About Baldock

Baldock is a small market town located near Stevenage in the North of Hertfordshire.


Baldock is formerly known as a market town and still is by most people. It is where the river Ivel rises near the north of Baldock. Baldock has a population of only 9,900 people.

Baldock was founded by the Knights Templar in the twelfth century (1100's). The town has been described as boring or 'Bald Oak' (dead oak) back in the early times of the town, but now in the modern times the town has become a more recognisable place with the towns layout and many buildings in the town centre which date back to the 16th century. In the last 100 years (since the early 1900's) the town hasn't really changed in its layout but newer buildings and the addition of car parks, traffic lights and new buissnesses and shops make the town better than it was back then.

For its size Baldock has a suprising number of pubs, but for the increasing number of pubs alot go out of buissness or move away from Baldock because of the low number of customers! Baldock has coaching inns which now operate as either pubs and hotels. In 1958 the much larger populated town of Letchworth (population 33,000) had no alcohol or pubs and by the mid 90's Letchworth only had 2 pubs and a hotel bar. This caused people from Letchworth to come over to Baldock for their use of alcohol and refreshments. Baldocks most popular and recommended pubs include:

• The Boot (73, High Street) 5.5/10
• The Broken Drum (31, Hitchin Street) 8/10
• Cock (43, High Street) 8/10
• The George and Dragon (1, Hitchin Street) 3.7/10
• George IV (London Road) 6.8/10
• The old White Horse (1, Station Road) 6/10
• The Orange Tree (Norton Road) 5.5/10
• The White Lion (46, High Street) 5.3/10

Human activity has happened in Baldock even before its discovery. Roman remains have been discovered around the town during building work. Even early Iron age remains have been discovered including a Medieval Lepar colony (a place to keep people with leprosy away from the rest of the population). Also known as a Leprosarium.


Baldock also has many shops, the most biggest and popular one is the massive Tesco extra superstore, just in the town centre. Before its convertion to a Tesco supermarket in the late 80's it was a location of a film studio which folded then after was replaced by the Kayser Bondor ladies stocking factory which produced parachutes during the second world war. Other local ministores and cornershops have gone out of buissness over the years but new ones have formed like Costcutter on the Highstreet and Londis on London road. There is also a bakery (days of Ashwell) on the High Street and a butchers on Church Street plus a couple of fish and chip shops. The restaurants in Baldock to visit include:

• Baldock snack bar (14b High Street)
• Balti Spices (1b Hitchin Street)
• Chai Garden Thai restaurant (1a Mansfield Road)
• China Garden Chinese Takeaway (2 High Street)
• Dine Bangla/the Mohan (21 Whitehorse Street)
• Golden Rickshaw (5a Whitehorse Street)
• Forno Italian restaurant (48 High Street)
• MacDonalds (A1 Radwell)
• Papas Kebab House (7 Whitehorse Street)
• Star of India (68 High Street)
• The Lancer Indian Cuisine (14c High Street)
• The White Horse (1 Station Road)
• Vecchia Trattoria (6 Whitehorse Street)

The main feature of this town is the old Parished church. The church was built in the 13th century and is the church of St. Mary giving the name of St. Mary's church. The churches vicor today is Reverent Andrew Holford. The church is located opposite Barcley's bank in Church Street and Hitchin Street. It also has a bell tower which anyone yearly can go up and look over Baldock.


The Secondary school in Baldock is called the Knights Templar School and is named after the towns founders the Knights Templar. The schools moto is 'Courage and Courtesy'. In September 2005 the school become a specialist school for Sports and the Performing arts and in February 2006 Ofsted described the school as 'Outstanding' and is one of the 8 schools in Hertfordshire to be currently reconised. The current Headmaster at the school is Andrew Pickering following the departure of Peter Chapman (who was headmaster for 22 of his 24 years at the school) in March 2006. The 7 houses are Bennett, Crellin, Hancock, Hine, Knights, Pembroke and Templar. Knights and Templar are named after the school, Pembroke is named after the Earl of Pembroke and all the other houses are former headmasters of the school. The school has always had good tradition with music and drama with a third of the school taking up a musical instrument or voice. In recent years former students have became famous for their dedication and work like Leanne Wilson who became an actress and was voted FHM's 70th most sexiest woman in the world in 2005. Rowan Oliver became drummer with the band Goldfrapp and in 2004 Frances Balmer won the BBC Proms young Composers competition! The KTS recieved alot of media coverage in 2002 over the fixing of A level grades by the examinations boards when the school became the first school in the country to appeal against the grades awarded to its students in GCE Phychology. Several years ago the schools GCSE Art results were in the top 10 in the country and most recently in July 2007 the schools Art department gained a Guinness World Record for the longest ever painting by numbers (144m). As a specialist school in Sport the Knights Templar school also has a million pound Sports hall just opposite the school which has a full fitness suite and just recently in September 2007 the flood lit all weather sports pitch was opened costing £500,000. The school now a days has around 1330 students! Other schools in Baldock include St. Marys junior and infants, Hartsfield and even Nursery schools such as Weston Way nursery school and Magic Moments.

Baldock use to have a football club called Baldock Town FC. The club existed from 1905 until 2001 when the club went bankrupt and ended up folding. Baldocks most successfull times were between 1995 and 1997 when they enjoyed 2 seasons in the Southern League Premier Division reaching the 4th qualifying round of the FA cup on 2 occasions. Baldock also brought up players like Kevin Phillips after being realeased from his youth contract at Southampton. Baldock converted Phillips from a right back to a striker and his goalscoring record for Baldock was very impressive. The Hitchin born striker got sold to Watford for £10,000 before moving back to Southampton and becoming the Premierships top scorer for the 1999-2000 season with 30 goals. He is now at West Brom and has won 8 England caps! Baldock though reformed a team in 2006 keeping its name, the club now plays in the 11th teer of English football in the Herfordshire Senior County league. There old pitch has been converted into an all weather, artificial pitch!

The town now has excellent free parking facilities in Tesco and in the town though fewer lorries come into the town and instead use the bypass that goes past the town. The bypass project was started back in 2002 and was designed to keep traffic from the A1 to the A505 towards Royston and Cambridge away from Baldock and stop traffic from coming through Baldock. Many people claimed the bypass ruined the enviroment, the scene of Weston Hills and homes for animals. The Bypass tunnel held a party to celebrate the success of the bypass on 11th December 2005 (the same day as the Hemel Hempstead oil blast which caused the fires smoke to be seen all over Herfordshire). The bypass was opened on 16th March 2006 and has been sucessful in keeping traffic out of Baldock.

Other interesting features in Baldock include the two banks (HSBC and Barcleys) the Libary and the community centre).