RESCUE MISSION 6

Obstacles in the Road

On any one day, even in the earlier days of photography going back to the period before the First World War, anyone living in any district of the city, might have decided to take their own camera on an exploratory walk to record what, to them, would have been an intriguing scene they come across – especially in their own locale.  There are lightly to have been countless numbers of those occasions; but were they worth capturing?

Fleetville rec has spent decades looking and feeling rather empty, although in more recent years
special events, such as Larks in the Parks (here in 2014) produced buoyant, colourful
and musical events.  But its main staple was always football for children and
young people.

At Royal Road a building plot was abandoned through the death of its owner, Thomas Smith.  Shortly afterwards a well-known local benefactor acquired the field and knowing how little public land was available for the growing population of Fleetville, he bequeathed it to the people of that district.  His name was Charles Woollam.  Did anyone take a photograph of this rather untidy square of land in 1913?  Shortly after a team of people from the council arrived, turned the land into a newly grassed playing park for children, installed one set of swings, and enclosed the space with metal railings all the way round.  Surely, in the weeks they were there a resident or visitor may   have experimented with their camera.

An endless number of casual games of football with equally casual goalmouths, and wondrous scores, mixed teams of boys (obviously for the time),  from the school would have delighted passers by.

Traces of an earlier use can still be found from parch marks in the dried grass; here
the emergency exits from underground tunnels in use during World War Two.

In 1938 men (again) and machines arrived to dig trenches in parts of the recreation ground; and more were added in 1939.  Camera operators (photographers) would have been attracted to these machines and workmen.  Or were these acquirers of photo gadgets only interested in their own families in their own gardens or in their own travels?

Because it was a recreation ground and because Fleetville was busy, the city council agreed to pay for a public toilet (Beech Tree Cafe today) to be built.  Another interesting task for 1938.

The orange rectangle highlights the top of street shelters along Royal Road,  thought to be
six in total.  Photographed in the 1946 RAF Aerial survey over Fleetville.  Also
spotted are the emergency water tanks bottom left and a well-used goalmouth or two.
COURTESY HISTORIC ENGLAND

1940?  More men arrived to create a neat row of obstacles along part of Royal Road – yes, actually in the roadway.  Not a drama seen every day, surely.  Public brick shelters in the middle of the road.  And the earlier trenches had tops added. And then lorries arrived in 1942 to erect a temporary structure called a nursery. The structure is still there! Being portable, the Hatfield Road end was offloaded first and put into use; and then the northern half was added.  All on top of the trenches and right next to the road and the school.  Even a built-in game for the children: three concrete ramps led from the edge of the pavement down a slope towards steel doorways and into the underground tunnels.  From then on, the steel doors became targets for boy footballers.  Householders complained naturally, but where were the photographers?

Of course the contractors demolished the shelters in the middle of the road, but the county council still needed the nursery, so the building stayed – for now.  Some locals thought that they might lose their recreation ground – Hatfield Road had become busy and more than a little dangerous because the road was, well, bendy.  Councils tend to do things if someone is counted in an accident tally, or even  killed.  So the bend was made less bendy.

To the left of Royal Road is the roof of today's Fleetville Community Centre,  which first arrived
from its manufacturing site at Hoddesdon in 1942, when it started life as a full-time
nursery for the mothers working in nearby factories.  Today's car parking spaces also
included ramps leading down to parallel tunnels (with the nursery dropped on top).
Locked steel doors kept people out – including the author later kicking his football down
to see how loud a noise the ball made against the doors.  Great fun!

Even the weekly Saturday evening ritual when a council employee cycled from wherever he lived, to padlock the swings together, because, you see, the council rather objected to children enjoying themselves on council land, even a recreation ground, on Sundays.  So you couldn't until it was Monday again.  They were the rules.

In all of this century and a quarter, you might have thought photographs would have been snapped on a few occasions.  Maybe not the Press, but surely, a casual with a new camera, members of an amateur photography club – there were such groups even in the 1930s.

So here is something to look out for"

Street shelters in the roadway of Royal Road (1940 to 1945);

Dug-out trenches on the recreation ground (1938 to 1941);

Arrival of a portable building – the new nursery building – in 1942;

Building of a public toilet and nearby wardens post (1938 to 1939);

Informal games of football in goalmouth areas (at any time);

Long rectangular metal tanks for emergency supplies of water – where the zip wire is today (1939 to 1944);

Railings being installed or removed, or anyone walking through gateways at Hatfield Road and/or Royal Road.

Children playing on the swings near the corner of Royal Road (at any time).

Ramps and steel doors under the nursery (from 1942 to c1960).

Happy hunting through shoe boxes and albums!

