(St.), a market-town of Hertfordshire, is a very great thoroughfare, accommodated with good inns, on the north-west road from London, at the distance of 21 miles. This town sends two members to parliament, gives the title of duke to the noble family of Beaucherc, and has one of the best markets for wheat in England. St Albans is seated near the ruins of an ancient Roman city, by Tacitus called Verolam; and by the Saxons Wattingcester, because it is seated on the road called Watlingstreet. Nothing now remains of Verolam but the ruins of old walls; in the fields adjacent to which they continue to find Roman coins, as they formerly found tessellated pavements. In memory of St Alban, Offa, king of the Mercians, anno 795, erected an abbey, calling it St Albans; and near it the town of the same name was afterwards built. The church of the abbey is remaining to this day: time and the weather have made it look like stone on the outside; but if you break a bit off, the redness of the brick immediately appears. When the monasteries were dissolved, the townsmen paid L. 400 to prevent its being levelled with the ground, and have since converted it into a parish-church, which, for its largeness, beauty, and antiquity, claims a particular regard. It had a very noble font of solid brass, in which the children of the kings of Scotland were used to be baptized; and was brought from Edinburgh, by Sir Philip Lea, when that city was in flames; but in the times of the late civil wars, it was taken away. Not many years since, a tomb was discovered in this church, said to be that of Humphry Duke of Gloucester; when the leaden coffin was opened, the body was pretty entire, being preserved in a sort of pickle. There was a stately cross in the middle of the town, as there were in many other places where queen Eleanor's body reposed when it was brought out of the north for interment at Westminster; but it has been demolished, as some say, by the inhabitants. The market-days are Wednesdays and Saturdays. W. Long. 0. 12. N. Lat. 51. 44.