es,
though mostly so, as I venture to think, in Hertfordshire and Surrey.
The Essex peasant is still strongly differentiated from his neighbours.

Grose, writing towards the end of the eighteenth century, stated that
the population of Hertfordshire was 95,000. They must have been well
dispersed, for he tells us that the county contained at that period 949
villages; by the word "village," however, he seems to mean any separate
community, including small hamlets. Some interesting figures are to be
found in Tymms's _Compendium of the History of the Home Circuit_. He
states that in 1821 the county contained 129,714 inhabitants, comprising
26,170 families and living in 23,687 houses. Of these families no fewer
than 13,485 were engaged in agriculture. From the same source I quote
the following figures relating to the year 1821:--

Houses. Inhabitants.
Hemel Hempstead 1,012 5,193
Watford 940 4,713
Hitchin 915 4,486
St. Albans 735 4,472
Cheshunt 847 4,376
Hertford 656 4,265

In 1881 the population of the county was 203,069; in 1891 it had
increased by about one-eleventh to 220,162; in 1921 it was 333,236.

In the days of William I. the whole of the possessions and estates of
Hertfordshire belonged to the King and forty-four persons who shared his
favour, amongst whom may be mentioned the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
Bishops of London, Winchester, Chester, Bayeux and Liseux, and the
Abbots of Westminster, Ely, St. Albans, Charteris and Ramsey.

To go as far back as the Heptarchy, we find the land mostly owned by
Mercians, East Saxons and by the Kings of Kent, and thus there gradually
sprang up that "Middle English" population which for so long formed a
large proportion of the inhabitants of Hertfordshire, Middlesex and Essex.
How thoroughly such persons separated into small communities and settled
down in every part of the county may be ascertained by the many "buries"
found at a little distance from the town or village--Redbourn-bury,
Ardeley-bury, Bayford-bury, Langley-bury, Harpenden-bury, etc.

VI. COMMUNICATIONS

1. _Roads._--Hertfordshire, as one of the home-counties, is crossed by
many fine roads from the N.E., E. and N.W., as they gradually converge
towards their common goal--London. Among them may be mentioned the Old
North Road,