The 19th century brought change to the village. It escaped the vast upheaval of industrial Britain, but there were considerable changes to its insular way of life. At the beginning of the century many stage coaches passed every day along the boundary of the parish at Broadwater. At its end they had departed and the railways had taken over, the track running parallel to the road, but on the other side, in Knebworth parish. In 1800 the Nodes were about to relinquish their two and a half centuries as Lords of the Manor, and by 1900 the century of the Heathcotes had nearly run its course. In 1800 the parish was still sorting out most of its problems in the old way, by its own appointed stewards, and still looking to St. Albans for its administration; by 1900 much of this had been swept away.

        Samuel Unwin Heathcote, who was living at the Bury in 1818, was the grandson of Michael Heathcote who also held the Priory estate at Wymondley. Michael Heathcote's daughter had married Samuel Unwin of Sutton Hall, Notts, and their son Samuel added Heathcote to his surname when he inherited Shephall Bury from his grandfather. In 1818 he applied to the Hertford sessions for permission to divert a footpath which crossed his estate and went close to his house. Understandably a new owner with his young wife would hardly enjoy having the village folk strolling by the windows.

        Thirty years later John Pryor recorded Samuel Unwin-Heathcote in his diary, describing him as

‘a stern unbending Tory who could be relied on to oppose innovation. He fought Catholic Emancipation, Parliamentary Reform, Rural Police and Railways'.

In 1842 William Lucas, the Hitchin Quaker, wrote in his diary (which was later published):

'A public meeting held here (Hitchin) to petition that the duty on wheat may not go down lower than 5/-. Supported by Heathcote, Hailey and other Ultra Tories.'

A little later:

'Agitation against Sir Robert Peel's tariff increases, a large meeting of farmers at our Town Hall today, Heathcoat in the chair, at which strong resolutions were agreed to, against the Corn Law and the low duties on livestock.'

and in 1845:

'A very numerous meeting at the Sun to consider the project of a railway from London to York ... Heathcoat made a long absurdly exaggerated harangue against railways in general, but obtained no support, the feeling now running very strong everywhere in favour of railways.'

Shephall Bury

Mr. Unwin Unwin-Heathcote's fine new mansion. Built 1865

A year later:

'Great Northern Railway company have many men at work marking out their line. Some of our squires are very obstructive, Heathcoat as usual insanely violent. He has driven the men from his land, cut down and removed their posts, injured their instruments, for all of which he will probably have to pay heavily.'

And:

'Our violent neighbour Heathcote was this day had up before our bench of magistrates for impeding the operations on the London York railway. The affair was compromised, it being understood that Heathcote would offer no more opposition.'

Nevertheless, four days later:

'Notwithstanding we hear he still obstructs the proceedings and vows they will not come on his land.'

        In August 1850 the G.N.R. line from London to Peterborough was opened, Queen Victoria making the journey. A stop was made at Welwyn to inspect the viaduct, which had employed 5,000 navvies in its construction.

The Rector of Stevenage, Canon Blomfield, described our eccentric squire as

‘a very tall man with white hair some seventy years old. He refused to make any use of the G.N. railway until his death, except to bring him a dish of fish for dinner. He only went to church once a year on Gunpowder Plot Day, in order as he said to damn the Pope. He stood in a very high pew just opposite the reading desk and after insisting on having the Act of Parliament read he would repeat the response in his loudest tone.'

But there were other facets to this man. He was a J.P., and was an active member of the local horticultural society, as John Pryor records in his diary:

'July 1843 I was in the chair (Baldock Horticultural meeting) as Mr. Heathcote could not attend, having had his collarbone broken by his horse falling with him in London.'

and it was in his time at the Bury that another twenty houses were built in the parish; new homes for his workmen. He died in 1862.

        Three years later his son Unwin Unwin-Heathcote built a new house in his park and pulled down the old manor. The new house was still known as Shephall Bury, but today is called Shephall Manor; 'a Gothic mansion, architect T. Roger Smith, of red brick and yellow stone, Early English detail, many gables, a stair turret'. Both Unwin's mother and his wife Frances were of the Wigram family of Walthamstow. The families seem to have enjoyed a close relationship, and several Wigrams are buried in the churchyard; Robert, who died in Ceylon as a young man, has a memorial window and a brass tablet in the church. Beneath the great yew in the churchyard lie Samuel and Eleanor, and nearby three infant children. Later Heathcote tombstones are near the lychgate.

