In the spirit of “someone has to go first”, I thought I would tell the story of how our family ended up settling in Redbourn and why we like it here:
We were living in California, where I was working as an expat for a large US company called Intel (you might have heard of them – Pentium processor?), when a huge re-organisation of the company meant it would be safer if we moved back to my host country, namely the UK. We didn’t have enough notice to buy anywhere so were forced to rent. Some friends were in the process of moving to Harpenden because of the schools and the train links and my new job would require me to be in St Paul’s for 3 or 4 days a week – Harpenden looked ideal.
Spending a week house hunting for rental property on my own with Karen and the kids back on the West coast of America threw up lots of potential (I would setup camp in the Harpenden Arms every afternoon at around 4pm when it was 8am in the US and Karen and I would chat and share pictures of the various houses using Skype – for free!) but the nicest place we found was on Linden Road in Redbourn, owned by an RAF officer and his family who were being posted to the SE coast. We liked the village so much that we decided to focus our house search here in Redbourn and it wasn’t long before we found our current house and after a bit of remodelling (always fun to knock down walls), we moved in just over 2 years ago.
We have some great neighbours and have made all sorts of friends across the village. I have since left Intel and both Karen and I have started our own businesses around subjects that we both love – Karen is passionate about wine and has developed a wine tasting game called The Wine Guest and I help people stream their music and DVDs around their home using just a remote control – Mediaholix
I would just like to leave you with one helpful hint. If you have not yet discovered Google maps and its satellite view feature, then close the speech bubble before clicking on the image below and using the zoom controls on the top left to show your kids what your house looks like from a satellite in space!
Bye for now,
Gary Atkinson
Redbourn900 Website Moderator
Did you realise that the new Edition of Alan Featherstone’s book on “Redbourn’s History” has been published and is on sale at a remarkably reasonable price of £15 at the Redbourn Museum It was first published in 2001 and has been very difficult to obtain until the last couple of weeks. Thank you Alan and Mary Featherstone for making it available again for the 900th Anniversary of Redbourn in 2010. A must read for all those interested in knowing about our history in Redbourn.
My wife Helen and I moved into Ver Road in February 2008. I had heard of Redbourn but had never been until we began house hunting. We started off looking in Harpenden initially, but Helen spotted this house in Ver Road which we fell in love with and since then we’ve never looked back!
Redbourn is such a marvellous place to live and really has so much to offer. The quality of life is just superb! From our back window we can see the surrounding hillsides, the wonderful common is just a 5 minute walk away, and the walk along the Nicky Line to Harpenden is a joy (even with a pram!).
We have our little girl Ava now, and we are so glad that she will grow up in such a friendly, safe, clean place (I can’t believe I lived in London for so long – really, THIS is the life!).
Yes, Harpenden has the station and the M&S and the Waitrose etc etc, but what we have in Redbourn is something unique… something special… something magical…
Can’t wait for the celebrations next year and well done on a fantastic (and informative) website.
WE LOVE REDBOURN!
The Washer Family
Rolling the ball backwards! I hope the 900 celebrations go well!
I lived in Redbourn from 1938 to 1956, and with hindsight I too loved Redbourn. I was taught by Mr Cooper of Cooper’s Meadow; well remember Jack Cooper- no relation [p. 47 of Geoff Webb's 'Redbourn Through Time' - good for a dose of nostalgia] as I did a Saturday bread round; real steam trains on the Nicky Line, and chartered trains for the Sunday School outing to Southend; Marston’s brick lorries thundering down the High Street; Mr Heather’s film shows in the village hall.
See a few recent photos on http://www.geograph.org.uk
Mike Richardson, Edinburgh