WATFORD  , a

market town in the Watford parliamentary division of Hertfordshire, England, 171 M . N.W. of London by the London & North-Western railway . Pop. of urban district (1891) 17,063; (1901) 29,327 . It lies on the small river Colne in a pleasant undulating and well wooded district . The church of St Mary, with embattled tower and spire, is of various dates, and contains good examples of monumental work of the early 17th century; and in the churchyard is buried Robert Clutterbuck (d . 1831), author of the•History and Antiquities of the County of Hertford . There are several modern churches and chapels . The chief building within the town is the Watford Public Library and School of Art . There are large breweries, also corn-mills, malt-kilns and an iron foundry . Bushey, on the south side of the Colne, lying for the most part high above it, is a suburb, chiefly residential, with a station on the North-Western line . The church of St James, extensively restored by Sir Gilbert Scott, is Early English in its oldest part, the chancel . Here a school of art was founded by Sir Hubert von Herkomer, R.A., but it was closed in 1904, and subsequently revived in other hands .

Other institutions are the Royal Caledonian

Asylum and the London Orphan Asylum . At Aldenham, 2 M . N.E., the grammar school founded in 1599 now ranks as one of the minor English public schools .