The Young Soldier

 The British Newspaper Archive is a public archive which retains original and digital copies of newspapers and journals of all kinds, and  is not restricted to material originally published in the UK.  Originally a part of the British Library the Newspaper Archive and its massive digitisation project is now owned by Find My Past.  Number of pages have now reached 105 million pages.  And weekly lists announce newly begun new titles, sometimes covering a number of years – perhaps from the eighteenth century – or complete runs up to the modern day.

Of interest to us in St Albans is a well known weekly newspaper produced by the Salvation Army, called War Cry.  First printed in a small building in East London's Clerkenwell in 1879, and transferred to Campfield Road, St Albans in 1901 at the Salvation Army Printing Works (renamed Campfield Press in 1906).  The newspaper is still in publication today, cost 50p, though no longer located in St Albans.

What was announced this week is the organisation's children's version, which has almost its entire weekly run available digitally.  Initially titled the Little Soldier, then adapted to Young Soldier, and finally becoming a colour comic style  Kids Alive!  Currently, the latter is available online up to 1985.  So you can imagine yourself as a child before the start of the 20th century and growing up very very slowly through to modern times.

At inception the weekly junior newspaper in black and white newsprint assumed its young readers to be serious and of high intelligence, and able to understand a number of adult views.

Above is the original masthead, and below a portion of the introductory article from issue number 1:

"Not far from Headquarters, in a little back street in Whitechapel, is the wonderful printing machine, which has just been put up.  Most of you have never seen a printing machine at all, and very few, indeed, can ever have seen such a wonderful machine as that which is now going to work for The Army. 'What is it?' you want to know.  Wheels and wheels, and more wheels again.  Big wheels, little wheels, and middle-sized wheels.  When it is at work, how they go whizzing round to be sure!  Each one seems determined to do its own work, and to help on all the others, as much as it can.  Not a bit like some children, who go squabbling and quarrelling with one another."

The Caption of this 1881 drawing read "If they would only let me in".  The early meetings were for grown-ups.  So here was an early call for meetings to be shared with  "Little Soldiers" or exclusively for them.

Self-Denial Week in 1901; many of us know it as Lent. This event raised money for the Army and children were encouraged to give away or sell toys which they had, perhaps, outgrown.

Many early numbers included songs for little soldiers to learn – pint-sized versions of songs which filled meetings and citadels with voices and instrumental sound, some later manufactured in St Albans next to the Campfield Press.

By 1935 real photographs were being used and smiling faces encouraged positivity.  The new Young Soldiers were learning to live and eat simply, yet healthily.

The Young Soldier always featured stories, some of them written by the readers themselves, upholding the morals of Young Soldiers of The Army.  A header for the week's group of short stories in 1935.

As comic strips began to appear from a number of publishers, The Army followed suit and produced stories of their own, first in monochrome, here in 1979, but later using spot colour, and eventually, as Kids Alive! in full colour.

    Above page sections and pages courtesy BRITISH NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE

In 1985 we finally see samples of modern childhood pursuits, a few years before the masthead was updated to Kids Alive!

We could immerse ourselves in a century-worth's experience in childhood under the wing of the Salvation Army.  All that because every issue has now been digitised and is available online – as long as you have a subscription to the British Newspaper Archive!

COVER PICTURES 8

 Newgates Farm Homestead

As we have come to realise the heart of farm businesses often survived in some form or other for centuries, but in recent times the closure of many farms on the edge of towns resulted in their inevitable transfer to residential districts.  There is a resulting  scarcity of photographic images now remaining for us to scrutinise.  We seem to hold on to the notion that photography has been around for more than a century and a half, and that there must inevitably be a good number of images covering every building there ever was!  But in the public domain there are few photographs, none more than  a rare former small farm at the lower end of Sandpit Lane – Newgates.  You will also find its title named in the singular: Newgate.  The drawing of Newgates at the very left of the third row of cover pictures of St Albans' Own East End Volume 1.

A heavily clad farm homestead behind Sandpit Lane.  This photo shows a corner of the pond,
a feature of so many farm yards.  The pond remains as a part of the pocket park, now within
the bounds of the new housing development.
COURTESY MARARAGET GOWER COLLECTION

It  lay at the eastern end of the higher ground along Sandpit Lane; the road rises in elevation as it passes The Dell and crosses Hall Heath, thought to have been a name associated with the architectural  style of manorial house at nearby Beaumonts.  Sandpit Lane drops again in elevation at  the eastern end of the heath, where the diminutive farm known as Newgates was located.

