The winner of our cover photograph competition for Issue 4 of The Three Villages Magazine is this wonderful image by Jenny Hanson.

Jenny has lived in the villages for 29 years and regularly walks down the rivers and around the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust (HMWT) reserve. This photograph was taken when up on the viewing point at the reserve.

You can view more of Jenny’s stunning work on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/jennyamwell/) and Vero (https://vero.co/jennyamwell).

Huge thanks go to Jenny for letting us use her photograph on the cover!

The robin has long been associated with Christmas. As Molly Murray from The Scottish Wildlife Trust explains:
‘the first legend takes us back to Victorian times, where the tradition of sending Christmas cards started. Royal Mail postmen, who wore bright red uniforms, delivered these cards. This earned them the nickname of “robin” or “redbreast”. Artists usually illustrated Christmas cards with pictures relating to the delivery of letters, such as post-boxes or the postmen known as “robins”, and eventually started drawing the familiar little brown and red bird delivering letters instead of the postmen. This trend caught on and became very popular, and continues to this day, with many robin-themed items being seen on supermarket shelves during the festive period.’

Issue 4 of The Three Villages Magazine will be published at the start of December at all the usual places. It will include the latest Our Historic Churches installment, updates from the local schools and youth groups, and interesting stories from around the villages.

If you haven’t done so already, get your copy of Issue 3 before it disappears!

Thank you for your continued support,
The Three Villages Team