The most recent 36

 Although the total number of posts now numbers 464 over 13 years – a challenge to complete if you've recently been introduced to St Albans' Own East End – I thought you might welcome a quick resume of the most recent 36.  Not much detail, but there will be sufficient to choose possible favourites.

In January we helped readers as today's post does, to review the best of 2023.  Having got that one out of the way, Bycullah helped with the history of a Fleetville street name where are its earliest shops. Incidentally, there's another Bycullah Terrace in North Watford. Tollgate discovered a road with apparently no tollgates but it did connect, more or less, two such charging points at either end of of Tollgate Road eastwards from Colney Heath.  A St Albans' seed supplying company, XL-ALL, had a very short life because its function was to copycat the company trading policy of Ryder's Seeds, which company moved to shut it down through court action.

February brought us the rare exploration of a road with the puzzling name of origin: Gurney Court Road; then the field Camp Field, which later gave its label to a street name.  We lingered in the same district of Camp to wonder why history erroneously suggested a much older reason for its beginning.  Could it refer to Roman occupation – or not? Spoiler: Not!

March took us on a walk from the previous week's location, along Cell Barnes Lane towards the ancient properties of Cell Barnes.  We moved on to a specially created track, later road, where its present name is no longer New Road. Another unfamiliar location was Chain Bar Toll; which is currently referred to as The Crown.

April: You may have wondered the location of Dellfield, for when you come across it the road is more often bypassed because, as with many other minor highways, it leads nowhere, except in a circle. A quiet anniversary arrived this month, celebrating a 1904 event known as Entente Cordiale: marking an agreement between the UK and France.  Streets are sometimes named at the behest of the builders who bring out of the ground the homes along them.  These are the streets we (or they) named.

Very definitely not pretentious, even in May, we visited Muddy Alley (or Muddy Lane) though it has a very different title today.  You may not have heard of the Selwyn estate; and if not you may not have heard of Mr Selwyn either.  If you like your names and other labels correctly referred to you will also wish others to punctuate appropriately: so is it St Peter's Close or St Peters Close?

In June we made our regular visit to the Hertfordshire Show, which in 1953, arrived at Oak Farm in Cooper's Green Lane.  We laid out our story of London Colney Secondary School, which closed in 1984, and invited readers to fill in some of its gaps.  When the pupils of Beaumont Boys' School made a visit to Fecamp, in the vicinity of La Havre, not more than twelve years after the D-Day landings (D-Day + Twelve), they were within a few short miles of the beaches, without a word of reference ever made to that historic event.  They could have touched the sand but they departed without being introduced.

July celebrated the 60th anniversary of Nicky (Nicholas Breakspear School – Nicky is Sixty Plus) and we traced the history of Catholic education in this city. We peeped back to work out how a plot of land in Brampton Road could achieve making something fit – that something being a school.  The same had become true for another school, often playing catch up with the system; so more of the same.

August: If you can't drive through, perhaps you can by-pass it; which is what became possible in the 1950s if you wished to avoid driving through St Albans.  Back to schools there used to be many more of them, but they were  (it's) private: Oxford House, Rochester House, Manor Lodge, Merrilands, Birklands and others.

September Brought us more private schools: Lyndale, Loreto, Dirleston House and others.  On the roads we have all discovered hills and ill-fitting junctions, and frequently wonder on the ladder jobs.

In the Autumn Fleetville residents gazed as a well-known building gained a topper, or another floor.  It may be rare to discover new old maps, perhaps, but Kitchin in Harts described a different map of the county; also a new (or old) spelling for it!  Developers are occasionally unable to complete their projects, and in Cape and Burleigh we discover a possible reason why.

November arrives and we focus on a character who thought he would do Fleetville a good turn, but in Repeat Performance he also tried at Luton with no greater success.  A building owner in Fleetville (been here before) tried to change its name once, and now wants to try again. Will it be more successful second time round? And at Oaklands we show you how they succeeded in piping a supply to a mansion and farm before the days of a public water supply.