A pair of pencilled drawings of Newgates drawn in the 1820s by Jane Edgell, formerly Jane
Marten.
COURTESY HISTORIC ENGLAND

So, we are fortunate in having the presence and artistic skills of a member of the Marten family who lived in the former Marshalswick House – another house which no longer exists and is replaced by more modern housing.  Jane Marten was the daughter of George and Jane Sullivan Marten.  Whether it was her passion for rural farm buildings of the time, or whether an interest in historical documentation we cannot say.  But her signature appears on several local farm homesteads which Jane drew a short time before she left Marshalswick to marry Richard Edgell.

A mid-19th century watercolour by John H Buckingham from the eastern slope
of Sandpit Lane descending from Hall Heath.  Newgates is shown on the
left.  The Lane is distinctly narrow as it wanders towards House Lane.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

Jane's signature style was soft pencil drawing in which she was able to capture the detailed idiosyncratics of weathered structures as their individual materials have worn and moved with time.  Her illustrations of homesteads at Beaumonts and Marshals Wick also appear in St Albans' Own East End.

Today's scene, now a residential development, here named Damson Way.

A Nice Little Orchestra

 Here is something a little different.  This week's photograph – and there is only one picture, so no supporting material – is not part of a current series.  And although the characters in this story were definitely based in St Albans' East End, the location of the image is almost certainly in an older part of the city.

I definitely know who two of the people shown above are, for they were my mother and my father, and that, to my knowledge no other person was known to me as being any of my parents' friends or acquaintances. However, what ties all of these people together is their competence and love of music.

This photograph turned up in my parents' collection – the typical shoebox.  So let's begin with what I did know: both of my parents were competent violinists.  But I never heard either of them play! Nor did they ever talk about that part of their lives, at least not when  we were children, nor, so far as I recall, when we were adults either.  Yet there was always in our family home a violin in its case permanently hidden within the bottom of dad's wardrobe – and I therefore assume it belonged to him.

So, if it is true they both played a violin before their marriage, how do I know that to be true.  Well, surely the photograph above proves it, does it not?  My mother is seated in the front row, wearing a blue patterned long dress.  My father, wearing a grey suit, is standing behind the conductor's stand.  Although smaller in stature than his wife, he definitely looks taller in this image, because he standing on the lower step leading up to the french doors.

Both had experience with other instruments; father was known to have played a ukulele while mother played piano and was a well-trained contralto, participating in an award-winning choir from the 1920s through to the 1970s, that of the former Trinity Church in Beaconsfield Road.

These two violinists who never took the  opportunity to demonstrate their musical experience with their violins, at least not to their sons; raising the inevitable question: who owned the violin in the wardrobe?  And what happened to the other one?

Well, in honour to both of them I eventually asked an experienced violin repairer to restring and make repairs to the instrument.  And I made it available to the Hertfordshire Schools Instrument Loan service to enable learning children unable to acquire their own instrument and enjoy the experience of learning and playing.  Let's hope that a succession of children or students are still able to do so.

Finally, we return to the house shown in the photograph.  Inevitably it was the home of a member of this little orchestra of the 1930s – possibly it was the photographer cum conductor.  Almost certainly located in a large home close to the centre of the city where many of the streets are comprised of Victorian homes and mansions.

One of them was home to a small orchestra in the 1930s, and it would be great to know more about it.  Finally, it is difficult to imagine this photograph was just another picture.  Surely there were, and maybe still are, other copies in other personal collections.

There we are; you have just read part of a personal story of a couple whose parents both settled in St Albans East End, loved music and also managed to encourage their own children to love music – somehow!

RESCUE MISSION 5

 The Clarence Park Villas

This week's  hunt for a photograph takes us to the short section of Hatfield Road whose front windows are fortunate to overlook Clarence Park, although when they were first erected they overlooked The Fete Field which, after a few years became the recreation area of the new Park.

In fact, if this were strictly true there would be no need to carry out any searches for old photographs at all, for as the image below illustrates these houses are still standing and occupied – two floors and a basement level.  But we need to look at the history.

These are among the houses between Granville Road and Station Way along
Hatfield Road.

Until the 1860s the road, though narrow, was almost level, but had been widened and relaid to bring the roadway gradually up to bridge level for the new Midland Railway.  Shortly afterwards the field between the road and what is now Victoria Street was sold for development, and here begins the building of villa blocks between two new roads, Stanhope Road and Granville Road. Building later continued from Granville Road up towards the railway.  

Survey 1872: Hatfield Road from Camp Road (bottom right) to the new railway (top left).
The gradient is indicated by a planted nursery which later would provide the opportunity for
houses at basement level.

Survey 1897: Granville Road bisects Hatfield Road and most of the houses are completed.
The lower block has a driveway and would later become part of W O Peake.

Survey 1922:  The first purpose-built coat factory.

Survey 1937: The part-completed masterplan.

