Bishop's Stortford

Bishop's Stortford
Coordinates	51 ° 52 ′ N , 0 ° 10 ′ E Coordinates: 51 ° 52 ′ N , 0 ° 10 ′ E
	Bishop's Stortford
	Bishop's Stortford
Residents	35,325
administration
Post town	BISHOP'S STORTFORD
ZIP code section	CM23
prefix	01279
Part of the country	England
region	East of England
Shire county	Hertfordshire
District	East Hertfordshire
Civil Parish	Bishop's Stortford
British Parliament	Hertford and Stortford

Bishop's Stortford is a city in England with around 35,000 inhabitants. The city is located in the county of Hertfordshire , around 50 kilometers north-east of London on the River Stort . Here is the administrative headquarters of the East Hertfordshire district . London Stansted Airport is just a few kilometers east of the city .

history

The Romans established a small settlement on Stane Street , the Roman road between London and Colchester . The settlement was abandoned after the fall of the Roman Empire. An Anglo-Saxon settlement was later built in its place . When the Domesday Book was written in 1086, the place had around 120 inhabitants. It received the addition "Bishop's" because it was owned by the Bishop of London in the Middle Ages.

The town's development was facilitated by the presence of roads, the nearby Stort River and the organization of a weekly market. After 1769 the river was made navigable and shortly afterwards the town became a stop on the stagecoach line between Cambridge and London. In 1828 Bishop's Stortford received a grain exchange . The Malthouse was the most important industry. The railroad opened in 1842.

In 1901 the population was 7,000 and increased to 13,000 within 50 years. Growth was even more pronounced in the second half of the 20th century. The opening of the M11 motorway and Stansted Airport contributed to the fact that Bishop's Stortford came more and more into the catchment area of Greater London and is now a commuter city.

The new city center in the middle of the historic city center offers an architecturally appealing building complex with a glass and matt stainless steel look. Opened in May 2007, it houses the new Sainsbury's superstore and a branch of the NEXT fashion label .

Town twinning

Bishop's Stortford decided in November 2011 to end the twinning with Friedberg (Hessen) and Villiers-sur-Marne on September 28, 2012. Marco Evers suspected in an article on Spiegel Online the current political debate about the role of Great Britain as the trigger behind it.

Personalities

Frederick Scott Archer (1813–1857), photography pioneer, inventor of the collodion wet plate
Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902), founder of Rhodesia, De Beers and the Rhodes Foundation , which awards the Rhodes Scholarships
Bernard Horsfall (1930–2013), film and stage actor
Minette Walters (* 1949), writer, crime novelist