Street Plates 12

 And so we come to the final post in this series of monthly articles about the backgrounds of a number of east end street names and why they were so called – or were probably named.  For the most part I can be certain, but occasionally – as you will read in this post – there has been a certain amount of guess-work, and if readers have an alternative view do let me know.

Many decades passed in the twentieth century with estates and other development areas only partly complete.  Temporary usage was made of dormant land – temporary buildings, allotment gardens, stock-piling ground and, in the years before mains drainage, the dumping of the contents of cess pits  A business partnership trading in Fleetville for over fifty years, Frank Sear and Thomas Carter, ran a nursery and florist, from premises adjacent to St Paul's Church, now called St Paul's Place.  

Sear & Carter's florist shop; behind were several glasshouses.  Today the whole is the
location of St Paul's Place.

Houses today line the Salisbury Avenue junction with Garden Close.

Sear and Carter carried out extensive trials on temporarily acquired land in and around Fleetville, one of these sites being between Woodstock Road north and Beaumont Avenue & Salisbury Avenue. There, shrubs and other garden plants were grown on.  The company also undertook contract work on behalf of residents, businesses and the city council.  The site opened onto the road adjacent to where Gleave Close is today.  At the other end, access was gained from Salisbury Avenue.  The business transferred from Hatfield Road in 1960 to their country trial ground and nursery at Smallford, a site long since occupied by Notcutt's Garden Centre. The small trial sites had closed and were sold for development, including the Woodstock Road trial ground, where the Beaumont Avenue access road became Garden Close; a rather appropriate name considering the location's previous usage.

Take a walk along the short closes which make up much of today's Jersey Farm and you may come across Cromwell Close.  This is yet another road which had been named by its developer after a London link.  Many of the others took their references from squares in the Capital, but, apart from Cromwell Road there appears to be only one more, Cromwell Crescent – but not a Square.  Perhaps it is not a London connection we should be looking for, but a reference to the 1640's Civil War.  Oliver Cromwell was a Parliamentarian; St Albans was mainly Parliamentarian in approach, and the town was a major collecting centre for Parliamentary forces during this period.  Thomas Cromwell also had connections with nearby Beaumonts.

Above and top: junctions of Lincoln's Close and Cromwell Close and their connecting
roads.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREET VIEW

Nearby another road is named Lincoln's Close.  Lincoln was also a frontier town during the Civil War and also became a Parliamentary collection point at this turbulent time, and so could be considered to have an appropriate connection with St Albans.  However, an intriguing twist is the styling of the name, for it is called Lincoln's Close (inviting the comical riposte, "Is it? are you sure?)  So this is the first of today's uncertain explanations.  It is therefore left for readers to help clarify the road name's origin.

In the late 19th century an apparently rather unattractive and damp  track linked the foot of Camp Hill and the boundary track of Beaumonts Farm, now known as Sutton Road. It traversed two fields traditionally managed for dairying.  A builder who had developed a number of homes in St Albans was Ernest Stevens, acquired what was known as the Twelve Acre Estate, essentially these two fields, in the early 1930s.  Several building companies were beginning to assemble packets of land for selling plots and arranging for purchasers to build their own homes, or acquiring houses which the developing companies had constructed in a limited number of designs.  Ernest Stevens was aware that this would leave out aspiring residents who were unable to afford this method of obtaining their own home.  Stevens therefore, laid out his houses, retaining the ownership and making them available for rent at the lowest practical level.  The main through road took its name from the Camp Hill end, then named The Camp Fields, and so became Campfield Road.  A cul-de-sac he named Valerie Close and a road linking Camp Road he named Roland Street.

Above and top: Valerie Close at its junction with Campfield Road, and Roland Street
at its junction with Camp Road.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

Thus far all was straight-forward, and we assume that the names Valerie and Roland, having been selected by Stevens himself, were two family members.  So here is my second assumption of the day, because I cannot be sure.  If a blog reader can assist we will, I am sure, be delighted.

