Thursday 19 January: TOWNSHEND ARMS, HERTFORD HEATH (Chris Haden, Mike Horsman,Chris Parkinson, David Room, Steve Stott, Andrew Swift, John Westwood)
COMMENT: Back in England for No 54, nice pub, nice meal (not cheap) and nice pub dog about the size of a donkey who got really interested in Chris P's dog Sally. This is taking the older woman syndrome to ridiculous lengths since Sally is, I reckon, easily old enough to be his grandmother. However, it didn't come to anything with all the chaperones around eating and drinking.
The Townshend Arms, planted across the line of the Roman road called Ermine Street, was called the Green Man till 1823 when it adapted the name and arms of Viscounts Townshend, the 18th and 19th century owners of Balls Park. This family produced several figures notable in English history particularly Charles, second Viscount Townshend (1674-1738) who was an important and unusually honest and uncorrupt statesman who also rejoiced in the nickname "Turnip Townshend". This was not because he was dense or unsuccessful (he wasn't) but because, apart from being a leading political figure, he was also an agricultural improver who was responsible for dramatic improvements in productivity due to the use of turnips, clover, etc and a "fallow field" system. However, the other best known Townshend, General Sir Charles Townshend (1861-1924) really was a turnip, one of the worst and least successful generals of the First World War (and you needed to be really bad to achieve this distinction) losing a whole army to the Turks.
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