Bringing us up to date we are always wracking our brains to find spaces for new houses – somewhere new to live.  And planning applications are not just for houses but new student accommodation as well.  The year almost closed with recollections via the Herts Advertiser describing key events one hundred years ago, in nineteen twenty-four.

Finally, you don't need to read The most recent 36: you've just done that!

So, enjoy a ramble through thirty-six recent posts during the dying embers of the old year...

In this slight pause between Christmas and New Year warm greetings to all. 

Nineteen Twenty Four

 As we approach the end of the year and as we often gather with friends and family we tend to recall people and events we have shared. The extent of them is largely governed by the age of those who are participating in the game, if that is what it might be called.

It is doubtful if such activity will telescope back a full century; so this is where the first volume of St Albans' Own East End comes in handy. Here, then, is a brief trawl around our city's eastern districts to discover what was occupying people's minds in 1924.

We begin with small fires spotted in two unoccupied buildings by observant nearby residents who were fortunate to find access to a telephone.  First, a Sunday passer by to Nicholson's coat factory in Sutton Road, and the morning after a late performance at the Grand Palace Cinema in Stanhope Road. Neither fire was serious, but both gained a small item in the Herts Advertiser.

Sunday, any Sunday, had a very quiet atmosphere.  Shops remained closed, as were theatres and cinemas.  Even council-owned recreation grounds were closed, or where necessary, children's play equipment was padlocked. A fair proportion of the population attended church and/or Sunday school.  So two young men having a kick about with a football in Camp Lane were apprehended by a duty policeman.  That incident as well was featured in the local newspaper.

1924 saw the removal of the line of trees in Victoria Street at the former home of Samuel Ryder.
Within a short time shops lined the road where the trees had been.

Samuel Ryder, proprietor of a seed firm and donor of what is today a well known golf trophy, had just moved into a house in Clarence Road. While his previous house survives as a small part of Loreto College, preparations were being made to fell a line of trees alongside Victoria Street which had formed the boundary of his garden, replaced by shops at the front, and houses at Marlborough Gate behind.  There was much public disquiet concerning this "improvement".

Clarence Park had opened in 1894, and one of its features had been a bandstand, in the same position as today's structure which is seen in the photo below.  It was a timber structure topped with brushwood, and which by 1924 had deteriorated so badly the structure required replacement. The Council, however, declined to take responsibility for  its replacement.

The Hatfield Road side of Clarence Park had, before 1894, been a field belonging to St Peter's Farm.
It was known as the Fete Field as a number of public events had taken place here.  Those events
continued to take place as the Herts Advertiser reported in 1924.

Completed homes on the Springfield Estate.

A slow start had finally been made in laying out the ground between Camp Lane and Cell Barnes Lane for St Albans' contribution towards World War One's Homes for Heroes, to be known as the Springfield estate. Earl Verulam had agreed to sell his Cunningham Hill Field to the Council for the purpose.  There would be another four years of building before its completion.

August Bank Holiday was always a celebration fete and sports day, and 1924 was no exception.  Such events had taken place even before Clarence Park had been laid out on a field commonly known as the Fete Field.  This open space became the recreation ground of the park and fetes continued to be held there until they were later transferred to the more spacious Verulamium Park.

This wold have been one of many posters put up in advance of Bill Cody's Wild West Shows.
But it was a copy-cast event which arrived in St Albans in 1924, three years after the closure of
the final Buffalo Bill's entertainment.

1924 saw the arrival in town of a travelling show cunningly close in name to Buffalo Bill's famous Wild West Show. It was named Bronco Bill's Wild West Show!  As many circuses and shows did at the time, it pitched up on the Gaol Field, now developed between Camp Road, Alban Way and Flora Grove.  With so little other permanent  entertainment in the town such shows were highly popular. In 1924 residents were just a few years too late to witness Bill Cody's genuine show.  People were beginning to feel its entertainment rather dated, and with a few racist elements too.  But that didn't stop Bronco Bill from attempting a copy-cat version.