In most cases a street name consists of a root and a suffix, the latter being the name, Road, Drive, Crescent, Green, Square and so on. So, in this case we have a road named Dymoke Green, but searching for a suffix is quite unnecessary.  Charles Green, or to give him his full name, Charles Dymoke Green, had been the owner of Oaklands Mansion, but on marriage into the Marten family became a constituent and final generation member living in Marshalswick House.  We'll leave aside his early occupation as a distiller; for us in Hertfordshire it was his role in establishing the methodology for a new youth organisation, the brainwave of Baden Powell, and brought to life in 1908.  The Scouts, as the organisation came to be known, came alive first in Hertfordshire, one of the first adopting counties, thanks to Green's ideas, working with his own sons and with Powell.  Indeed some of the earliest outdoor activities were trialled within the grounds – his own "back garden", as it were – of Marshals Wick House.

An early outdoor activity in the grounds of Marshals Wick House.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE SCOUTS

When St Albans City Council developed a residential estate adjacent to Marshalswick Lane in the 1950s, it decided to recognise the spirit, experience and creativity of Charles Dymoke Green and his family.  Rather than labelling it Dymoke Green Close or Dymoke Green Drive, the name was left to stand on its own as Dymoke Green.

The name Thomas Edison, the international inventor of electrical, well, electrical anything, is not expected to be closely associated with St Albans.  After all, he spent all of his life in his birth country, the United States.  But his reputation and inventiveness could be claimed universally,

At the turn of the twentieth century the young local authorities possessed equally proud young ambitions, especially in health and welfare, and so there was a steady growth in the development of  civic buildings including hospitals. Many authorities sought to work with specialist architects of the day and to become or employ the inventors of ideas to run successfully these new institutions.

A surviving ward block of the former Hill End Hospital.

As a result, land was acquired at Hill End and farms were purchased.  Aspiring architects sought to bring ambitious electric lighting to Hill End  They ensured that the new complex installation would be built into the hospital buildings as they came out of the ground.  Not only would this be the most efficient methodology, it would be cheaper and less time-consuming.  Hill End was proud of its new installation and was even more proud to announce it was fully supported by Thomas Edison whose name and reputation was already internationally known.

Highfield today therefore has two roads who side-by-side have earned recognition in this corner of our district.  Thomas Edison is one; the other being Alexander Graham Bell (Bell View).  Not coincidentally, both men and their roads are within a stone's throw of a post World War Two company, Marconi Instruments, who would, as well, have honoured them.

One Hundred On

 We are now one hundred years on from the year 1925, and an additional six years forward from the end of World War One. At that time the government had determined that, in addition to the need for substantial numbers of additional new and higher quality houses, the cornerstone of this promise was to provide sufficient homes for returning veterans – the policy known as "Homes for Heroes".  The City Council launched its first programme at Townsend, although many would have been disappointed by the lack of pace, no doubt cause by a lack of understanding by the complexity of logistics, legals and the need to follow government procedure.  

A group of the first completed and occupied Springfield homes as photographed for
the Herts Advertiser.
COURTESY THE HERTS ADVERTISER,

A street view of part of the Springfield development one hundred years on.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREET VIEW.

The second programme focused on Camp Road and Springfield Road, though, once again there were funding issues between the council and the government, resulting in late delivery of the Springfield programme which only broke ground during 1925.  The Hatfield Road/Beaumonts programme, slated for a section of the dormant farm, remained just an idea. While a few of the original Springfield homes were later demolished,  the remainder in their lifetimes have been upgraded to ensure improved heating, glazing and insulation.  Springfield is now reaching its centenary.

Our east end was dynamically growing and a mere twenty-five years old. As such its residents had to contend discovering routes through and around the developing districts of Camp and Fleetville; after all, no-one had thought of planning the layout of streets, homes and factories which gradually became added to what was already present  in a random and haphazard spread.  At times travellers needed to take risks, especially in negotiating  the barrier which was the Hatfield & St Albans Railway line.  

