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Old Town Hemel
The market town that survived the New Town: church, High Street, Sunday market, tea.
Hemel Hempstead’s Old Town sits on a hill the New Town never quite flattened. St Mary’s parish church, a sloping High Street of independents, and a Sunday market are the remaining civic set.
Walk down from the church to the Jellicoe Water Gardens and you can read 900 years of the town in twenty minutes: medieval parish, coaching High Street, 1960s landscape, 21st-century Forum.
Eat here. The Old Town is the only part of Hemel where a visitor immediately understands why anyone would choose to live in the borough for pleasure rather than a season ticket.