Joining the book club

While the east side of St Albans has Boggy Mead Spring and Ellen Brook, both of which flow directly into the Colne, the west and south of the city are custodians of the Ver.  The east did have at least one stream which flowed directly into the Ver, but the fall of the water table in the aquifer below ground has meant that no-one alive today was witness to these watercourses.

I have posted here previously that the period 2011 to 2013 is a golden age for local publishing.  Joining St Albans' Own East End Volume 1 is now The River Ver: a meander through time which was launched appropriately at Moor Mill, Bricket Wood, yesterday, August 18th.

Although the author is Jacqui Banfield-Taylor, the task has been a shared one with her father Ted Banfield, who died leaving his dream book unfinished.  Jacqui picked up the task and the result is this  delightful A4-sized book.  It is not just a collection of views of the river.  The book explores life and history along the entire length of the Ver from its uncertain bubbling source just across the border in Bedfordshire to its confluence with the Colne at Bricket Wood.

It is a Halsgrove publication, so, welcome to another local book.

If you have been clicking on external links on the main St Albans' Own East End website, and then not  able to find your way back without starting again, many apologies.  The link should take you to a new page, so that the page you left is still underneath.  I will try to resolve the problem as soon as possible.

Among the new photographs recently arrived are four from Oakwood Primary School, of which three have been added to the School Groups page this week.  Class groups are great, because there are around thirty young and mainly smiling people waiting to be identified!  If you attended Oakwood in the 1960s, or know people who did, do take a look.