Electricity had come to town at the very beginning of the century and the "electric snake" had been buried under pavements in the roads around Campfield Road's electricity station.  In 1924 the NorthMet company planned to extend the cable to envelop an area around north and east St Albans – its precise route is unknown today – in anticipation of future factories and homes.  How excited we must have been!

Since 1921 there had been considerable expansion in the bus services offered, including a new route to a new place called Welwyn Garden City.  But it was also possible to ride from St Albans all the way to Hitchin and Bishops Stortford without changing, suddenly bringing Fleetville very much closer in travelling time.

The sale of Hill End, and to a lesser extent part of Beaumonts Farm had encouraged house building on the south side of Hatfield Road.  Until 1924 housing stopped at Beaumont Avenue and Ashley Road was still a muddy track; the next few years would see see main road growth as far as Oaklands.

Marshalls Wick House remained unsold in 1924, and within a short time the house will have
been demolished and the former private drive will, with a little alteration, have become a
public Marshals Drive.

Several unsuccessful attempts had been made to provide an alternative use for the old Marshalls Wick House.  While plans for laying out roads on the surrounding grounds had begun, but in 1924 the house did not appear to be wanted for anything.

In other parts of St Albans, farmers protested at the poor market facilities in Market Square (the area in front of the St Albans Museum + Gallery).  Two of the three existing railway stations, all called St Albans, were renamed St Albans City and St Albans Abbey; the result of a re-grouping of smaller companies which had taken place the previous year.

Finally, the formal closure took place of the old prison in Grimston Road.  Of course today the front and outer wall looks the same;  the prison cell block removal was the main loss.

Somewhere New to Live

 In recent days two local news stories broke, and both were essentially about places to live, if not places where we live.

There is a general awareness of the huge shortage of accommodation to rent, and also the cost of houses to purchase has, as a matter of course, breached the one million pound mark in a number of districts.  That fact is down, at least in part, to the shortage of houses available for sale, which in turn is exacerbated by insufficient land on which to build, and is constrained by the noose of the Metropolitan Green Belt.  Such is not exactly news to anyone living in or around the city; it is one of life's consequences.  The District Council has attempted to complete satisfactory Plans previously – and each takes several years to complete and then submit to government for approval.

Work on the latest Local Plan which identifies land for future commercial and residential development is now complete and has passed through a public consultation phase.  Beginning in the New Year the Planning Inspector will begin his/her task before, hopefully recommending that St Albans' Council is free to adopt it.

Recent housing: Kestrel Way.

But of course it is not simply a question of identifying ground and thinking of a number.  Future development has to be sustainable and supportable by a meaningful amount of service provision and physical infrastructure.  Hopefully, the future provision will catch up with shortages experienced by growth in previous decades – and without forcing the end price of family homes beyond that which is tolerable.

New housing is not simply a matter of identifying open land on the periphery.  How many times have we walked along a road and convinced ourselves a tiny yard or a long rear garden with some road access will no doubt be converted into a single house, a pair of minuscule flats or a small row of slimline "town houses".

The second news break this week comes from the University, itself creating housing demands of its own.  Older buildings from College Lane are due to be demolished, although their number was not disclosed.  There is a hint that green space between individual structure will in future become an essential consideration of the university landscape, which had not always been evident in former piecemeal expansion projects.

One of the proposed future changes at the university.
COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE

A new medical school will be opened at College Road, while over at the de Havilland campus a business school will be developed.  It seems only recently that the new physics and engineering school building was opened.  Mindful that university buildings are not the only components of university infrastructure, UH has stated currently the number of students number 36,000 and staff total 3,000.  With the new departmental schools the number of additional students being catered for will be 2,000.  It seems clear that in numbers terms the proposals are part of an expansion rather than a change of departmental emphasis.  No mention was made of additional student accommodation on one or both sites.