        Unwin planted his park with trees (my great grandfather did the actual planting). He too gained permission to alter certain footpaths which ran close to his park and home farm. I doubt if people in the village were satisfied with the new arrangements, but the Lord of the Manor employed them directly, or indirectly through his farms, and the Heathcotes appear to have been good and just employers. Unwin UnwinHeathcote had two sons and two daughters. One daughter, Blanche, entered a convent; the other was to be known in the village as 'Miss Evelyn' until she died in 1951. Both sons went into the army; the elder, Alfred Unwin-Heathcote, retired in 1902 after thirty years' service with the rank of Colonel. He died in 1912.

        What else was happening in the village in the 19th century?

        After the death of John Jones (1770) the little schooling the children received was that provided by the parish priests. Early in the 19th century there was a government inquiry into the state of education in the country. At Shephall in 1818 fifteen children were being taught in a day school and there was a Sunday school of 18. A voluntary subscription paid for Mrs. Parker, the day school teacher, and the parish clerk took the Sunday school. Fifteen years later 25 children were attending a day school financed by their parents. Mr. Heathcote provided a Sunday school. The population continued to increase; it more than doubled from 120 in 1801 to a peak of 263 in 1841. At the time of the 1851 census Miss Sabina Sprigings was the teacher. She may have lived in the cottage which also served as the school; it must have been very cramped for the 35 children from the village and its hamlet of Broadwater. The cost of running the school was met by the better-off parishioners, with a weekly copper or two from the parents of each child  attending. In

1863 a new school was proposed, and the sum of 2358 raised by collection and subscription. This, with 225 from the Diocesan Board of Education and 9-20 from the National Society, provided the school building which was to serve Shephall for nearly a century. Samuel Heathcote had just died; his son Unwin, busy planning his own new mansion, donated the site for the school and also pledged expenses for the running of it, as the fees proposed for each child would be insufficient to meet all costs. The village was en fete for the opening, the local papers reporting:

'SHEPHALL - Opening of the Schools - On Friday the 5th inst., this little village was the scene of much rejoicing on the occasion of the opening of the new schools. The want of new schoolrooms for this village and Broadwater has long been felt. Hitherto a room in an old cottage has done duty, but here the ceiling was so low as scarcely to allow breathing room for the number of scholars attending. The new schools have been erected principally through the liberality of Unwin Heathcote, Esq., and the efforts of the Rev. W. Wortham for these fifteen years past to get a better room has at last been crowned with success. The building is constructed in the Gothic style, with classroom and porches, giving separate entrances for boys and girls, and although designed by an amateur architect, it is a pattern for good taste and convenient arrangement. The builders were Messrs. Bates and Warren, of Stevenage, and the outlay has been nearly 2400. In honour of the opening, the Rev. W. Wortham entertained the scholars and their parents, about 140 in number, to a beautiful tea. The rev. gentleman opened the school with an address, followed by an appropriate prayer, asking God's blessing on their efforts to promote the education and welfare of those committed to their care; after which the children sang the 230th Hymn, '0 holy Lord, content to dwell' and throughout the evening several other pieces were sung with excellent effect. The schoolroom was tastefully decorated by Miss Wortham and the schoolmistress, Miss Hodgelkinson. A profusion of flags and banners were gracefully suspended from the timbers of the open roof, and a variety of mottoes and Scripture texts in wreaths and festoons lined the walls. In the centre of the room was the following inscription - "God bless our dear children". Above this were the initials of U. Heathcote, Esq., and below it were those of the Rev. W. Wortham and Miss Wortham. Opposite this was the text, "Suffer the little children to come unto me", beautifully illuminated in Mediaeval characters by Miss Blanche Heathcote; and on the part of the scholars in grateful acknowledgement to the benefactors of the school, within a frame of ivy leaves entwined by the elder scholars was the following inscription - "Shephall School, opened February 5th 1864. May our kind patrons and pastor long live to see the fruits of their good works". After tea, the Rev. W. Wortham, with the assistance of Master Seager of Stevenage, delighted the youngsters with the wonders of the magic lantern, during which the village band played some lively airs. At the close of the entertainment, thanks were expressed to several members of the Heathcote family, and the Rev. W. Wortham and Miss Wortham, by rounds of hearty cheering, concluding with the national anthem. Thus ended a day that will long be remembered by the inhabitants of Shephall and Broadwater.'

