Dacorum is a local government district with borough status in Hertfordshire, England. The council is based in Hemel Hempstead. The borough also includes the towns of Berkhamsted and Tring and surrounding villages. The borough had a population of 155,081 in 2021. Dacorum was created in 1974 and is named after the medieval "hundred" (a type of county division) of Dacorum, which had covered a similar area. The borough of Dacorum is the westernmost of Hertfordshire's ten districts. It borders St Albans, Three Rivers, Buckinghamshire and Central Bedfordshire.
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Dacorum in the context of Hemel Hempstead
Hemel Hempstead (/ˌhɛməl ˈhɛmpstɪd/) is a town in the Dacorum district in Hertfordshire, England. It is located 24 miles (39 km) north-west of London; nearby towns and cities include Watford, St Albans and Berkhamsted. The population at the 2021 census was 95,961.
Hemel Hempstead has existed since at least the 8th century and was granted its town charter by Henry VIII in 1539. It has expanded and developed in recent decades after being designated as a new town after the end of the Second World War.
Dacorum in the context of Berkhamsted
Berkhamsted (/ˈbɜːrkəmstɛd/ BUR-kəm-sted) is a market town in Hertfordshire, England. Located in the Bulbourne valley, it is 26 miles (42 km) north-west of London and had a population of 21,245 at the 2021 census. The town is a civil parish within the borough of Dacorum which is based in the neighbouring large new town of Hemel Hempstead. Berkhamsted, along with the adjoining village of Northchurch, is surrounded by countryside, and the Chiltern Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).
Berkhamsted was first mentioned in 970 CE and was recorded as a burbium (ancient borough) in the Domesday Book in 1086. A (now ruined) motte-and-bailey Norman castle was built shortly after the Norman Conquest and remained a royal possession and residence for four centuries. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the town was a wool trading centre, with a busy local market. The oldest-known extant jettied timber-framed building in Great Britain, built between 1277 and 1297, survives as a shop on the town's high street.The town's literary connections include the 17th-century hymnist and poet William Cowper, the 18th-century writer Maria Edgeworth and the 20th-century novelist Graham Greene. Arts institutions in the town include The Rex (a well regarded independent cinema) and the British Film Institute's BFI National Archive at King's Hill, which is one of the largest film and television archives in the world. Schools in the town include Berkhamsted School, a co-educational boarding independent school (founded in 1541 by John Incent, Dean of St Paul's Cathedral); Ashlyns School, a state school, whose history began as the Foundling Hospital established in London by Thomas Coram in 1742; and Ashridge Executive Education, a business school offering degree level courses, which occupies the Grade I listed neo-Gothic Ashridge House.