The results have been revealed after a town just outside Watford featured in the shortlist for Hertfordshire's best locations.

After sharing its 260 Best Places to Live 2024 guide in October last year, lifestyle publication Muddy Stilettos carried out regional votes across 29 counties to determine winners in each area.

While Watford had failed to make the Herts shortlist, Rickmansworth represented southwest Hertfordshire and came in at number six - behind winner St Albans, Tring, Hitchin, Hertford, and Welwyn Garden City but ahead of Bishop’s Stortford, Letchworth Garden City, Buntingford, and Royston.

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Describing Rickmansworth, the Muddy Stilettos guide said: “With a thriving high street, great pubs, top local schools, plus tonnes of green space and waterways to explore, Rickmansworth (or ‘Ricky') as it’s locally known) has everything you could want from a commuter town.

“Oh and did we mention it’s got its own tube station AND a mainline into London?”

Over 27,500 readers participated in the voting between July 30 and August 15, with considerations including a town or village's sense of community, quality of access to schools, restaurants, shops, and culture.

Muddy Stilettos editor-in-chief Hero Brown said: “This reader vote gives a truly independent view on the towns and villages with the most popular postcodes, schools, restaurants and amenities.”

Rickmansworth High StreetRickmansworth High Street (Image: Deborah Chambre Young/Watford Observer Camera Club)

Muddy Stilettos is described as “the urban guide to the countryside” which may have put the more urban Watford at disadvantage in the competition.

In the last year, however, Watford has been crowned the best place to live and work out of the UK’s 100 biggest settlements in the UK Vitality Index and made the top 15 for the UK overall in a Garrington Property Finders study.