        The Revd. Walter Wortham was a Hertfordshire man; his family came from Aspenden, near Buntingford. He came to Shephall as Vicar when Sir Henry Leslie was Rector, becoming Rector himself in 1837. He, together with Mr. Unwin Heathcote, was responsible for the complete restoration of the church in 1865. South, west and east walls were rebuilt, a new window being inserted into the west wall, and a porch added to the door on the south side. The north wall was replaced by pillars with arches and a narrow aisle added. A plaster ceiling was inserted between the mediaeval roof trusses. Almost certainly this was when the black marble tombstones which filled the chancel floor were covered with tiles. No record appears to exist of any of this work; Shephall was at the time part of the Diocese of Rochester, and the Kent County Archivist says that it is generally assumed that many records were lost during the later diocesan reorganisation. The Rector had his sister Harriet living with him; she predeceased him by five years. Three stained glass windows in her memory were placed in the north aisle, representing Jesus Blessing the Children, Christ the Good Shepherd, and the Raising of Tabitha. A hundred years later the north aisle needed rebuilding; it was made slightly wider and the stained glass windows replaced by larger ones with clear glass. When Walter Wortham died in 1877 a stained glass Crucifixion was inserted in the east window in his memory; this too was replaced when necessary repairs promised to be more expensive than installing the present Christus Rex, backed by plain glass, in 1962. The first national census of 1801 recorded only the number of houses in each parish, how many families, and how many males and females; it also roughly classified occupations.  In Shephall

there were 25 families each with their own home, one uninhabited house, 61 males, 51 females. 43 people were employed in agriculture and 2 in trade. Forty years later the population had doubled, partly because there were now another twenty houses; there were a tollkeeper, a carpenter and a shoemaker; otherwise all were employed in agriculture or domestic service. The 1851 census showed a slight drop in population, but there was rather more diversity in occupation. An unmarried mother was a dressmaker. There was a shopkeeper who also styled himself as a dealer; two men were grocers, but where they practised their trade is unknown. There was a new toll collector at Broadwater. James Parker was church clerk and his wife a laundress; two other women were laundresses and there were now two carpenters. The Heathcotes employed ten living-in servants. Many of the householders named their children as scholars.

        The 1861 census records 47 houses and a total population of 246. Apart from those in domestic service at the Bury or the Rectory, the land still occupied nearly all, directly or as blacksmith, carpenter or hurdle maker. Three women and 3 young girls are listed as strawplaiters; this was a very profitable occupation, and wives expert in this cottage industry could earn more than their husbands did as agricultural labourers.

        In 1834 the Poor Law Amendment Act compelled parishes to form unions with appointed officials and elected guardians of the poor to replace parochial relief methods. Investigating commissioners took evidence from the village overseers about parish conditions, charities and schools. Outdoor relief was to be abolished and those unable to support themselves were accepted into a union workhouse, after being subject to a test. As workhouses were to be made as unpleasant as possible to encourage their residents to go out and seek work, it is not surprising that from then on many elderly and infirm folk lived in dread of the 'guardians' and 'the Union' or workhouse. Perhaps the old way, especially in a small village like Shephall, had a lot going for it, where the overseer of the poor was a neighbour, and needs could be seen and acted upon, leaving the recipient in his or her own cottage with some self-respect and independence.       

        Perhaps this was the way the Shephall overseers saw it at the time because at the first meeting of the Union in June 1835 they failed to send in any details. At the July meeting they were represented but did not bring any papers. Threat of legal proceedings and a letter from the London office of the Poor Law Commissioners brought no result and they were fined 25 and costs. In September another fine, this time of 210 and costs, finally convinced these doughty village champions that they would have to co-operate.

        Another yearly elected office of the parish was that of constable. Of course very few welcomed their turn to fulfil this task, and it was possible to pay someone else to undertake it. Perhaps the formation of the Hertfordshire County Police Force in 1841 was welcomed by many - and not only by those who would have had to fill the office, as the law was no longer in the village but three miles away! In 1875 the amalgamation of the county with the Liberty of St. Albans for legal administration made another change for the villagers; they no longer dealt with people they knew at St. Albans, but with different officials in Hitchin.

        Church administration was moved from Rochester to the newly created Diocese of St. Albans in 1877, renewing the links severed at the Dissolution.

        A vestry book of 1894 records a special parish meeting called when a Public Health Committee very strongly opposed the suggestion that Stevenage should discharge sewage in the parish of Shephall. In 1897 when a collection was made for the Indian famine fund, the clerk made a note that every household contributed. The village sent money to the sick and wounded in South Africa, and also donated to the new church being built at Woolmer Green. Payments are shown for the new pump on the village green in 1899 and 1900.

        1897 - the Diamond Jubilee; and the village celebrated in right royal fashion. The festivities started at 11 a.m. with a cricket match between married and single. At half past twelve more than 100 parishioners sat down to a dinner provided by Mrs. Heathcote. A programme of sport followed, the 18 events including a tug of war. At 4 p.m. the children were given a tea, with the adults following an hour later. In the evening there was dancing up to 10 p.m. 'No single hitch occurred to mar the harmony of a most pleasant and enjoyable day. The proceedings fitly closed with cheers for the Queen and the singing of the National Anthem'.

        In 1901 at a memorial service to the late Queen the preacher commented in the register 'a very crowded church all in mourning'.