A roof and a kettle
Six self-contained almshouses on Akeman Street, kept warm and watertight. The slates are Welsh; the gutters are cleared in February and October.
Almshouses · Tring · Since 1963
We have kept a small row of houses steady on Akeman Street, quietly, for sixty years — and a few of those before.
Louisa Cottages Charity manages six almshouses on the edge of Tring high street. Our work is not large. We collect a modest weekly maintenance contribution, we look in on our residents, we keep the slates on the roof and the kettle warm, and we hold a careful set of accounts as a charity registered with the Commission in 1963.
6
Almshouses cared for
62
Years on the register
£42,978
Spent in 2024
A small house, kept
Six front doors, eight neighbours, and a clerk who answers the post by hand.
0
Almshouses
0
Residents in 2026
0
Income · 2024
0
Years registered
What we hold
A small charity, doing a small thing carefully.
Almshouses have stood in English towns for nearly a thousand years. Ours are younger than that, and quieter than most. We exist to keep them standing, to keep them warm, and to make sure the older neighbours who live in them have someone to ring when the boiler gives up at eleven o’clock at night.
A neighbour close by
We pair each resident with a Sunday Doors befriender from the parish — somebody to share a paper with, to call for a lift to the surgery, or simply to know is there.
Quiet repairs
Sash cords, lime-mortar pointing, a new bathroom rail when a hip starts to grumble. We work with local trades — Holden & Sons in Aldbury, Vale Sash & Frame in Wendover.
Honest accounts
Sixty-two years of returns to the Charity Commission. Our 2024 books closed with £60,654 in and £42,978 out — published in full on the reports page.
A long view
We are co-regulated by Homes England and a member of the Almshouse Association — frameworks that make sure these cottages outlast any one trustee.
In short
Read our mission →
A house, kept.
That is the whole of our charitable object, written in 1963 and unchanged.
Six small programmes
All programmes →
The named things we do.
Roof Fund
The Roof Fund
Our oldest standing appeal. Welsh slate, lead flashing, and the labour of two roofers from Aldbury who have been at this for thirty years.
Read more →
Befriending
Sunday Doors
A volunteer befriender for each resident who wants one. We pair gently, and once paired the friendship is often kept for years.
Read more →
Winter
Winter Hearth
A small annual grant to each resident from the first cold week of November to the last of February — for coal, oil, or simply a warmer dressing-gown.
Read more →
Garden
The Quiet Garden
The shared back garden, tended by a small rota of volunteer gardeners through the year. Pears, lavender, and a bench every resident can reach.
Read more →
Library
The Almshouse Library
A small lending library of donated books in the common room. Margaret keeps the catalogue in a green hardback notebook.
Read more →
Repairs
Slow Repairs
Sash cords, hinges, doorframes, soil-stack joints — the work that is too small for a builder and too large for a screwdriver in a drawer.
Read more →
The Roof Fund · 2026 appeal
Give to the Roof Fund
We are 69% of the way to re-slating the south range.
Eighteen-thousand pounds will replace the slates and lead flashing across cottages three, four and five before the autumn storms come back round. We have £12,400 in the appeal so far. A gift of £75 buys nine slates and the nails that hold them.
Raised · £12,400
Target · £18,000
Volunteer with us
Three small ways to give an hour.
We are not looking for many volunteers. We are looking for a few people, willing to come back week after week, who do not mind that the kettle is the heart of our work.
Garden Companion
Two hours a fortnight, March through October. Light pruning, dead-heading, and a cup of tea with whichever resident is sat in the sun.
Apply →Repair Steward
For those with practical trades. Helping our clerk schedule the small jobs that need three hours and a steady hand — not a full contractor visit.
Apply →Letter Friend
A half-hour visit on a Sunday afternoon, every other week. The single most important hour in our calendar.
Apply →
From the cottages
All stories →
Three lives, lived quietly.
Story · Tring
“I keep the library catalogue in a green notebook.”
Margaret, 78 — eight years in cottage two, retired primary teacher, current keeper of the almshouse library.
Read Margaret’s story →
Story · Aldbury
“The garden makes a tea-time of itself.”
Joseph, 84 — six years in cottage five, former signalman on the Aylesbury line, gardener-in-chief.
Read Joseph’s story →
Story · Wendover
“I came here after my husband died. The clerk met me at the gate.”
Iris, 81 — three years in cottage one, lifelong Vale resident, knits scarves for the cold-weather bag at the surgery.
Read Iris’s story →
Impact · 2019–2025
What we have spent on the cottages, year by year.
Our spending tracks the weather. Roof work in 2021, a new bathroom across cottages two and three in 2023, and a steady year of small repairs in 2024. We publish full numbers in our annual report each November.
* 2025 is an unaudited projection to 31 October.
Upcoming
Full calendar →
Three gatherings coming up.
Sat
21
Jun 2026
Midsummer Tea in the Garden
Akeman Street · 14.30–17.00
Open garden, scones from the parish kitchen, a short talk on lime mortar.
Wed
09
Sep 2026
Annual General Meeting
St Peter & St Paul Church Hall · 19.00
Accounts and reports for 2025 will be circulated a fortnight beforehand. All welcome.
Sun
06
Dec 2026
Carols in the Courtyard
Akeman Street · 16.00
A short carol service for residents, their families, and any neighbour with a warm coat.
News & stories
All news →
Recent dispatches from the cottages.
The keepers of a quiet house
A long read on what it means to be a resident at the Louisa Cottages, and the small daily work of holding the place together.
Read article →
Spring in the almshouse garden
Joseph plants the broad beans on the first dry day of April, and the cottages settle into their summer rhythm.
Read article →
Sixty years on the register
A short history of our registration with the Charity Commission, on the anniversary of the 1963 application.
Read article →
From our neighbours
In a few words.
Hold space to pause
When my husband died I thought I would have to leave the Vale. The clerk met me at the gate of the cottage with a kettle already on. I have lived here three years and the kettle is still on.
Iris · 81 · Cottage oneI do not need much, but I do need to know somebody is there if the boiler gives up on a Sunday evening. The clerk has answered the telephone on a Sunday evening four times in eight years.
Margaret · 78 · Cottage twoA small almshouse in a Hertfordshire market town is not where you look for grand programmes. It is where you look for steadiness, kept up week after week without fuss. Louisa Cottages has been that for sixty years.
Reverend H. Linton · Parish of St Peter & St Paul, TringI have done the slates here twice now, fifteen years apart. They were honest about what they could pay both times, and we always agreed a price that worked. That is rarer than it sounds.
Tom Holden · Holden & Sons, AldburyIn an almshouse you live close to people you did not pick. After a few months you find you have, after all. Joseph teaches me about the broad beans. I read him the bits of the paper he cannot reach for.
Eileen · 76 · Cottage fourMy grandfather laid the lime mortar on the south range in 1962. I came back to point it again in 2021. The cottages have an unusual way of asking the same family back.
Daniel Holden · Holden & Sons, AldburyThe Almshouse Association
Homes England
Dacorum Borough Council
Tring Town Council
St Peter & St Paul, Tring
Tring & District Local History Society
Holden & Sons, Aldbury
Vale Sash & Frame, Wendover
The Almshouse Association
Homes England
Dacorum Borough Council
Tring Town Council
St Peter & St Paul, Tring
Tring & District Local History Society
Holden & Sons, Aldbury
Vale Sash & Frame, Wendover
Quarterly dispatches
A short letter, four times a year.
News of our residents, repairs underway, accounts when they are signed, and the date of the open garden. Nothing else.