Aldbury
The stocks and pond at the centre of the village
OS grid reference	SP9612
Shire county	Hertfordshire
Region	East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Police	Hertfordshire
Fire	Hertfordshire
Ambulance	East of England
List of places UK England Hertfordshire

Aldbury is a village in Hertfordshire, England, near the borders of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, in a valley close to Ashridge Park. The nearest town is Tring; Tring railway station, 1 mile west, is in the parish of Aldbury. Uphill from the village are the Bridgewater monument and the Ashridge estate.

Aldbury has around 800 inhabitants, a small shop, Garage, and two pubs: the Greyhound and the Valiant Trooper.

Aldbury is a village of the Old English type. In the centre is a green and pond; close by stand stocks and whipping-post, in excellent preservation, a primary school and the Church of Saint John the Baptist is of Early English style. The church was restored in 1867, and is notable for the Verney Chapel, separated from the nave by a screen of stone. It 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 charities to the poor of the parish. In the days of Edward the Confessor the manor of Aldeberie was held by Alwin, the king’s thegn. The Valiant Trooper has served as an alehouse for several centuries, the first traceable evidence dates back to 1752. The ascent of the wooded slope towards the Bridgewater Monument is one of the most beautiful districts in the county.

Aldbury is a popular location for films and television. Among film and television series scenes filmed in the village are:

• Film:
  • 1947: Jassy (the last production by Gainsborough Pictures)
  • 1967: The Dirty Dozen (the scene at the beginning of the training exercise)
  • 2004: Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, the Greyhound pub (including a scene involving fox hunting cut from the cinema release but on the DVD)

• Television:
  • 1967: The Avengers, two episodes of the sixties TV series, episode "Dead Man's Treasure" town renamed "Swingingdale" original air date 21 October 1967 (UK). And the complete episode "Murdersville" town renamed "Little Storping In-The-Swuff" original air date 11 November 1967 (UK).
  • Inspector Morse, the TV detective series, the Greyhound pub
  • Shillingbury Tales series, filmed in 1980. The church, churchyard/graveyard and path to the primary school as well as the Greyhound pub also featured in a Dave Allen sketch (the race to the graveyard between two funeral parties)
  • National Lottery, the initial advertisements (despite the fact that the shop was unable to sell tickets at the time)

The largest house is Stocks House which 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. A troop of Morris men is based here and perform outside the Greyhound.

Aldbury Parish Council is the local administrative body and covers Aldbury village itself and the hamlet at Tring Station - in Saxon times, Aldbury lay in Dacorum, one of the Hundreds of Hertfordshire and in 1973, the Dacorum Borough of Hertfordshire was created with Aldbury in it.

On the 6 January 1954 a Royal Air Force Vickers Valetta twin-engined training aircraft crashed at Tom's Hill just south of the village. Sixteen of the 17 airmen on board were killed. ^[1]

• Hertfordshire, by Herbert W Tompkins, 2nd Edition, 1922, from Project Gutenberg
• grid reference SP964124
• Hertfordshire Genealogy
• Aldbury Primary School
• Tring Council web site
• Aldbury locations, from Internet Movie Database
• Aldbury Morris Men
• Dave Allen Funeral Sketch hosted on YouTube