The former Hatfield & St Albans branch railway divided the eastern district in two, and even
today the sub-optimal road network between Camp and Fleetville reflects the early
difficulties of connecting the two districts.

On a summer evening in 1925 four men were apprehended and later appeared in court for trespassing on the railway as they had attempted to take a short cut from Campfields to the allotment field east of the Hatfield Road Cemetery (today the site of Fleetville Junior School).  To be clear, these were four Fleetville men and were walking from Camp to Fleetville, so it is likely this was their second act of trespass on the branch line, the first being their walk from their home patch in Fleetville to their destination somewhere in Camp – was it a social evening at the Camp public house, now long gone?  It had never been easy walking between these two communities: the Cinder Track (Ashley Road), Sutton Road or Camp Road.  A further road between Roland Street and Sandfield Road was much talked about but never materialised.

Homes at the Sandpit Lane end of Gurney Court Road ninety years after they were
laid out on part of the former Marshalswick House grounds.

Readers of the Herts Advertiser in 1925 took note of advertisements in the early Autumn of a new development at Marshals Wick.  Stimpson Lock & Vince had opened a sales branch in the centre of St Albans for the express purpose of marketing the homes then being built for sale  along new streets north of Sandpit Lane, in the expansive grounds of the newly demolished Marshalswick House, formerly the home of the Marten family.  The rather grand formal parkland was being converted into streets of upwards of five hundred detached and semi-detached homes for sale.  While Charmouth and Gurney Court roads proceeded  as intended, the original plan was modified further east.  In particular The Wick wooded area was not cut down as originally intended for yet more dwellings, other roads were fore-shortened and Hazel Grove was removed from the plan altogether.  In addition, the east-west spine road, Harptree Way, was left as today's stripling with no houses fronting either side.

No photograph has been found of the 1913 picture house at Fleetville.  It was a typical "tin
church" style and was already second hand when brought to Hatfield Road.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

1925's residents of Fleetville would have recalled the prospect of a cinema appearing remarkably quickly in 1913; they were even able to stand on the corner of Hatfield Road and Tess Road (later renamed Woodstock Road South) and see the structure for themselves. Admittedly it was modest in size, as were many similar moving picture halls at the time.  But the locals never had the opportunity to venture inside; a legal case brought to court forced the builder to take the structure down, having contravened the Cinematograph Act, and to pay court costs against the builder.

A proper cinema at last!  The Grand Palace post-war became The Gaumont, then became
Chequers when they stopped showing films and converted to bingo.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

However, a decade later Fleetville residents finally got their cinema – well, it was built as near to Fleetville as was possible!  Named The Grand Palace Cinema and fronting Stanhope Road this sizeable entertainment building with its own orchestra, live shows, and a mix of silent and sound films, brought the most modern of entertainments within reach of east end residents.  Such was the size of its audiences  one of the district's early marked pedestrian crossings was installed across Stanhope Road right outside the stylish portico doors.         

Four notable events of the time in 1925.  How distant they now feel; beyond personal memory and only known handed down by our grandparents – and through the pages of the archived local newspapers.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Oaklands Blossom

 1919, and there were only occasional signs of activity between the former little triangular  entrance to Winches Farm via its track and its cherry trees, and the corner exit from Colney Heath Lane.  At the latter until recently the sounds of clattering booted soldiers walking to and from the little Hill End station as men came to or from long periods of leave.  Their training ground had been at the expansive grounds of Oaklands House.  Owner Sarah Fish and her daughters, having removed themselves to St Albans at the beginning of the war and were the last of Oaklands' domestic occupants.  Oaklands had been requisitioned for war purposes.

Nineteenth century Oaklands Mansion and its grounds when in private residential hands, and 
beyond the eastern limits of St Albans.

Two major events occurred in 1920, and one a decade later, which would forever alter the streetscape between Oakwood Drive and Colney Heath Lane.  Hertfordshire County Council made the decision to acquire the Oaklands Mansion, together with its grounds and the surrounding farm for the purpose of opening an agricultural institute; it is this event we will return to shortly.

