Hoddesdon really came into its own between the sixteenth and mid nineteenth centuries as a coaching town providing a welcome stopping place for travellers from London setting out on the Old North Road. Broxbourne, just to the south, was a smaller and more rural settlement focused around the church and manor house until the coming of the railway in 1840 began the process of gradual suburbanisation that has continued ever since. The contrasting illustrations provide an accessible and interesting way of seeing the extraordinary changes that have taken place in the two towns over a century or more of evolution, expansion and re-development. The period photos, the majority of which are being published for the very first time, have mainly been sourced from Lowewood Museum's extensive archive.