Pictures of Hempstead

About Hempstead

The village of Hempstead lies a short distance from the delightful town of Saffron Walden. It is the place where the highwayman, Dick Turpin is said to have been born the son of parents who kept the Bell Inn. The legend of his daring lives on in the memory of locals here. A popular conception of him as the romantic champion of the oppressed is expressed in the pages of the novel Rookwood, by W.H. Ainsworth. However, a truer version of him and a more likely one, is that he plundered lonely farmsteads and was a cattle-thief. He did go to York but is thought to have carried on with the same activities. Turpin died as brutally as he had lived, he was hanged at York in 1739 for horse-stealing. His grave can be seen in St. Georges churchyard.

In Hempstead, opposite the place of his birth, there is a circle of nine trees known as Turpin's Ring. Many legends abound in these parts about Turpin; he is supposed to have hidden in a great oak tree at a nearby farm and used several lonely inns as hide-outs.

William Harvey, physician and discoverer of the circulation of the blood(1628) was born and buried here. He was chief physician at the court of Charles I.

Hempstead is surrounded by several typical Essex villages, each a pleasure to amble along and explore. In spring and summer the fields of near-by Saffron Walden are awash with vivid yellow crocus and daffodils. A museum there tells much of the regions history and events. A short distance away is the ancient village of Littlebury which was mentioned in the Doomsday Book, the village church, The Holy Trinity has many treasures and is well worth a visit.