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The Village of Sarratt
The village of Sarratt lies in beautiful Hertfordshire countryside in the south-east of England, three miles north-west of Rickmansworth and about twenty miles north-west of London and only 2-3 miles outside the London orbital Road - the M25.
Sarratt is surrounded by open fields and bordered to the south by the River Chess and the Chess Valley - designated by the UK government as an `Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty`.
Along the Chess valley were a number of villas in Roman times, one quite close to where Sarratt is today, though the village did not exist then. Holy Cross Church is believed by some to stand on the site of a Roman burial ground. A Roman road, from Verulamium to Silchester, passed through what is now Sarratt and became a drovers` road in later centuries.
A hill-village, built on a ridge surrounded by forest, Sarratt dates from about AD 700, the legend being that the original settlers were a family from Sweden. The name might have originated with the Scandinavian `swyra` meaning neck, col, or a prominent short ridge, evolving in Saxon times into `Syre`, an Old English word.
Towards the end of the 8th century, in 796, the manor of Syre, along with others in the south and west of the county, was given to the abbot of St Albans Monastery. Later the letters `th` - the Middle English for `place` - were added to the name to make `Syreth`.
 Twenty miles North-West of London |  Sarratt Parish |  |
Shortly before the Norman Conquest clearance of the monastery`s land was begun by Abbot Leofstan, although it was not until the 13th century that the greater part of the arable land was properly enclosed and cultivated.
Until the 18th century Sarratt was a hamlet, a cluster of properties surrounding the church. However, the village of Sarratt Green, about three-quarters of a mile away, began to grow in the 17th century and eventually took the name of Sarratt, the old Sarratt virtually disappearing as an inhabited location and becoming known as Church End.
The population of Sarratt Parish in 1831 was about 450, rising to 654 in 1871. Today it is about 2,600, including the nearby hamlet of Belsize.
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