Although the proportion of the total student population travelling to and from their own homes to Hatfield was not stated, there would be an increased requirement for commercially sponsored student blocks as are becoming more popular in and around centres of learning.

From the 1940s decision to locate the mid Herts secondary technical school in Hatfield, that little seed from the 1944 Education Act has brought forth a thriving university, but of course it does have a space implication!

... and from last week's blog post:

Rubble from the former reservoir tank which served a private water supply at Oaklands.
COURTESY TRIGPOINTINGUK

The  subject of providing a private water supply at Oaklands Mansion and its surrounding farm in the days when Oaklands was detached from the rest of expanding St Albans, has encouraged responses from readers who recall details of the wind pump and tank at the top of a hill on the Oaklands estate.  Comments have ranged from the tank being identified as a "home base" for local children and their games; triangulation markers/benchmarks fixed by map surveyors; and the method by which the disused concrete tank was demolished – recollections include physical breaking up and the use of explosives; perhaps both.  Although the rubble had remained at the top of the hill on the edge of Oaklands Grange housing development until recently, and I had therefore assumed was still lying in-situ, apparently a contractor undertaking clearance operations at the conclusion of building operations had removed the tank rubble as well.  So the last evidence appears to have ... disappeared!  It is also evident that members of an organisation called TrigpointingUK have been keeping watch over this site and regularly photograph changes in the location.  Another reader recalls television filming taking place at the site, and at least one other benchmark on the estate.  Many thanks to those who contacted me, but we are still searching for photographic evidence of the eight sail/blade wind pump atop its structure.  We'll keep looking.

Piping a supply

This blog is all about Oaklands which these days is a very busy place, especially in term time as it is one of the homes of Oaklands College.  Most of us know it historically as the home of Oaklands Mansion, but I am sure most residents of the St Albans' east end districts have never seen it, hidden, as it is, by copious numbers of trees.  So, here it is to start off today's post – although it doesn't look like this in 2024.

An early pastoral scene of Oaklands Mansion. much is it would have inspired its first owner,
William Knight.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

 I was shown a version of a 25 inch map recently, specific to Oaklands, and discovered on it a feature which is not normally found on standard Ordnance Survey maps.  The map was published in 1919, timed to coincide with the sale of Oaklands Park by Hampton & Sons, Land and Property Auctioneers, at the behest of the County Land Agent.  Two elements were additional to the original Ordnance Survey: an area of 315 acres enclosing the Park was treated with a green colour wash, and the feature property, Oaklands Mansion, was highlighted in red.  The other addition was a network of black lines reaching out in several directions from the Mansion and its outbuildings, and labelled "approximate line of water pipe".  This network was limited to the Park area and was therefore self-contained, not connected to a public supply, for example, along Hatfield Road.

Oaklands Mansion (coloured red) and adjacent buildings – including its home farm homestead – 
as shown on the auctioneer's map of 1919.
COURTESY OAKLANDS COLLEGE ARCHIVE

In this section of the map the Home Farm homestead from the first map is now bottom right, 
and the long straight line identifies the "approximate line of water pipe".

Not surprising really for the beginning of the twentieth century, as there were few buildings of any kind eastward of Fleetville whose nearest and most recent homes barely reached where Queen's Court is located today.

In fact, the first owner of the nearest supply of fresh water, William Knight, would have been living on top of his very own well supply in the basement of the Mansion itself; a source which undoubtedly predated its early nineteenth  century construction and served the three dwellings (Threehouses) which had been so close to where the front of the Mansion was intended.  No doubt the structural condition of these three dwellings was poor and generally "got in the way" of the new house.  We can only speculate on the approximate age of the well, and as with many wells was probably deepened on occasions as the water table required.

When the water supply network was probably first laid in the late 19th century it was to better serve the Mansion and nearby kitchen gardens.  Such an improvement may have been in the time of Charles Dymoke Green.  One can imagine how an extension to provide a water supply to one or two of the nearby fields came a little later as the usefulness of a pipeline network became clear.  So, two branches were dug into the ground to the edge of fields east of the Mansion behind the small Hatfield Road fields, and close to the orchard and poultry area north of the kitchen gardens.

