The county
is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater
London, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire (the unitary authorities of
Luton and Central Bedfordshire), Cambridgeshire and Essex.
Despite the spread of built areas, much of the county is given over
to agriculture. One product, now largely defunct, was water-cress,
based in Hemel Hempstead and Berkhamsted supported by reliable,
clean chalk rivers.
Some quarrying of sand and gravel occurs in
the St. Albans area. In the past, clay has supplied local
brick-making and still does in Bovingdon, just south-west of Hemel
Hempstead. The chalk that is the bedrock of much of the county
provides an aquifer that feeds streams and is also exploited to
provide water supplies for much of the county and beyond. Chalk has
also been used as a building material and, once fired, the resultant
lime was spread on agricultural land to improve fertility. The
mining of chalk since the early 18th century has left unrecorded
underground galleries that occasionally collapse unexpectedly and
endanger buildings.[3]
Fresh water is supplied to London from
Ware, using the New River built by Hugh Myddleton and opened in
1613. Local rivers, although small, supported developing industries
such as paper production at Nash Mills.
Hertfordshire affords
habitat for a variety of flora and fauna. One bird common in the
shire is the Royston Crow, which is the eponymous name of the
regional newspaper, the Royston Crow published in Royston.
