Francis Bacon (1561-1626) buried and memorial St Albans
Graham Greene, (1904-1991)
Charles Lamb (1775 - 1834)
As children Lamb and his sister Mary often stayed at Blakesware (demolished 1830), near Wareside, where Mary Field, their grandmother, was housekeeper to the Plumer family. Lamb recalled these visits in his essays 'Blakesmoor in H----' and ' Dream Children'. Mary Field is buried at Widford and the pub here contains some Lamb memorabilia. The Lambs also visited their Great Aunt Gladman at Mackery End, Wheathampstead, and their adventures there are described by Mary in Mrs Leicester's School (1808) and by Charles in ' Mackery End' (1820). At Cherry Green, along a no-through road from Westmill, lies 'Buttonsnap', a cottage owned by Lamb which he sold for the paltry sum of fifty pounds in 1815. He had inherited the property in 1812 but never lived there. It was acquired by the Charles Lamb Society from the Royal Society of Arts in 1949 but was sold in the 1980s and is now a private residence. Note the bread oven. Two plaques on the cottage commemorate the association with Lamb and in 1965 a medallion portrait, which had originally come from a bank in Chancery Lane, was re-erected in the garden.

October 1904 to November 1910 St. Johns, Chesham Road. Plaque
recording it as his birthplace but not his years of residence.
November 1910 to September 1922 School House, Berkhamsted School, Castle Street, Berkhamsted ![]()

from September 1918 to July 1922 he was a weekly boarder at St Johns. ![]()


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The Swan Inn mentioned in The Captain and the Enemy
The Grand Union Canal mentioned in many of Graham Greene's novels and "A Sort of Life"
The Station, mentioned in The Human Factor and Yours Etc
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) moved to The New Rectory (now Shaw's Corner) at Ayot Saint Lawrence in 1906. Commemorated in Dublin and Ayot St Lawrence.
Shaw left the house to the National Trust. 
Any additions please email : Rosemary Culley, Hon. Sec of the Alliance of Literary Societies Thank you
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