The long pipeline from the previous map eventually reaches the highest location of the
Park where a wind pump and tank (reservoir) was sited.  The pipeline was extended
westwards to serve Beaumonts Farm, though not Beaumonts cottages.

These feeds were gravity fed from a long section of pipe to a deep well on the highest point of the Park, where stood a wind pump, although the map labels it as a windmill.  This stood atop a tank, or reservoir – the map uses the latter term, although this was demolished once the house and park were connected to the public supply.

There is some confusion about the terminology: is a windmill or a wind pump?  Mills are often the favoured term, unless it is a mechanism for using wind power to directly lift water from below ground for storage and later consumption.  These are generally simpler mechanisms for use in remote landscapes on farms, often with up to eight blades, as at Oaklands.  Other definitions are available!

To transport the collected water gravity is used but the length of pipe from the pump to the Mansion and eastern fields was considerable.

Beaumonts Farm homestead when the pipeline reached it. The building was located close to the
junction of Woodland Drive north and Central Drive.

Once Mr Fish had acquired Beaumonts and it was realised its farm was still reliant on a well near the homestead – close to the junction of today's Central Drive and Woodland Drive, and the inefficiency of the supply was recognised, Fish had a separate pipeline connected to the hilltop pump.

The new pipe descended east-south-easterly towards the park boundary.  It would have been known in 1919 that Oaklands' interest in Beaumonts Farm was of limited duration; it was already gradually being broken up for development.   So there was no need to inform potential purchasers of the Park what lay below ground beyond the boundary.  Only the Park was for sale. The probable route across Beaumonts land was directed along field boundaries and through woodland tracks, the final leg traversing what is now Central Drive.  It is possible some of the water supply fed existing ponds at the Woodland Drive junction, the site of the former moat.

For most of their very early histories the moated house and manor house were undoubtedly served independently, from the nearby stream at the foot of what is now Eaton Road, and then a well, at least once deepened, near to the homestead where Irene Stebbings House is located.  We are informed that the supply was not of certain quantity to serve the tenant farmhouse, and so was deepened once more.  

A disagreement flared when the land agent arranged to the Beaumonts water supply to be charged for since the farm house and Beaumonts Farm were no longer part of the Oaklands estate and were due to transfer to new ownership, Herts County Council, in 1919.  Tenant Mr Coombs refused to pay for the piped water, and decided instead to call in the professionals who deepened his well once more.  And that is where the matter rested until demolition of the farm house in 1938 for the Beaumont north estate development, the well being permanently capped. 

Yes, Oaklands Grange is now full of houses, but the circled spinney hides the former location 
of the wind pump and its reservoir.  Here is the highest point of the former Park.

The pipeline itself may no longer be visible and the pump contraption is long gone, but we can trace where it had been.  And those who can do so most easily live at Oaklands Grange, on the south side of Sandpit Lane.  Walk up Osprey Drive from Sandpit Lane.  Where its name changes to Eagle Way, turn eastwards to face a shrubbery not cleared for housebuilding.  You may still find pieces from the former tank which stored water pumped by wind from the aquifer below the highest location of the park.  Present residents will be aware of the wind strength near the top of this exposed slope.  That was just the right location for a wind pump!

Been here before

 There have been five public houses within striking distance of the centre of Fleetville during its history: in no particular order, the Rats' Castle, the Bunch of Cherries, the Crown, the Camp and the Baton.  All have had their periods of success; all have struggled at some point to remain viable businesses; all pulled pints under the auspices of more than one owning company in their time, two are no longer trading – the Camp and the Baton, and one succeeded in remaining viable under a change of name; the latter opened for fifty years as the uniquely titled Bunch of Cherries before its new owner, Greene King, rebranded the premises the Speckled Hen.  And the Crown has soldiered on since the 1890s with little controversy, changing its pattern of offering according to the needs of the day.