This is the understated entrance view of Oaklands at the South Lodge and opposite to the
junction with Colney Heath Lane. Busy in the First War by soldiers, and busy today from 
the comings and goings of the College's students.

In the mid 1890s a land holding had been acquired for creating a mental asylum.  Part of this holding included Hill End Farm, but the Asylum authority prepared to dispose those parts of the farm they had no further use for.  The intention was to sell for development the land in the main  bordering Hatfield Road from near Ashley Road and Colney Heath Lane.  A small number of new homes appeared in the formative new district called Oaklands before the next event occurred c1925 with the sale of two fields belonging to Winches diminutive farm unit.

Since the thirties the Wynchlands shops have served an increasingly busy community.

The result became the homes of Wynchlands Crescent and, along the main road's northern frontage, a terrace of  shops and a range of semi-detached homes. By the end of the decade the number of incoming residents had created a busy little residential area which also crept along Colney Heath Lane, and in the 1930s, the beginnings of Longacres close to a recently gutted brickworks.

The third event was the sale of the remainder of Beaumonts Farm in 1929, leading to housing from Oaklands down to Beaumont Avenue and back along a number of residential roads creeping towards Sandpit Lane.  But even as these roads were being laid out the County Education Department was negotiating with developer Watford Land for the creation of two new senior schools which opened in 1938.

Meanwhile, the Agricultural Institute padded on, developing its courses with comparatively little external funding, adding as much as they could in the way of student accommodation, lecture rooms and labs, animal housing and agricultural buildings as could be afforded during a period of forty years or so.

From the beginning the former Agricultural Institute made what they could of the old farm's
buildings and facilities.
COURTESY OAKLANDS COLLEGE

And so we reach the next milestone to affect this corner of the eastern districts, when a fresh approach to tertiary education was introduced to the colleges of further education (CFE) and the agricultural college in St Albans, and further CFEs in Welwyn-Hatfield and Dacorum.  An unlikely new hub was proposed and accepted for the grouping of the existing satellites under a new brand called Oaklands, located at – well, Oaklands!

So begun further new and upgraded building work, and gradual closing over a number of years of the campus at 29 Hatfield Road; an adventurous new development programme had begun.  However, the planned national funding failed to fully materialise, and to compensate the College was left to find a way by using one of its fields for the building of the Raptors estate (Oaklands Grange) which opened onto Sandpit Lane.

News just released jointly by Oaklands College and Taylor Wimpey – which seems to give away which will be building the next tranche of houses on another of Oaklands' fields, formerly part of the Institute's orchards and fruit gardens.  The development will have the overarching title Oaklands Blossom; who could imagine a more delightful location to live!  However, I suspect the new homes will be named after Richard Blossom, the College's fourth Principal (1979 to 1992). Consultations having taken place over the past twelve months, planning consents have now been submitted to St Albans District Council.

A new leaflet shows the focus for proposed new works; Oaklands Blossom housing (top
left) and new college accommodations (centre).

The benefits to Oaklands College include the much needed heritage restoration and upgrade of the Mansion, supportive facilities for animal care, sports facilities upgrades, a new High Needs Centre for SEND provision, new recreation facilities for students and the wider community, and new facilities to support the county's film and television industry.  It will probably amount to the largest single programme of expansion and development in the history of the site since 1920.

But there is much more to this 2025 + future which promises as much for the community as for the college.  In addition to a mix of types totalling over four hundred homes, of which 40% are expected to be affordable.  Eighty additional houses will be for older and supported living and a local centre and community hub of shops and services "for existing and new residents" by which we assume this means residents living in any of the existing Oaklands roads would be included.  Open spaces and play areas are included, with new habitats and landscaping, and "a net biodiversity gain of 10%".  Finally, a site close to the new housing has been reserved for a future primary school.

