There was a settlement in this part of the Colne Valley in the Stone Age. Rickmansworth was one of five manors with which the great
Abbey of St Albans had been endowed when founded in 793 by King
Offa of Mercia. Local tithes supported the abbey, which provided clergy to serve the people until the
dissolution of the monasteries in 1539. Around the time of the Domesday Book, the population of "Prichemareworth" may have been about 200.
Cardinal Wolsey, in his capacity as Abbot of St Albans, held the Manor of le More in the valley. The manor house was replaced by the hill-top mansion
Moor Park, which eventually became the residence of Admiral
Lord Anson, who commissioned
Capability Brown to remake the formal gardens, and in 1828 of the
Barons Ebury; it is now the Golf Club House. The wider area, including
Croxley Green, Moor Park,
Batchworth, Mill End,
West Hyde and Chorleywood, formed the original parish of Rickmansworth. In 1851, the population had grown to 4,800, and the parish was divided. St Mary's Church serves the parish concentrated in the town and extending to Batchworth and parts of Moor Park. The town had a population of 14,571 recorded at the 2001 census. The three rivers, the Colne, Chess and Gade, provided water for the watercress trade and power for corn milling, silk weaving, paper making and brewing, all long gone. Other industries have included leather-tanning, soft drinks, laundry, straw-plaiting and stocking production. Now, the rivers, canal and flooded gravel pits provide for recreation. West Mill, a water mill, existed at the time of the Domesday Survey. It was leased to the abbot and convent of St Albans by Ralph Bukberd for a term of years ending in 1539. In 1533, they leased it from the end of this term for twenty-six years to Richard Wilson of Watford. He was to keep in repair the mill and also two millstones, thick, and in breadth. It afterwards came to John Wilson, and was granted in 1576–77 to Richard Master. In July 1860,
Lord Ebury obtained powers in the
Watford and Rickmansworth Railway Act 1860 (
23 & 24 Vict. c. cxi) to construct a single-track railway line, the
Watford and Rickmansworth Railway (WRR) between Rickmansworth and Watford. Opening in October 1862,
Rickmansworth (Church Street) railway station was opposite the parish church of St Mary, with interchange sidings to the
Grand Union Canal. The line had stations at
Watford Junction and
Watford High Street and a depot in Watford. The
Uxbridge and Rickmansworth Railway Act 1861 (
24 & 25 Vict. c. lxxiii) was obtained a year later to construct an extension from Rickmansworth to connect with the
Great Western Railway's
Uxbridge branch, but this was never realised. Despite hopes that the railway would bring economic development and serve the factories and warehouses that had developed along the Grand Union Canal, it was Watford that grew at a faster pace and drew business from Rickmansworth. The railway was dogged with financial problems and a further act of Parliament the
Watford and Rickmansworth Railway (Sale) Act 1863 (
26 & 27 Vict. c. cxxxi) authorised the issue of further shares to the value of £30,000 (£40,000 worth had already been issued). The service consisted of five trains each way. The line was worked from the outset by the
London and North Western Railway (LNWR), which paid the WRR 50% of the gross earnings. The railway was never financially successful and the
Official Receiver was called in four years after opening. The company attempted to remedy its financial problems by opening several freight branches, the most notable being to the Croxley printers and to the Grand Union Canal at
Croxley Green. The company was absorbed by the burgeoning LNWR whose station it shared at Watford Junction in 1881. Rickmansworth grew dramatically during the
Victorian era and in the 1920s and 1930s as part of
Metro-land, due to the extension of
Metropolitan Railway, and became a
commuter town. ==Transport==