The Rats' Castle in its Benskins guise on the corner of Hatfield Road and Sutton Road.
Its original design was by St Albans' architect Percival Blow.

In the past few days Star Pubs & Bars Ltd, which is part of the Heineken Group, has announced a rebranding of the Rats' Castle.  It is probably too early to pick up much feedback from the Rats' regular customers, but one aspect of the refresh of probable interest to the wider group of Fleetville residents is a change of name to become the Old Toll House.

Concept image of the building and badged as the Old Toll House
COURTESY STAR PUBS & BARS LTD

We have, of course, been here before.  The Rats' Castle had first opened as a Benskin's house, before its Watford brewery site closed down in the late fifties, although the company continued with its properties division.  The pub was later snapped up by Ind Coope and then absorbed into Allied Breweries.  It is uncommon for incoming owners to respect any local traditions; they usually feel the need to "put their own stamp" on their acquisition.  Alternatively, existing landlords occasionally give their properties a facelift in the expectation of an increased valuation at sale.

One of the hanging sign designs produced by Benskins for its property in Sutton Road.

So, where have we been here before? Under the umbrella of Ind Coope the company adjusted signal name by making it a little snappier.  Down came the hanging sign for the Rats' Castle, to be replaced by The Castle.  Both had pictorials depicting an imagined castle, but the rodents were clearly the problem as they had completely disappeared.  It was an attempt to sanitise the story.  

The short-lived design which replaced rats with a mounted horse and gave dominance to a moated
castle.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

However, many residents felt an attachment to the story as it stood.  In fact, it was not just a fiction or a legend; it was based on fact, even though the account evidence is hard to find, and relates to the structural condition of an abandoned building in which every passer by in the late 19th century apparently became aware of the rodents having made their home in the unattended thatched roof of what had been a former, but short-lived toll house.  The period which had given the sobriquet to the Beaumonts farm field against the future Sutton Road, would soon be growing homes instead of grass; because there were no key buildings of any kind nearby. Rats' Castle was used to identify that little part of Hatfield Road; and when the houses arrived the name Castle Road was selected to access them.

When the time came to name a pub to serve the growing community this name was a given, even though if someone back then had suggested the Castle on the basis there was already a tangible label in place, I wouldn't have been surprised if the Company had selected it.  But this was a period of quirky labels like the Three Headed Pig, the Nobody Inn or the Jolly Taxpayer!  So Rats' Castle it became.

The company's current intentions simply remove the Rats' reference altogether and turn to the actual function of the little building which arrived two building generations earlier: to clarify, the turnpike toll house came first, to be followed by a house named Primrose Cottage, and finally the public house designed by local architect Percival Blow.

It began its life with Whitbread as the Bunch of Cherries; its location
formerly was known for its nearby cherry orchard at Winches Farm.  Under
Greene King the company unashamedly named its acquisition after one
of its branded beers.  In fact, copyright protection prevented its continued
use as the Bunch of Cherries.

You might or might not recognise it, but this is a concept montage of interiors of what will be
the Old Toll House, presently the Rats' Castle.
COURTESY STAR PUBS & BARS LTD

The Old Toll House is a perfectly respectable title for a public house, and it's story is based on fact.  Unique, however, it is not. Up and down the country restaurants and public houses abound with references to the turnpike roads which passed their front doors.  If not Toll House or Old Toll House there are Toll Gates or an abbreviated the Gate or the Turnpike.  Just as the Bunch of Cherries at Oaklands was and remains unique, I have failed to located another Rats' Castle.

The Castle had a very brief existence; the volatility of residents, and I suspect the pub's regulars, were too attached to the given name and the earlier sign resumed its place within a matter of months, although with a new landlord appearing.  Will the Old Toll House have a longer, more permanent life than the Castle?  I suspect there will be locals who will still be referring to "the Rats'" or the "former Rats'" in a generation's time – as long as the business lasts that long.

