Baldock, United Kingdom

Baldock was founded by the Knights Templar (after whom the town's secondary school is named) as a medieval market town in the 1140s. It was laid out by the Knights Templar on land in the manor of Weston in the hundred of Broadwater, granted by Gilbert de Clare, 1st Earl of Pembroke before his death in 1148. The 1850 tithe map, drawn up before the parish boundaries were extended in the later 19th century, clearly shows the boundaries of the land grant made from the manor of Weston in the 12th century; it is a triangular parcel of land beside the old Roman Road, cut out from an older estate.

The popular story for the origin of the name Baldock is that it is a derivation from the Old French name for Baghdad: Baldac or later Baudac. While Damascus was the farthest location of Templar military activity during the Crusades, they would have been aware of the significance of Baghdad, which was widely regarded as the most prosperous market in the world. Perhaps the Templars hoped that the name would confer a similar prosperity on their own market town in England. Founding contemporaneous documents use the spelling Baudac, but it is first recorded as "Baldac" in the Pipe Rolls of Hertfordshire in 1168.

Walter William Skeat writes in The Place-names of Hertfordshire (1904):

All that remains is to discover the reason for this curious name; nor is it difficult. In Clutterbuck's Hist. of Herts., ii, 267, we find that Baldock was built by the Knights Templars before the reign of Henry III; he cites from Monast. Anglic., ii. 524—"patribus milit. Templi Salomonis … manerio, in qua terra ipsi construxerunt quendam Burgum qui dicitur Baudac." Thus the mystery disappears when we perceive that the name was conferred by the Knights Templars, who were necessarily as familiar with the O.F. name Baldac as they were with that of Solomon. The statement in Salmon's Herts. seems to be quite correct, viz., that Baldock was "an arbitrary name given by the Knights Templars when they made their settlement and built here." He adds that the grant of the land was made to them by Gilbert, Earl of Pembroke, in the time of Stephen; and he refers the name to "Bagdet or Baldach, near Babylon, whence they were ejected by the Saracens."

Others, however, consider it more likely that the Knights Templar used a name already in use, particularly since the location was already a crossroads. In addition the settlement was already thriving as a late Anglo-Saxon part of Weston. Alternative etymologies have been suggested, including Middle English balled, meaning "bald", together with Old English āc, meaning "oak" (the site may have been identified by a large old tree near the Anglo-Saxon graveyard or where the Templar church was built); and a conjectured Old English personal name *Bealdoc, from beald, meaning "bold", with a diminutive -oc suffix. These derivations, however, are not entirely satisfactory.

The modern layout of the town and many buildings in the centre date from the sixteenth century, with the earliest dating from the fourteenth century.

Thanks to its location, the town was a major staging post between London and the north: many old coaching inns still operate as pubs and hotels, and Baldock has a surprising number of pubs for its size. The High Street is very wide, a typical feature of medieval market places where more than one row of buildings used to stand. In the case of Baldock, the bottom of the High Street had three such rows, until Butcher's Row was demolished by the turnpike authorities in the 1770s.

Since the 16th century, Baldock has been a centre for malting, subsequently becoming a regional brewing centre with at least three large brewers still operating at the end of the 19th century, despite a decline in demand for the types of beer produced locally. The 1881 Census records approximately 30 drinking establishments (the town's population was at that time around 1900). Throughout the early 20th century a large number of pubs continued to operate, many of which were sustained by the adjacent and much larger town of Letchworth, which had no alcohol retailers prior to 1958, and had only two pubs and a single hotel bar until the mid-1990s. Its larger population had for many years visited both Baldock and Hitchin for refreshment.

The Wynn almshouses, in the High Street, were founded in 1621 and were endowed "To the World's End" by John Wynne, a cloth merchant from London who left £1000 in his will of 1614 for their upkeep.