In Hemel Hempstead High Street is a building, now converted into cottages, which contains above the fireplaces on the ground and first floors the Tudor rose and fleur-de-lys in plaster-work; while the back of a neighbouring building probably dates from the time of Henry VIII. Excellent examples of the old brick-and-timber cottages are to be seen in the village of Northchurch, and also at Aldbury, east of Tring, where the old parish stocks are likewise preserved. Most of these Aldbury cottages are tiled, although a few are covered with thatch, a style of roofing much less common in that district than in many parts of the county. Watford has still a number of old cottages, notably in Farthing Lane and Chequer’s Yard, and in St Albans, especially in the market-place and French Row, there are several dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There is also a very remarkable old hexagonal wooden house near the ford across the Ver at St Michael’s silk-mills, said to be one of the oldest licensed houses in England. [Illustration: The “Fighting Cocks,” St Albans (_Ancient Inn near the Ford across the Ver_)] Did space permit, reference might be made to old houses in Hertford, Berkhampstead, and other towns and villages, but the facts mentioned are sufficient to indicate the interest of the county to antiquarians in the matter of ancient buildings, and before concluding this section we must not omit to mention what is certainly not the least interesting of all Hertfordshire antiquities--the Cross at Waltham which Edward erected to his beloved Queen Eleanor; the last before arriving in London of the fifteen commemorating the resting-place of her body on its journey from Grantham to Westminster Abbey in 1290. [Illustration: Waltham Cross] 19. Communications--Past and Present. Roads, Railways, Canals.