See also: http://www.stalbansowneastend.org.uk/topic-selection/rats-castle/

Repeat Performance

 Long-standing residents of the eastern districts of St Albans and who are familiar with the St Albans' Own East End website, may have recalled the section about a little cinema in Fleetville which never got to open; there is also a chapter about the building in the book St Albans' Own East End Volume 1: Outsiders.  You might like to refresh your memory about the events before reading on here.

The main character in the story, which took place during 1912 and 1913, was Russell Edwards who had arrived in St Albans at the time and took residence of a house in Granville Road, now among the houses later replaced by Cotsmoor and W O Peake, manufacturing coat makers.

A version of the "tin church" type of demountable building popular at the start of the 20th
century. To be put together at the corner of Hatfield Road and Tess Road (now
Woodstock Road South), but never completed.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

Briefly, Edwards took a lease on a site in Fleetville where, since the 1930s was built the Post Office, and still trading as such. His imagination encouraged him to open a little cinema and manage the enterprise – or so he informed everyone – and his intention was to make use of the funds of others in the enterprise.

Edwards had not only acquired the site; possibly a dubious claim, but he advertised in the national press: ""Partnerships – Advertiser requires about £200 to acquire fully equipped picture theatre, now running. Has taken £30 weekly; electric plant, seat 450; expenses nominal; no opposition."

None of the claims was true: this was to be an enterprise based on deceit.  Yes, he had a site, and yes he had acquired a building – a second-hand structure formerly a small meeting hall; but this was in pieces awaiting workmen to put it together.  He had no knowledge of the building's capacity, and from the drawing made by a St Albans' designer and architect there would probably been seating for less than half that which our entrepreneur had claimed.  Of course, if the structure had not yet been erected how could the costs and profits have already been known?

For the deceits which Edwards committed he was brought to court in St Albans, one of many such visits he made on various matters. Even spent time in prison. The court had to decide how various creditors were to be paid what was owed to them. Edwards was committed for trial at the next Assizes on a charge of perjury, given that he had made many false claims about his affairs to the court. 46-year-old Edwards pleaded guilty and was committed to prison for a period of fourteen days.

The completed Palace Theatre, Mill Street, Luton in 1913.
SOURCE UNKNOWN

Residents of Luton would already have been aware Russell Edwards had form, for before he moved to St Albans he had been planning a somewhat larger development project in the centre of Luton, where he aspired to build a "large theatre and place of entertainment" to be called the Palace Theatre, 17 Mill Street, today a road of apartments and hotels near the rail station.  Number 17 was acquired by a mortgage syndicate, led by Managing Agent Russell Edwards as its managing person. The cost was projected to be £20,000

As in St Albans a case of bankruptcy was heard, as well as one of contempt.  The bankruptcy was to be answered, not by Edwards, but by an investor who had been enthusiastic enough to answer an advertisement published by Edwards in the Daily Telegraph, requesting investments of £750 to put into a profitable and successful new place of entertainment. A Mr R G Byers was, possibly, the first and maybe only investor, upon much would be expected, and he would become the unfortunate one in the dock with much of his property now in the hands of the Sherriff.

Edwards, who was expected to produce numerous documents to the court absented himself on occasions, with excuses for being away or ill in bed, eventually being summonsed for contempt of court.  He appeared to be adept at manipulating others to become responsible for payments or documents for which he himself was legally responsible and often benefited.

One end of Cowper Road, Harpenden, where Russell Edwards was building a house for
himself and family, partly using materials taken from the site of a theatre development in
Luton for which Edwards was responsible for managing.  It is also alleged that he returned
some of those materials before he "got found out"!
COURTESY GOOGLE STREET VIEW

He also appropriated large quantities of building materials from the theatre site after proper delivery had been made and signed for, to be dispatched to a house site in Cowper Road, Harpenden, which he was building for himself and his family.

