margaret, bearing date 1543, and a piscina in
the S. wall. A brass of much interest is that to Hugh Bostock and his
wife, Margaret (_circa_ 1450), showing their figures in robes. These
persons were the parents of John de Wheathampsted. (See St. Albans.) An
old marble tablet is to John Heyworth (d. 1558) and his wife Joan. Note
also the monumental effigies in N. transept to Sir John Garrard, Bart.
(d. 1637), and his wife Elizabeth (d. 1632). The _reredos_ is very fine.

Forty years ago the village was truly rural, but the rebuilding of the
old mill between the church and station (G.N.R. branch from Hatfield to
Dunstable) and the erection of several modern shops in the main street
has altered its appearance. _Wheathampstead House_, close to the
station, is the seat of Earl Cavan; _Lamer Park_, a little N., slopes
pleasantly towards the fine home of A. G. B. Cherry-Garrard, Esq.

Mention must be made of the curious bronze vessel of the Anglo-Saxon
period, resembling a teapot, found in the neighbourhood some years ago.
It is figured and described in the recently published _Victoria History
of Hertfordshire_.

_Wheathampstead Cross_ (11/2 mile S.E. from Harpenden Station, M.R.) is 2
miles S.W. from the above village. It contains nothing but a few
cottages.

_Whempstead_, a hamlet in the centre of the county, is not easily
reached, being about 5 miles E. from Knebworth Station, G.N.R., and
rather farther N.W. from Ware. The so-called _Whempstead Chapel_,
recently demolished, was a small cottage, but it doubtless stood near
the site of an old chapel "founded and endowed about the beginning of
the thirteenth century by the family of Aguillon".

_White Barns_, near the Essex border, is a hamlet 3/4 mile N. from
Furneaux Pelham (_q.v._).

_Whitwell_ (41/2 miles S.W. from Stevenage) is strictly a hamlet, but is a
place of some size, scattered along the S. bank of the river Maran. The
nearest parish church is at St. Paul's Walden (_q.v._), but there is a
modern Baptist chapel near the centre of the main street, and a small
church on the Bendish Road, formerly owned by the Countess of
Huntingdon's Connection; it is now partially disused. The mill at the E.
end of