The MT is the countryside in JA’s day, not market towns and so I do not intend to spend too long on this, but as the starting point of my proposed expedition down the Lee Valley, and one of the two towns that Meryton was based on, I think a quick look at Hertford is justified.

The River Lee is navigable as far as Hertford where several small rivers meet the Lee. Hertford is an ancient settlement boasting a Norman castle, but the late eighteenth century gave it a new lease of life. The improvements to the Lee navigation gave access to London and its docks for the large amounts of grain, (wheat and also barley for brewing) that was being produced in the surrounding countryside. Both Hertford and Ware had a number of maltings (where barley is turned into malt for brewing) and as these consume a lot of fuel for the drying process known as kilning, perhaps the hornbeam coppices were used here, though I have no information on this.

The immediate vicinity of Hertford was such valuable agricultural land that the town could not expand outwards and instead boasted and unusually larger number of multi-story buildings at the time.

Hertford did expand laterally in the later nineteenth century but is still retains many buildings that would have been there in JA’s day. There are better preserved market towns in the vicinity; both Saffron Walden and Bishops Stortford have survived the ravages of time rather better. In fact, a busy road cuts modern Hertford in two. However most, if not all, of eighteenth century Hertford is to the north of this and the centre has been pedestrianised, so it is still possible to enjoy the many buildings that have survived from JA’s era and earlier.