As to the advertisement's claim of a successful theatre, there was no company, no theatre, not even a site for one; only an option to purchase the site had been agreed.  But one document which did come to light was an apparent agreement between Byers and Edwards stated that, following completion of the place of entertainment, Edwards would take 1000 guineas per annum from the income of the Palace.

At least the theatre was completed, for advertisments began appearing by
mid-1913 in the Luton Reporter newspaper.

Mill Street today, showing where the Palace had been; close to where the photograph
above had been taken. The cream building is a hotel today.  The Palace occupied the
 right half of the cream site.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREET VIEW

How could Edwards have been free to continue his rather dodgy business dealings just one year later and in a different town?  And what was his penance for for sing benefactor Myers into bankruptcy while creating/arranging so many apparently falsely composed documents, while stealing quantities of building materials for his own personal gain?

Cape and Burleigh

 This is one of those posts which points out back of beyond streets which most of us have not explored, let alone heard of.  Between Sutton Road and Ashley Road is Castle Road, named after the field of the same name, which itself was named after the informal title of a turnpike toll house in the 1880s, the Rats' Castle.  Castle Road became a diversionary route when parallel Hatfield Road occasionally flooded near to Sutton Road.

Castle Road extends left to right across the top of the photo.  Cape Road is from top to bottom
on the left, and Burleigh Road is from top to bottom on the right.  The triangular open
space is in the lower part of the image and below that is the green strip of Alban Way.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

Manufacturer Horace Slade was also a building developer who at the turn of the century acquired a nominal amount of back land between Castle Road and the former branch railway, now part of Alban Way. Two cul-de-sac roads were laid out c1900 and given the names Cape and Kimberley following British success in the second Boar War.  Kimberley was renamed Kimberley East in 1926 and renamed again to Burleigh in 1928.

Above name plate identified the former name of the road before 1926.
Below is the name plate for the first two homes complete in Cape Road.

Spasmodic development took place before World War One, with later fill-ins.  An awkward end block between the two roads against the embanked railway track was acquired by building firm H G Bennett and wood dealer William Halsey who also had a house adjacent to the Cape Road site.

Over in Kimberley Road (now Burleigh Road)  a small nursery holding existed until c1930, although it was probably out of use before then.  The St Albans Cooperative Society, searching for a bottling plant for its milk department, purchased the former nursery for its own building, with an entry onto Burleigh Road.  Although a driveway  might have been possible onto Ashley Road that road was not surfaced and developed until a short time later.  After closure of the Dairy its buildings remained empty for many years until the modern homes replaced them.

Above: on the site of the original nursery arrived the dairy owned by St Albans Co-operative.
Below: an array of modern home which replace the Burleigh Road dairy.

Bennett's site, and that of Halsey's, became a growing and successful site for supplying building materials for the trade and retail, their owners, including Pratt's changing hands over time; even employing staff from the Hatfield Road company of Lavers when that  timber yard closed.

The old entrance gate at the lower end of Cape Road.  Through here trundled in and out the trucks
loaded with building materials. 

In 2023 the site was acquired by developer Viciniti which proposed, and received planning consent for 37 homes – a mix of flats and houses.  I guess that most of us assumed building had begun and continued at its own good pace, although activity appeared to pause as the company, including several other of its sites fell into administration.

This unfortunate process is not without its problems: continuity is important and when there is a break followed by a different team moving onto site issues can arise, although not inevitably so.  New costs are also introduced which would need to be absorbed.

Above: plan of the proposed new housing development at the lower end of Burleigh Road.
Below: a partly finished building within the dormant development.

Developer's image of how the earlier unfinished block is intended to look when complete.
COURTESY VICINITI

Nevertheless, according to recent advertising the part-complete development has been offered to the market, so perhaps it will not be too long before work resumes.  One fact we are informed about, as long as the new developer does not alter its arrangements, the names of two new roads between Cape and Burleigh roads will be known as Iceni  Close and Viciniti Court.