Once the planning documents have gone live on the Council's website  we all have the opportunity to comment on one or more segments of the proposed programme.  There appears to be something for everyone in and around Oaklands.

Street Plates 11

 This month's selection of east end streets is as varied as any so far in this series; we have six to ponder over in November.

There are many roads which honour the countryside, particularly trees.  However, there is only one area where an entire development was devoted to trees; one, Woodland Drive, named after the variety of trees to be found on and around the former Beaumonts Farm before houses replaced them. An entire gather of street plates came to be planted. Beechwood, Elm, Hazelwood, Oakwood, Oakdene, Chestnut, Willow, Linden, Ashley, Pinewood, Redwood.  The latter two are softwoods historically to be found in the part of the farm south of Hatfield Road and near Colney Heath Lane.

Although there are many traditional 1930s houses in Oakwood Drive there are also a range of 
bungalows.

Oakwood Drive had been intended to link Hatfield Road and Sandpit Lane. a twin of Beechwood Avenue.  However, its length was shortened before the post-war continuation of building.  It was the only road in the series which contained a number of bungalows (although there are three in Hazelwood Drive) and Beaumont School which occupies land to one side of the road has only recently transferred its main access from the road to Austen Way where the facilities are much improved.  Interestingly it is one road where there are no street trees along any part.  And a 1958 primary school was appropriately named Oakwood. 

While Oakwood Drive was first named in 1930, a parallel residential road did not materialise at all, as the County Council negotiated with developers Watford Land to acquire the site for Beaumont School, and a whole swathe of land for playing fields between Hatfield Road and Sandpit Lane.  However, that missing road finally came to life in the 21st century as new homes have been constructed on the school's Hatfield Road playing field, the school having acquired replacement and much improved land, from part of Oaklands College, formerly Oaklands Institute of Agriculture and Horticulture.  

Recently built on part of the school's lower front field, which was a later addition to the
playing field area in the late 1940s, and the location of a small aircraft crash site.  Before
becoming a school site Watford Land had intended to build houses along the Hatfield Road
frontage; and before the school was planned an extension to Elm Drive had been intended.
But houses ended up here anyway!

In fact, three new roads have come into being: Shakespeare Close, Austen Way and Bronte Close, giving an appropriately named trio of literary connections with the school itself.

The Hatfield Road frontage of St Peter's Farm once extended from Lemsford Road as far as the western boundary of the current Fleetville Recreation Ground.  The rear boundary accommodated the track which later became Brampton Road.  A significant event for owner William Cotton was the acquisition of a swathe of his land for the Midland Railway.  The farm was later acquired by Earl Spencer, owner of an extensive acreage nearby.  Shortly before the turn of the 20th century Spencer sold a section of St Peter's Farm for housing (Lemsford Road) and for the park. Finally, residential housing developed along the rest of the farm along Hatfield Road.

The field adjacent to the farm homestead was acquired by Joshua Reynolds and in recognition of land owner Spencer and his family he named the road on which he built expensive homes "near the park and the railway station" Blandford Road.  The Marquis of Blandford, a subsidiary title of the Duke of Marlborough – a title of the Spencer Churchill family was honoured by Reynolds in the naming of his road linking Hatfield Road and Brampton Road.

Some location detail may be helpful here.  Find yourself along St Albans Road near the centre of Sandridge.  Suggest the Green Man public house where, opposite is House Lane, of fairly standard width for a residential street.  Pass St Leonard's Crescent and turn immediately left.  This is Woodcock Hill.  For a short distance this too is notionally wide but soon after passing Sandridge Primary School we lose that generosity and are left to navigate a narrow lane of single vehicle width with an occasional passing place.  Daylight is quickly lost by extensive tree cover which grows right up to the road edge, although there is open grassland beyond.

We continue to gain height until reaching the transmitting station and associated buildings.  The entrance to Fairfolds Farm is on the left as we descend and the narrow lane passes Nashes Farm Lane on its way ever further towards Coopers Green. No habitation bar one or two dwellings find themselves on such a lonely place, although archaeology has discovered Roman evidence of sorts.

