From the 1930s when de Havilland opened a factory, until the 1990s when British Aerospace closed it, aircraft design and manufacture employed more people there than any other industry.

[5] In 2022, TV property expert Phil Spencer named Hatfield as the second best place to live for regular commuters to London, based on train times, house prices and the attractions the town has.

[7] In the early tenth century Hatfield belonged to a vir potens (powerful man) called Ordmær and his wife Ealde, who may have been the grandfather of King Edward the Martyr.

[9] No other records remain until 1226, when Henry III granted the Bishops of Ely rights to an annual four-day fair and a weekly market.

The Old Palace was built by the Bishop of Ely, Cardinal Morton, in 1497, during the reign of Henry VII, and the only surviving wing is still used today for Elizabethan-style banquets.

The church of St Etheldreda, well situated towards the top of the hill, contains an Early English round arch with dog-tooth moulding, but for the rest is Decorated and Perpendicular and largely restored.

[10] In 1930 the de Havilland airfield and aircraft factory was opened at Hatfield and by 1949 it had become the largest employer in the town, with almost 4,000 staff.

During the Second World War it produced the Mosquito fighter bomber and developed the Vampire, the second British production jet aircraft after the Gloster Meteor.

British Aerospace closed the Hatfield site in 1993 having moved the BAe 146 production line to Woodford Aerodrome.

The land was used as a film set for Steven Spielberg's movie Saving Private Ryan and most of the BBC/HBO television drama Band of Brothers.

6. c. 68), forming part of the initial Hertfordshire group with nearby Stevenage, Welwyn Garden City and Hemel Hempstead.

[11] Hatfield retains New Town characteristics, including much modernist architecture of the 1950s and the trees and open spaces that were outlined in the original design.

Hatfield Town Council has its offices and meeting place at the Birchwood Leisure Centre on Longmead.

Hatfield Athletic Football Club competes in the Herts Senior County League and plays its games at Lemsford.

Hatfield has a nine-screen Odeon cinema, a stately home (Hatfield House), a museum (Mill Green Museum), a contemporary art gallery (Art and Design Gallery), a theatre (The Weston Auditorium) and a music venue (The Forum Hertfordshire).

A large section of the airfield site was purchased by the university and the £120-million de Havilland Campus, incorporating a £15-million Sports Village, was opened in September 2003.

The university has closed its sites at Watford and Hertford; faculties situated there have been moved to the de Havilland Campus.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was the northern terminus of the Hatfield and Reading Turnpike that allowed travelers from the north to continue their journey to the west without going through the congestion of London.