Chartered Building Surveyor in Harpenden

To find out some interesting facts about Harpenden and places to visit in Harpenden and the surrounding areas you can click on the boxes above.

To get a quote on a survey in Harpenden, carried out by an Independent Building Surveyor, click on the 'Get a Survey Quote' box above.

If you book a survey with 1st Associated you will find that we take great pride in the quality of our survey and produce a very detailed survey report. We use plain English to explain any problems with the property to ensure that you understand the problems and how to resolve them.

We carry out residential structural survey and commercial survey in Harpenden. Harpenden is a town which is situated in Hertordshire.

 

Information on Harpenden

On the A1081 close to junction 9 of the M1 and junctions 4/5 of the A1 is the picturesque town of Harpenden . It is close to St Albans to the south and Redbourn to the west. Harpenden, due to the delightful period cottages, town greens, Common and its tree lined High Street, maintains a village feel yet is a busy town which is popular with commuters due to its good road and rail links.

Harpenden is positioned between to the west Watling Street and to the east the Great North Road with several green areas such as Church Green, Leyton Green, High Street Green and the Green Flag award winning large Harpenden Common, which covers 238 acres and is at the heart of the town. Many events including Classics on the Common and the classic car rally are held there every July.

Harpenden is first recorded in writing in a deed dated 1060, showing that Edward the Confessor granted an estate to Westminster Abbey, which contained the area around Hwaethamstede, which has since become known as Wheathampstead, and Herpedene.

This area was first settled in the first century B.C. by the Belgae who were moving inland clearing areas to set up farms. The Romans came next leaving evidence of their presence in both the river valleys and at Rothamsted and also at St Albans where they had a main settlement known as Verulamium.

During the Anglo-Saxon era there was disputes with the Danes and an agreement seems to have been reached in 886 when the River Lea became the agreed dividing line between them. The Saxons stayed to the west and the Danes remained to the east.

Harpenden was not deemed to be big enough to warrant its own train station when the railways were being developed, however in 1860 Luton opened its station which passed through Harpenden and in 1868 when the Bedford to London line was opened many of the railway workers were housed in Harpenden and the village had grown enough to get its own station and is now used by hundred of commuters daily.

The attractiveness and desirability of living in Harpenden is reflected in the cost of housing which is well above the national average. Harpenden is predominantly a residential town but there are a few light industrial factories in the area.

The centre of the 'the village' as it is referred to, has many interesting individual shops and a couple of supermarkets along with numerous restaurants, pubs and cafes, many of which we have visited! There are also places to shop in North Harpenden and Batford.

Batford has the River Lea running through it, which has a ford at the end of Crabtree Lane and Marquis Lane and as a child we can still remember a car trying to drive through it and getting stuck! They also filmed an episode of the 1970's police drama “The Professionals” where they had to drive through the ford.

Harpenden has a leisure centre and swimming pool. This is now an indoor pool, but was originally an outdoor pool, where as a child we can remember long hot summers having fun and getting sunburnt!

Notable residents of Harpenden have included singer Frank Ifield and Eric Morecombe, one half of comedy duo Morecombe and Wise. The local Public Hall was re-named The Eric Morecombe Hall as a tribute. Former Arsenal footballers Lee Dixon and Andy Linighan lived in Harpenden and filmaker Stanley Kubrick lived closed by.

Whilst conducting both residential and commercial building surveys in the area it is lovely to visit Lydekker Park which was owned by the Lydekker family until the last family member passed away at the age of 100, Miss Hilda Lydekker leaving the land to the Council to keep as an open space for the public and is a delight to visit. Harpenden is renowned for Rothamsted Research the world famous agricultural research centre which focuses today on sustainable land management and its environmental implications on a large campus with modern conference facilities.

We note that there are some substantial residences in Harpenden in East Common Way and in the West Common area as well as The Avenues, West Common Way, Rothamsted Avenue, Morton End Lane, Park Avenue North and South, Maple Road and Rosebery Avenue, to name but a few. In addition to these most roads around Hatching Green and Kinsbourne Green have a wealth of larger detached properties.