At the topmost elevation of Woodcock Hill were Roman artefacts, which
of course you won't see; and a large transmitting station, which you definitely will!
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

Most of us will not have spotted a woodcock.  Fortunately the RSPB have super pictures.
COURTESY RSPB

So we have established the Hill part of the street plate name – and quite a hill it is.  The mix of dense woodland and nearby open space may offer a clue about the rest, the most numerous bird life is woodcock hereabouts.  Although known as a wading bird it is not shallow water which is important here.  Woodcock are ground resting and hide in dense woodland during most daylight hours.  It is camouflaged and a commonly found game bird; no doubt welcomed in earlier centuries for consumption by rural communities.  The lane's name would give newcomers a major claim to one generous source of nutrition – with the land owner's permission of course.

Commercial developers do enjoy naming roads on their estates in series.  In the case of Jersey Farm most of them are short in length and may contain even shorter branches.  We have seen in Marshalswick roads having historic links to the home ground of its developer Thomas Nash.  One of the themes over at Jersey Farm centred on squares to be found in central London.  Of course there is little comparison to be found between the scale of the little and sometimes curly semi rural housing groups of Jersey Farm and the large formal and busy squares in office or hotel land in central or west London.

I count six closes which are named after London squares, of which there were many dozens to choose from!  Portman Square (illustrated here) are joined by Regents Square, Berkley Square, Mayfair Square, Langham Square and Chancery Square.

Mature trees along the perimeter of Portman Square. A small number of frontage trees and
ornamental firs form hedging points in Portman Close.

Most squares when created were for the exclusive use of the residents whose homes were built on most, if not all, sides of the square.  As a result they were fenced off and locked to outsiders, many being more open like mini parks, rather than growing to mini woodlands as can be found today (see illustration for Portman Square).  The limited comparison with Jersey Farm seems to be restricted to access to open space nearby. Such space was part of the planning brief, reducing the size of private gardens and adding a greater amount of Public Open Space to be shared by all.  I wonder how many residents have investigated their road's London equivalent, and whether or not they approved of the alternative!

No connection with a local zoo – there are no local zoos!  But the name has much to do with aircraft.  Really?  The land which at one time was the home of de Havilland Aircraft Company is now home to student accommodation and a variety of businesses.  Over twenty access roads have names related to the aircraft company.  

DH95 Flamingo in service with RAF.
COURTESY RAF

de Havilland designed and built a surprising number of types over its extensive history – de H was not all about the Mosquito and the Comets. Those who know their type numbers will also remember DH95.  The company had designed and built its first all metal body in 1938/9, intended for military personnel transport, with seating for up to seventeen passengers.  Fourteen are known to have been built and three of them entered service with Jersey Airways, presumably with a short life for the carrier, given the island's enemy occupation from 1940.

The same marque was given to a variant known as the Hertfordshire, seating a few more passengers, although it had a short life, having crashed near Mill Hill in 1940.  No further Hertfordshires were constructed.

de Havilland was proud of its designers, and in the case of the Flamingo chief designer of the type, Ronald Bishop, is also honoured nearby in Bishop Square.

Finding A Way

As a prelude to a new monthly series of posts on the rough-and-ready process of creating a community in our East End it might help to explore the circumstances individuals, builders and others began to occupy the "empty areas" beyond the established town, the boundaries of which had barely reached the foot of the town hill in Victoria Street in 1879.   In the nineteenth century town our forebears would have been able to perambulate along the streets, thoroughfares and cut-throughs past and between the buildings of the built-up areas.  Beyond these there were only the roadways leading to distant towns, more immediate villages and narrow lanes which passed farms, and reinforced by an informal network of footpaths and trackways, many of which had been in existence for as long as the land had been worked.

But in that mix not all paths were freely available, perhaps including what we might call today permissive routes, across fields or through farmyards.  Let's walk along 1880s road towards Hatfield.  We might have begun our journey from one of the cottages (no longer extant) close to Camp Hill hamlet.  

