Facts about Borehamwood
General Info
Metroline for London buses runs its number 107 service through the town from New Barnet to Edgware and back, whilst London Sovereign for London buses operates the number 292 bus service going into north-west London. The Uno (bus company) run a bus service that stops at Borehamwood starting from Hatfield to Stanmore and back, as well as a bus service that goes to Watford. Intalink operate a bus service to other parts of Hertfordshire. The A1 road passes just to the east of the town, and the M25 motorway passes about 2 miles north of it.
History
Until 1909, the town was part of the ancient parish of Elstree; the two still share a local council, Elstree and Borehamwood Town Council. From the 1920s onwards, the town became known as one of the main centres of the UK film, and later television, industries due to the presence of production studios. Following the Second World War, the town’s population greatly increased, with large areas of council housing set up for displaced Londoners, many of which are now in private ownership.
Fast train connections to central London have resulted in the town becoming a primarily residential suburb. In 1946, the Admiralty started to build highly secret high-performance electronic digital computers at Borehamwood in a redundant wartime factory, firstly for the purpose of real-time gunnery control, and later for surface-to-air guided weapons and missiles, and for specialist cryptography and code-breaking computers for GCHQ.
