Brickendon has three tiers of local government, at parish, district, and county level: Brickendon Liberty Parish Council,
East Hertfordshire District Council, and
Hertfordshire County Council. The name of the modern
civil parish is "Brickendon Liberty", referencing the area's former status as a parish liberty. The liberty of Brickendon was deemed to be part of the parish of
All Saints, Hertford, but appointed its own overseers of the poor. Brickendon was included in the Hertford
Poor Law Union from 1835 with its own representative on the
Board of Guardians. As such, Brickendon was deemed to be a separate civil parish from 10 August 1866 under the Poor Law Amendment Act 1866. The civil parish of Brickendon at that time stretched from Brickendon village in the south right up into the town of Hertford in the north, with Castle Street, West Street and All Saints' Church all being within the civil parish of Brickendon, which was partly inside and partly outside the borough of Hertford. In 1891 the parish had a population of 1007. Under the
Local Government Act 1894, parishes which straddled borough boundaries were split into separate parishes inside and outside the borough. On 4 December 1894 the parish of Brickendon was therefore abolished and split to form two parishes called "Brickendon Rural" and "Brickendon Urban". Brickendon Rural was included in the
Hertford Rural District. Brickendon Urban had no parish council; it was governed directly by Hertford Borough Council. On 30 September 1900 Brickendon Urban and all the other civil parishes within the borough were abolished to become a single parish called Hertford. On 1 April 1929 the civil parish of Brickendon Liberty was created when Brickendon Rural merged with the neighbouring parish of St John Rural, which had been a sparsely populated rural parish created in 1894 from the parts of the old parish of St John, Hertford which lay outside the borough. On 1 April 1935 parts of
Broxbourne,
Hoddesdon Rural and
Wormley were transferred to Brickendon Liberty when these parishes were abolished. On 1 April 1939 part of Brickendon Liberty was transferred to
Little Amwell. Brickendon Liberty remained in Hertford Rural District until that district was abolished in 1974 to become part of
East Hertfordshire. ==References==