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Tangible evidence of Bishop's Stortford's past can be found mostly in the town centre. But at Haymeads, on the outskirts of town, there still stands Bishop's Stortford Union Workhouse - a 19th century grade II listed building now converted for residential use and forming the centre piece of a large new housing development.

Workhouses are often perceived as a Victorian idea but parochial poor relief is thought to date back to at least the 15th century. Attempts to alleviate the problems of poverty were later made by Henry VIII, but it was Elizabeth I's Poor Law Act of 1601 that made the poor the responsibility of the parish.

A small workhouse is recorded in Bishop's Stortford in 1711 and again in 1776, the latter being a much larger establishment sited at Hockerill Street accommodating up to 70 inmates. This was run at the sole expense of the parish until 1834, when the Poor Law Amendment Bill stipulated the setting up of Union Workhouses.

In effect, this enabled constituent parishes to group together as a Union and share the cost of looking after paupers. Being the only town in this area, Stortford was chosen as the base for the local Union, which comprised of 20 parishes - 10 in east Herts and 10 in west Essex - and was overseen by a board of 27 elected guardians from each parish. Hockerill Street workhouse, however, soon proved too small to accommodate paupers from an additional 19 parishes and so the building of a new Union Workhouse was proposed at Haymeads.

Designed by T.L. Evans and constructed on 4 acres of land by a local firm at a cost of £9,137, it opened on 10 June 1837. In 1842 it was enlarged to accommodate around 400 inmates and in 1894, having no hospital in Stortford at that time to tend the working class sick, was also designated as the local Infirmary. But the stigma of the name 'workhouse' remained, and in 1929 workhouses, as such, were abolished and renamed Public Assistance Institutions. The following year the responsibilities of 643 Boards of Guardians in England and Wales were handed over to county borough and county councils.

At the start of World War II, Haymeads Public Assistance Institute (the former workhouse) took on an important role as a hospital for the Services but when its size proved inadequate for the number of casualties returning from Europe, other buildings were hastily added to the site. These were to be the foundations of what became, in 1948, Herts & Essex General Hospital. The former workhouse building was then used as accommodation for nursing staff, and later for NHS administration purposes. In the 1980s, a change in the political and economic climate inevitably led to cutbacks in the NHS and eventual closure of the hospital in 2001 in favour of a community hospital on the same site. Redevelopment of the remaining land for private housing followed in 2003, but the former workhouse was spared as a constant reminder of Bishop's Stortford's heritage.

A comprehensive history of Bishop's Stortford workhouse can be found at www.stortfordhistory.co.uk

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