Discover Hertford Online Forum

Following the patently useless "restoration/preservation" work done on the remains of St Mary the Less outside the old library why don't we just pull it down and re-bury it to make a nice little spot for another Thu/Fri/Sat night kebab stall.

just slapping a coat of stone paint over it hasn't done a very lasting job, has it,
possibly better to have applied a soak-in clear protective coating. leaving it
in its natural stone grey colour

regarding the burger joint, a very appealing idea for the very late night owls
at the weekends, but just another fine mess to be cleared up, early mourning's.

I see there are bits falling off it now too!

unusual for me to agree with Darcy but let's knock it down...

This sums up Hertford in a nutshell. This sad looking structure is part of the town's history and heritage. It should have been carefully restored and sited in a spot suited to its past. Instead we get Del Boy to cover it with the left over paint from the Chinese takeaway. We like to ignore our heritage.

If you walk a few yards around the corner there is a black door next to Leaf. There is a long vertical slit. This is an old fashioned letter box. No use for tons of junk mail but a hidden gem none the less. Cllr Ruffles told me this along with the sign on the side of the Health Centre in Bull Plain. You can just see six holes where a wooden plank was screwed in during the war to disorientate the German invaders. And just up the road in St Andrew Street on the wall of Beckwiths is a snuffer; a primitive form of light switch. And a final one - the odd looking chimneys above Albany's - best viewed from the Post Office.

The town is full of these curiosities. It was part of the Hidden Hertford campaign to open up the town and get people to walk around. Did you know that about 90% of the Museum's artefacts is stored in the Seed Warehouse. An amazing treasure trove on the ground floor. I used to haunt that place when one of the Museum staff was down there cataloguing. There is also a real preserved Roman Seed Dryer under strict atmospheric control on the right as you walk in, the door is closed of course. These things only open on special days.

I don't know if it is still there but my friends at City Water when renting the Seed Warehouse put up a large mural of the bombed out Mill Bridge area and amongst the props was a real WW2 bomb and an air raid siren. It is not immediately obvious as you walk as it is above the door but worth a look if you can.

Without wishing to disappoint Multidad I was being ironic when suggesting we pull it down. The "restoration" is, however, pitiful and has done nothing to improve the appearance of the monument.

We were assured in a thread on the "old" forum that it was on the verge of collapse prior to the restoration but no details were forthcoming.

If we can't sort it out properly it may have to go anyway...