On our invented journey on foot we reach the privately owned track, now named Sutton Road, at Hatfield Road; our aim being to reach Dead Woman's Hill, now St Albans Hill, Sandridge. As many readers will already know the little building on the corner, recently closed in 1880, the rat-infested toll house. We walk eastwards along the toll road itself until reaching a junction of two footpaths and a private road. 

The toll road (until 1880) between the toll house on the left to junction to the far, top
right.  The footpath to St Peter's is the double broken line at the top.  Today this section is 
The Alley between Beaumont Avenue and Woodstock Road South.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The first footpath would take us in the wrong direction; it crosses a field and leads travellers towards St Peter's Church. The road (today called Beaumont Avenue) is gated and is the official access to Beaumonts Farm; at the far end are the farm's labourers' cottages and just beyond the northern gate is Sandpit Lane which would be convenient for our purpose.  However, we have no key to either of the locked gates, the wide cart ones or the narrow pedestrian one.  You would have to request permission from the land owner, Thomas Kinder.

Close-up of the first map's junction.  The brown road is Hatfield Road; the track to St Peter's is 
on the left while the beginning of the path crossing the farm is the righthand arm of
a V shape at the top.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The remaining option would be a footpath to the right of the road gate, accessible via a stile at a gap in the hedge line. The footpath would lead you past the farm towards Sandpit Lane along the edges of fields. Today we might think of our route as being Beechwood Avenue but is was a little further east and close to where a phone box was one sited close to the first house in Beaumont Avenue.  

The remains of the Avenue's South Gate after it had become disused.

The stile giving access to the to the farm footpath, to the right, out of
view, of the gate in the previous photograph.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

As the path led closer to the farm we would have passed, on the right, the remains of the former Manor House and almost immediately reach the private road to the farm homestead itself – today's extension of Farm Road – which we would cross and almost immediately reach the farmyard wall.  The path would continue northwards, passing a narrow pedestrian gate into the yard. We would next encounter the junction of three fields where our path forces us to turn left and then right a few yards further on.  

The farm complex is on the right; the farm road crosses the
map L to R; the broken line of the footpath passes the farm
between top and bottom.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The farm homestead protects by the stone wall in the below photograph.
COURTESY RACHEL TRAVERS

The footpath as it passes the farm (out of view to the right). The young men are walking
southwards towards Hatfield Road.
COURTESY RACHEL TRAVERS

At the turn of the century a small temporary corrugate iron cottage would be perched at this junction for a farm labourer's family.  However, for now, we continue until we reach a lane, Sandpit Lane.  Ahead we would have limited permission permitted to continue until  today's Jersey Lane. To continue in earlier times we would have possibly taken a risk by walking along the private drive belonging to the Marten family who owned the land.  However,  Marten, who had been irritated by commoners passing the frontage drive of his house,  obtained permission to have a lane built – he named it New Road, which became Marshalswick Lane – which enabled commoners to travel with or without animals or carts, until they reached the St Albans Road between the town and Deadwoman's Hill leading down to Sandridge.

Our journey complete we had been seriously limited in preparing our route by the permissions required by successive land owners and their relative benevolences.  Needless to say, many travellers took their own risks! 

Although improvements were gradually made as the new century dawned, this was the route taken by children living at Newgates Farm and its surrounding cottages in walking to and from their school in Camp Lane, once the new St Peter's Rural Elementary School was opened in 1898. Now called simply Camp School, this was a huge step forward for children living in the rural east end where formal education had previously been sporadic. Soon after the school's  opening parents from Newgates were taken to court for failing to send their child to the school even after extensive falls of snow made the journeys impractical.

Life on Beaumont's Farm gradually changed following the death of landowner Thomas Kinder, and a few years later sections of Beaumonts were sold, the farm homestead and remaining fields were rented out, and eventually, instead of growing crops the land grew houses.

