Fire, fire!

The work currently in hand to bring to life, once more, the photos which had previously appeared in the Herts Advertiser, has reached the 1920s.  Anyone needing to read, for research, issues from that time can only do so via the microfilm reels at Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies (HALS) or St Albans Central Library.  While it is possible to read the stories themselves, the photographs which accompany them are extremely dense or appear as black rectangles.

The houses behind are those in Hill End Lane, near its
junction with Colney Heath Lane.  HERTS ADVERTISER

The re-photographing project has enabled the original pictures, as printed, to be restored.  In reaching December 1928, the story of a serious fire at a brickworks was published.  Separately, on the back page, were two photos, now clearly revealed, of the devastation the conflagration caused.

There were two brickworks in close proximity.  One belonged to Owen's, a Wheathampstead company, on a site now occupied by an industrial estate in Ashley Road.  The other, a smaller business, fronted on to Hill End Lane, near the former railway branch line crossing at the double bend in the lane; and was known as the Hill End Brickworks.

Both were created to supplied bricks for local building needs, but the smaller yard was not profitable and was taken over by Owen's in the early 1920s, although its original name was retained.

In the knowledge that small ventures such as these have a limited life, many of its buildings were of timber construction.  Given that fires were also required nearby for the kilns, there must always have been a risk to the temporary buildings on the site.

The photos demonstrate how complete the destruction was.
HERTS ADVERTISER

The site then appeared to remain derelict for some time, and a former resident recalls, as a child, walking from Hixberry Lane, across the railway crossing and taking a path skirting around the old buildings to Hatfield Road.  The path would have followed the route we now know as Longacres; and when redeveloped it became the site of Marconi Instruments Ltd.  Now that further redevelopment has taken place, the houses of Marconi Way occupy this space between Fleetville and Oaklands.

There is one conundrum to the brickworks fire.  The report indicates that hoses were laid from a hydrant in Hatfield Road, across a back garden on that road, and across the railway.  But the railway track is beyond this brickworks site, although the Owen's brickworks are, from Hatfield Road, beyond the tracks.  Did the newspaper reporter muddle his facts.  Surely the fire engine did attend the correct site!  So, where did the description of laying hoses across the railway come from, unless the supply was taken from the Hospital instead of, or as well as, Hatfield Road.