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The stocks and pond at the centre of the village

The parish church at Aldbury, from a 1922 guide to Hertfordshire

Aldbury is a village in Hertfordshire in England, near the borders of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire nestled in a valley close to Ashridge Park. The nearest town and railway station is Tring, 1.5 miles to the west. Uphill from the village are the Bridgewater monument and the Ashridge estate.

As a village of the Old English type Aldbury has perhaps no equal in the county. In the centre is the green and pond, under the shadow of an enormous elm; close by stand the stocks and whipping-post, in excellent preservation, a primary school and the Church of Saint John the Baptist is E.E. The church was restored in 1867, and is notable for the old sundial on a pedestal in the churchyard, and the Verney Chapel, which is separated from the nave by a screen of stone, and contains a monument to Sir Robert Whittingham, who was slain at the battle of Tewkesbury. The church also contains memorials of the Hides and Harcourts, families who left several charities to the poor of the parish. In the days of Edward the Confessor the manor of Aldeberie was held by one Alwin, the king’s thegn. The ascent of the wooded slope towards the Bridgewater Monument takes the visitor through one of the most beautiful districts in the county, and a noble prospect stretches before him as he looks back through the beeches towards the village in the valley beneath.

As a result of its charm and state of preservation, it is a popular rural location for films and television. Amongst the television series filmed in the village are:

• several episodes of the popular sixties TV series, The Avengers, including the complete episode Murdersville;
• the initial advertisements for the National Lottery - despite the fact that villagers were unable to buy tickets at the time; and
• the short-lived Shillingbury Tales series, filmed in 1980.

It is a small village of around 800 inhabitants, with a small shop and two traditional country pubs: the Greyhound and the Valiant Trooper, both are run by the same man.

The largest house in the village is Stocks House which, among its various incarnations, was the country home of Victor Lownes and the rural base of Playboy UK; and before that home of Mary Augusta Ward, the author of Clinton Magna whose character Bessie Costrell lived in Aldbury.

• Hertfordshire, by Herbert W Tompkins, 2nd Edition, 1922, from Project Gutenberg
• grid reference SP964124

It should not be confused with the similar sounding Albury, especially Albury, Hertfordshire.

Coordinates: 51.80194° N 0.60336° W