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Rickmansworth is a town which is in the Three Rivers district of Hertfordshire, England, 4¼ miles (7 km) west of Watford.
The town has a population of around 15,000 people and lies on the Grand Union Canal and the River Colne, at the northern end of the Colne Valley Park.
Rickmansworth is a small charming town in a leafy shire suburb with a wide range of leisure activities, amenities and good quality schools. Indeed Rickmansworth is in Top 10 neighbourhoods with the highest quality of life according to Government statistics. Nearby there is a wide and diverse range of leisure activities and amenities for example Cassiobury Park, cycling along one of the most picturesque sections of the Grand Union Canal, the River Chess valley, wonderful walks in the Chiltern Hills and Chorleywood Common to name a few. The High Street also hosts an excellent range of restaurants covering almost all areas of cuisine.
Rickmansworth was never large, as it served the many scattered hamlets in the surrounding area. The rivers Colne, Chess and Gade, the 'Three Rivers' that give its name to the local government District, provided the water for the famous watercress trade and motive power for corn milling, silk weaving, paper making and brewing, all long gone.
Cardinal Wolsey, in his capacity as Abbot of St Albans, held the Manor of le More in the valley, now vanished but superseded by the hill-top mansion of Moor Park, once the residence of Admiral Lord Anson and the Barons Ebury, and now the Golf Club House. The wider area, including Croxley Green, Moor Park, Batchworth, Mill End, West Hyde and Chorleywood, formed the original parish of Rickmansworth. In 1851, this had a population of only 4,800, but even that represented great growth necessitating division of the parish.So St Mary's Church today serves a parish area concentrated around the town and extending over Batchworth and parts of Moor Park. Today the town has an ever-growing number of residents in many new apartments and houses. Around the time of the Domesday Book, that great Norman survey of 1086, there may have been as few as 200 people in the vicinity; then it was called Prichemareworth, one of the five local manors with which the great Abbey of St Albans had been endowed when founded in 793 by King Offa. Local tithes supported the abbey, which in turn provided clergy to serve local people until the Dissolution of 1539.
It began to grow in the 1920s and 1930s as part of the Metro-land area, due to Rickmansworth station on the Metropolitan line of the London Underground. As such, it is largely a commuter town and transport links are excellent with fast trains direct to London taking about 30 minutes either via the Chiltern Turbo to Marleybone or fast Metropolitan line trains to Baker Street. It is contained within the M25 J17-J18 with good transport links to Luton and Heathrow Airports as well as the M1 and M40.
Colloquially Rickmansworth is often shortened to "Ricky" as used in the town's annual "Ricky Week" celebrations. There is also an annual "Victorian Evening" held in the town centre every November.
The town's canal history is remembered every year at the end of Ricky Week with the Rickmansworth Festival, organised by Rickmansworth Waterways Trust.
Rickmansworth also has a famous frost hollow. This is caused by the local geography, notably a railway embankment which prevents the natural drainage of cold air from a specific part of the valley. Rickmansworth recorded the largest daily temperature range in England when, on 29 August 1936, the temperature climbed from 1.1°C at dawn to 24.9°C within 9 hours due to this unique geographic feature.
- In Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a girl named Fenchurch finds the true Question to the ultimate answer of life, the universe and everything when sitting in a small café in Rickmansworth.
- Rickmansworth and some of its surrounding communities are also featured in the works of John le Carré.
- Victorian novelist George Eliot, real name Mary Ann Evans, had a summer residence in the lower High Street named "The Elms", which now forms part of St Joan of Arc School.
- Rickmansworth, and more specifically the Rickmansworth Conservative Association, features in The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, a 1972 Australian film starring Barry Crocker, and written by Barry Humphries.
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