65 and Counting

 Are there any books written about St Albans?  Yes, I know of about 65 and there will be several others, not all will be available to buy, or even to borrow at the library, but they will have been written and published at some time.  Occasionally, a title might be available from sources such as Abe Books.  For others you may struggle to locate a title.

To trigger your memory why not begin with https://www.stalbansowneastend.org.uk/more/books-about-St-Albans/ 

This link will take you to the first of two pages illustrating the covers of 65 titles, and in most cases the ISBNs by which they may be located.  Even if your local library does not hold a copy, it may be able to bring one to you via the inter-library lending service.  Of course there will be tiles which predate the ISBN system, but that's progress for you!

Many of the covers shown will be familiar; others will be freshly new.  You will also realise a few covers give you the impression artistically of being dated.  

Three of the four titles illustrated below are newly published in 2025, while one, new to this website, had been published back in 2016 – plenty of time to become familiar with at book shops or in the Local shelf at St Albans district branch libraries.

We'll begin with a pocket-sized book published a few years back:       St Albans History Tour by Robert Bard.  And it genuinely is a pocket-sized little package.  Possibly readers will be more familiar with the same author's St Albans Through Time.

The locations will be familiar but the photo editing including selective closeups of many of the early twentieth century postcard views, have produced fresh perspectives of groups and individuals within the street scenes portrayed.   Many of the images have been given a high contrast treatment which suggest to us that we are looking at something quite different. The book contains an absolute minimum of text, and although the same could be said of many of the "little books" portraying the city, in this case the small blocks of text are also brightly bold.  The author does not wish to present the images only to be supported by a label taking second place on the page. Hooray! the mini-volume also finds space for an annotated map. Published 2016 Amberley ISBN 978-1-4456-5761-5.

In The Secret War in St Albans 1939-1945 Michael Barbakoff takes readers on a visit to a number of buildings commandeered during the Second World War for use in signals intelligence and special operations.  He identifies the nature of the research undertaken at each location.  For readers with little knowledge of these matters a more comprehensive list of the operational organisations, their codes and other abbreviations, might help us in our understanding, but the author presents us with a comprehensive list of other sources that we, his readers, might find useful.  

This title is a handy companion to Pamela Shields' Hertfordshire Secrets and Spies published by Amberley in 2009.  Published 2025  Amazon ISBN 979-82839-2983-6.

A book appears to be "authentic," it seems, if its cover portrays a photo of the Cathedral taken from Abbey Mill Lane. St Albans A Potted History by Valerie Shrimplin has such a picture on its cover! 

Glorious colour photographs and concise chapters take us through historical time in fewer than 100 pages.  So, a history of St Albans in a couple of hours.  As you might expect from this blog we would highlight any references to our East End, and in this book there are just two: the former prison entrance, and an advertisement for a coat from Nicholson's old factory in Fleetville.  But we would certainly recognise every other building, and each would surely be on a route the City Tour Guides would visit. Commended for its range of photographic subject matter, and the viewing angles chosen. Even both sides of a Roman Ver coin.  Well done to the photo editor!  Published 2025 Amberley ISBN 978-1-3981-2083-9.

What can we say of St Albans and Western Hertfordshire in the British Civil Wars 1642–51, other than the length of its title?  Oh, and the author line; its contributors were John Morewood, Nick Martin and Gill Girdziusz.

This is growing into a delightful series of Concise Histories, beginning with Mistress of Gorhambury Lady Anne Bacon and then St Michael's Village from rural settlement to residential suburb 1700–1930 – more lengthy titles!  These titles are introduced in no more than 50 pages which do constrain the telling of the story.  You don't need to hunt for details of the Civil Wars connection with St Albans and the answer to the question why?  In one small-format and concise account the authors have presented an essential account in one place.  Well done to the publishers St Albans & Hertfordshire Architectural & Archaeological Society; another lengthy title!  Published 2025  SAHAAS ISBN 987-0-9011-9426-8.