Bushey

Bushey is a town in the Hertsmere borough of Hertfordshire in the East of England. It had a population of 25,328 in the 2011 census, rising to 28,416 in the 2021 census, an increase of 12.19%. This makes Bushey the second most populated town in Hertsmere. Bushey Heath is a large neighbourhood south east of Bushey on the boundary with the London Borough of Harrow reaching elevations of above sea level. Bushey is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086 in the form Bissei. Although there has been some debate, modern, scholarly commentary has concluded that the name originated as a compound of the Old English words bysc ('bush, thicket') and hæg ('enclosure'). Thus it once meant 'enclosure made of bushes'. The first written record of Bushey is its entry in the Domesday Book of 1086, which describes a small agricultural village named 'Bissei' (which later became 'Biss(h)e' and then 'Bisheye' during the 12th century). However, chance archaeological findings of Stone Age tools provide evidence that the area was inhabited as far back as the Palaeolithic period. The town also has links to the Roman occupation of Britain, with the main road running through it being Roman; sites of possible Roman villas being unearthed in the area; and a Roman tessellated pavement was discovered near Chiltern Avenue. Bushey Heath's story begins in the Napoleonic Wars during a large food shortage. To help solve the problem, the government awarded the waste land to the east of Bushey to Bushey landowners to be used as farming; the land was more generally known as Bushey Common. Whilst the original aim was to produce food, being close to a railway and up to 500 ft above sea level with beautiful and broad views made the area attractive for housing developers. The 19th and 20th centuries marked the time of most change in Bushey, especially between 1860 and 1960. The population rose 28-fold within 200 years, from 856 in 1801, to just under 24,000 today. The expansion was for many reasons, one of the main ones being due to the boom in industry caused by the railway in the early 20th century.