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Bricket Wood has 212 acres of genuinely ancient woodland at its centre, and, almost unbelievably, a footnote in global religious history: this is where modern Wicca quietly took shape in the 1940s.
After the last ice age, the land now known as Bricket Wood was thickly wooded, and unlike much of the surrounding Hertfordshire countryside, it was never entirely cleared for agriculture. What did eventually open up became heathland and acid grassland, but the core of ancient woodland survived, and it's still there today, at the heart of what's now called Bricket Wood Common.
Bricket Wood Common covers 86 hectares, roughly 212 acres, sitting within St Stephen's Parish in the St Albans district. It's a genuinely rich habitat: predominantly secondary woodland and old hornbeam coppice, with a smaller core of wet lowland heath and acid grassland, complete with a boggy area, birch scrub, and ponds. Its ecological importance has earned it designation as a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest, one of the more significant pieces of protected nature in this part of Hertfordshire.
Most commons are pleasant places for a walk. This one is old enough, and important enough, to be legally protected for what lives in it.
Through the 19th century, very little of what's now the centre of modern Bricket Wood actually existed. Aside from the Common itself, the area was largely extensive woodland, dotted with farms where agriculture remained the main occupation. That began to change in 1858, when the branch line between Watford and St Albans opened a halt at Bricket Wood, making the area considerably more accessible and setting the stage for the growth that followed.
In 1889, the Gray brothers acquired land at Smug Oak Green, within the wider Bricket Wood area, and opened the Woodside Retreat fairground, an early piece of the leisure and entertainment history that would later define one corner of the village's identity.
Bricket Wood's most unexpected claim to fame, though, belongs to the 1940s. Gerald Gardner, the figure now widely credited as the founder of the modern pagan religion of Wicca, bought a plot at the Fiveacres Country Club, a naturist club located in the village, and it was here that the Bricket Wood coven formed. Gardner created his famous "Book of Shadows," the foundational text of Gardnerian Wicca, in the late 1940s or early 1950s, and used it first within this very coven. Influential figures in the wider history of Wicca, including Doreen Valiente, Jack Bracelin, Fred Lamond, and Lois Bourne, were all once members. Remarkably, the coven is still believed to be active today, though it has always maintained a deliberate air of secrecy.
Between its protected ancient woodland and its entirely unexpected place in the history of modern paganism, Bricket Wood offers something no neighbouring village quite matches: a genuinely significant nature reserve sitting a short walk from the site where a new religious movement quietly took shape. Walk the Common, take in the hornbeam coppice and the boggy hollows, and you'll be standing in woodland that's been shaping this corner of Hertfordshire since long before anyone thought to write its history down.
The Social Martini is proud to connect the people and stories that make Bricket Wood special. 🍸