HARPENDEN CREST (HARPENDEN MUSEUM TILE)

Harpenden, a small Hertfordshire town (Known locally as the 'Village'), retains much of its rural origins depicted on the tile. The towns Crest is surrounded by pictures representing activities or events: horse racing on the common (now ceased), the many public houses (The Cross Keys is over 250 years old) and the two breweries that serviced them (Now drunk dry!), the strong link with agriculture and the Rothamsted Experimental Station, and the advent of the railway with the engineering feat of the Skew bridge.

By Peter Goucher

HMS VICTORY

HMS Victory is the only remaining 18th Century warship anywhere in the world and the oldest Royal Navy ship in commission, still being the flag ship of the Second Sea Lord. The keel was laid in Chatham Dockyard in 1759, the same year that Horatio Nelson was born and was completed six years later. At a cost of £63,176 her construction took 27 miles of rigging, 4 acres of sail and required 2,000 mature trees. As the most famous warship in the world she was best known as being Vice Admiral Nelson's flagship at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and before that of Admiral Sir John Jervis at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent in 1797.