Kings Langley

Kings Langley is a village, former manor and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England. It is sited 23.5 miles (37.8 kilometres) north-west of London and to the south of the Chiltern Hills; it now forms part of the London commuter belt. The village is divided between two local government districts by the River Gade with the larger western portion in the Borough of Dacorum and smaller part, to the east of the river, in Three Rivers District. It was the location of Kings Langley Palace and the associated King's Langley Priory, of which few traces survive.

It is situated 2 mi (3 km) south of Hemel Hempstead and 2 mi (3 km) north of Watford.

The manor is first mentioned in surviving records as æt Langalege (Old English æt Langeleage) in a Saxon charter dated 1042–1049. It appears as Langelai in the Domesday Book (1086) and as Langel' Regis (“Langley of the King”) in 1254. The name means “long wood or clearing”. From the 11th to the 14th centuries the settlement is often recorded as “Chilterns Langley” to distinguish it from Abbots Langley; with increased royal involvement it is attested by 1346 as “Kyngeslangley” and by 1428 as “Langele Regis”.

Archaeological evidence indicates continuous human activity in the Kings Langley area from the Lower Palaeolithic period.

A Roman villa of the winged-corridor type, dated to the 2nd century AD, stood in the southern part of the present village, just east of the River Gade, between what is now the Roman Gardens housing estate and Home Park Industrial Estate, probably overlying an earlier 1st-century elite Catuvellauni residence. The site was first identified in 1825 during works for Kings Langley railway station, and was later largely excavated between June 1981 and March 1982. Identified features included a bath suite and hypocaust heating.

The earliest known written reference to the manor of Langley dates to the 1040s, when the Saxon thegn Æthelwine Niger granted the land to Leofstan, abbot of St Albans Abbey. Leofstan subsequently granted the western portion of the district to a knight named Turcoht, an act which may have led to the later division between Kings Langley and Abbots Langley.

By 1066 the manor had been lost to the abbey and was held by Saeric and Thori as vassals of Leofwine Godwinson (c. 1035–1066). Following the Norman Conquest, the manor formed part of the Hundred of Danish and was among the lands granted to Robert, Count of Mortain (c. 1031–c. 1095), uterine half-brother of William the Conqueror (c. 1028–1087); his tenant was a certain Ralf. The assessed value declined from £8 in 1066 to £2 in 1086, a reduction likely caused by post-Conquest disruption. The present village developed as a linear village along the old road from London to Berkhamsted and beyond to the Midlands.

Following the forfeiture of William, Count of Mortain (before 1084–after 1140) after his failed rebellion in 1106, the manor was granted to the Chenduit family as part of the Honour of Berkhamsted. The Gesta Abbatum reports that Paul (abbot 1077–1093), abbot of St Albans Abbey, recovered Kings Langley for the abbey in the late 11th century; however, the Chenduit family retained control of the manor as vassals of the Crown, suggesting either a short-lived recovery or a reassertion of specific ecclesiastical rights.