Clock Tower

We start our walk at the Clock Tower

To the north is the Tower Centre which opened in 1967. For its construction, all the properties between Amwell Street and Burford Street as far Woollens Brook were demolished. The northern end of the Tower Centre was redeveloped in 2012. This walk concentrates mainly on the area to the south where many older buildings remain. On the site of the Clock Tower a chapel dedicated to St Catherine was built in 1336. It provided a place of worship for pilgrims making their way from London to Walsingham, until the shrine there was closed at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century. Because Hoddesdon was partly in Broxbourne parish and partly in Great Amwell parish until the 19th century, the chapel was occasionally used as a chapel-of-ease for parishioners unable to get to the parish churches. From the mid-17th century the chapel was no longer used for church services, and in the early 18th century it was altered to become a clock house. In 1835 it was demolished, and the present building, with the addition of rooms surrounding the tower, was built. When major redevelopment of the town centre was carried out in the 1960s these rooms were removed. The canopy was erected in about 2004 giving an indication of the original shape. Cross the road to the War Memorial.