Shephall
Shephall () is part of the town of Stevenage in Hertfordshire. It was formerly a separate village and parish, being absorbed into Stevenage in 1953. Shephall was an ancient parish in the hundred of Cashio. It appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, when it was owned partly by St Albans Abbey and partly by the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was described as having eleven households of villagers, two households of cottagers and one slave. The village was clustered around Shephall Green. The parish church of St Mary, on the east side of the green, was built in the 14th  century. The parish of Shephall was included in the Hitchin Poor Law Union from 1835. It therefore became part of the Hitchin Rural Sanitary District in 1872, which in turn became the Hitchin Rural District in 1894. In 1946 Shephall was included in the designated area for the new town of Stevenage. The new town was initially developed as six neighbourhoods, each with its own facilities including shops and schools. Work began on the Shephall neighbourhood in 1953, gradually surrounding the old village. A neighbourhood shopping centre was built at The Hyde, east of the old village. The original core  of the village was designated as the Shephall Green conservation area in 1973. The civil parish of Shephall was absorbed into Stevenage Urban District on 1 April 1953. The modern district council ward of Shephall covers the 1950s neighbourhood and Shephall Green, but is smaller in area than the former parish.