 

Building Survey Harpenden

If you are planning to book a building survey on a property you are purchasing in Harpenden or the surrounding area then we would like to assure you that we always send a suitably qualified and experienced surveyor to carry out the job. This ensures that you get expert advice on any issues that we may find with the property we are surveying. All our surveyors are members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors - RICS - and are Independent Chartered Building Surveyors. Being 'independent' means that they are working for you and you alone; they do not work for a mortgage company or an estate agents, so they have your best interests at heart.

All our survey contain lots of images, clearly showing any problems that we have identified at the property such as woodworm, rising damp or cracking to the walls. We also use sketches in our survey which are aimed at helping you to understand how certain areas are constructed or to help show more clearly a problem that we have identified. You will also find lots of definitions of any building terminology that we may use in our survey, as we firmly believe in 'Plain English' and really want you to fully understand what we are saying in the survey report.

 

Independent Chartered Building Surveyor

1st Associated Chartered Surveyors cover the whole of the UK including all areas of Hertfordshire for example in:

Abbots Langley, the birth place of the only English Pope Nicholas Breakspear/Pope Adrian IV and a town we have often carried out surveys in, Baldock, Berkhamsted, Bishops Stortford, with its well known school, Borehamwood, home to Elstree Studios, Broxbourne, with its Paradise Wildlife Park, Cheshunt, a commuter town being only 14 miles from Charing Cross and easy to get to when carrying residential and commercial surveys, Harpenden, with the Common; an area of natural beauty, Hatfield, with elegant Hatfield House, Hemel Hempstead, with its magic roundabout great fun to negotiate on the way to doing a building survey, Hitchin, Hertford, county town of Hertfordshire, Knebworth, with the Gothic Mansion Knebworth House and its gardens and park, Letchworth Garden City, an attractive Garden City with the first roundabout in the UK where we have carried out many property reports, Potters Bar, at junction 24 of the M25, Radlett, in the valley of Tykes Water, Rickmansworth, with the large Aquadrome Local Nature Reserve, St Albans, famous for its Cathedral and a delightful city to visit as a chartered surveyor with its many historical buildings, Stevenage, just off the A1 at junction 7 and 8 Watford, and its large shopping centre, Tring, home of the famous Rothschild's Natural History Museum, Watford, Welwyn Garden City between Hatfield and Stevenage and picturesque Wheathampstead.

 

We always recommend that people have a building survey carried out by an Independent Chartered Surveyor. It is laughable to expect that a mortgage owned / estate agent owned surveyors will give impartial advice. Call an Independent Chartered Surveyor on 0800 298 5424 for an impartial survey.

1st Associated provide house survey, commercial survey, engineers reports, property training plus more all carried out by RICS surveyors in Harpenden and the surrounding areas.

Contact us today for a free, no obligation quotation, including building survey, structural survey, homebuyers reports and pre sales reports, for Harpenden and the surrounding towns and villages.

Get a survey quote:

Residential Building Survey Quote

Commercial Building Survey Quote or Schedule of Condition Quote

We carry out Structural survey, Structural Building survey on Residential properties and Commercial properties throughout Hertfordshire.

 

References:

Whilst a lot of this is written from general knowledge and local knowledge of the area and here are some websites that we think will be of interest to you in the Hertfordshire area some of which we have used for information and we would like to give them credit for this.

BishopsStortfordHistory, EnjoyHertfordshire.com, StAlbansCathedral.com, StAlbansMuseums.org, AllAboutStAlbans.com, TringFestivalCompany.co.uk, BishopsStortford.org, Hertfordshire.com, lgc.amolad.net, Letchworth.com, FirstGardenCity.co.uk, LetchworthGC.com, Wheathampstead.org, Hemelweb.demon.co.uk, HemelToday.co.uk, HatfieldHouse.co.uk, AboutBritain.com, InformationBritain.co.uk and TheGalleria.co.uk