Survey 1962:  The works at its maximum development.
ALL ABOVE IMAGES COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

From the evidence of the upper development it is possible to assume  that the  designs of the lower section  also varied, maybe implying that the blocks would have been the work of more than one builder.

But we might never know, because this slightly earlier group of buildings, including houses round the corner into Granville Road, has been obliterated – twice – during the twentieth century.

The modern residential blocks from Stanhope Road (left), Granville Road (middle) and
Station Way (right).
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

First, a small coat factory arrived and moved into one of the blocks close to Granville Road.  This was the Peake family in 1911, and the location of their acquisition was considered to be beneficially close to the railway. During the next few years the company gradually acquired more of the existing houses and converted them into extensions of the expanding factory.  Clearly these were considered to be temporary expansions and a masterplan created a Neo-G Georgian style factory building to replace the former homes.

So, these original homes went under the bulldozer nearly a hundred years ago, though not all at the same time.  All of them.  So, of course, we now have no idea whether these were different from or similar to the homes still standing between Granville Road and what is now Station Way.

The end of W O Peake on this site came in the 1980s, and instead of retaining the impressive factory frontage the building was discarded and in its place the factory was replaced by residential blocks once more, and named Cotsmoor, after one of the Peake ranges of coats.

A photograph and  drawing of the 1922 factory.  It is the previous blocks of homes, shown on the
1897 survey which were previously where the factory (above) stood.

What, then, are we looking for?  Certainly not the current structures because we can photograph them any day of the week.  There are also a number of the completed Neo-georgian style factory, including rather gentle pen drawings.  What seem to be missing are the part–converted building range and the even earlier block of Victorian buildings between the former turnpike toll house – later a post office and grocery shop and more recently Chilli Raj  – and Granville Road.  An idea of the layout at the time of the 1897 map survey is the best we have.

Unless someone has found a street view on an early plate camera, perhaps taken on the opening event of Clarence Park in 1894.  Perhaps one just does not exist and those above Granville Road, with names such as The Cedars, Hazelmere and West View, is the best we can do.

COVER PICTURES 7

Community football

You will discover a football team on the front cover of St Albans' Own East End Volume 1. Not a team you will have heard of probably but it was very much part of the very early East End of St Albans.  Before the Park and before St Peter's Farm disappeared into quiet obscurity before becoming houses along Hatfield Road.

Before World War One Fleetville's first recreation ground was on Twelve Acres Field, in
Sutton Road opposite Nicholson's coat factory.  Here a team based around Albion Road lined
up for their pre-match picture.

We can assume that these were mainly residents in or near Stanhope Road and Granville Road, 
given their team name of Stanville FC.  It is likely they would be playing an early match in or near
Clarence Park.

Football as a player game as opposed to a spectator sport, grew up along the partly completed streets which made up those new developments around the new railway station: Granville Road, Stanhope Road, and very quickly Albion Road and Cavendish Road.  Young men-folk who had moved in were eager to become members of a patriotic team consisting of heads of household from their own road.  Or maybe be one nearby.  Later, public houses ran their own teams as the new Fleetville and Camp communities spread.  

The Adult Schools in overlooking the former prison had its own team, and no doubt The Crown Hotel did likewise.  Later, schools fielded their own teams of course, but it was those early street and pub teams which are still remembered through the postcard photos of the period, playing Saturday afternoon games with teams from other parts of the city, or local derby games from nearby.

A team from Marconi Instruments turned out one Saturday to play rivals from Ballito "down
the road".  Although the team members are not named, towel man/manager took credit for the
anticipated result!

Although this team and their mascot is not identified the location is intriguing.  The ground
is slightly sloped and seems to be not far from a newly built housing estate, which may in later
years creep down towards the players.

It was not always clear where the early matches were played, although there were many plots of land where houses were still to be built.  The park wasn't used for formal matches during the first few years of its life, although the district's first recreation ground was no doubt busy.  This was not the present ground, known also as Fleetville Park, but Twelve Acre Field between today's Campfield Road and the railway.  It was also reported that the field between Beaumont Avenue and Hatfield Road was made use of – undoubtedly without the owner's formal permission – as there had been complaints about the farmer not being able to use his own land for growing crops.

And don't think these games were informal knockabouts.  If we look in the sports columns of the Herts Advertisers of the time, you will find results under local, district and county leagues much as we still can today.  Team managers, team players, subs, referees and line runners would all have been residents of nearby streets; early teams from near the station where many were employees of the Midland Railway or the prison staff.  As the early factories set up and grew teams competed within the sports clubs of other firms across the town.  

There is a print from the Carlton Club, and this one is rare in having all
team members named. 1945/6.

We might guess where many of these 1910/11 players lived, for their team name was Glenfield FC; 
Glenferrie and Sandfield Road maybe?  It is this photograph which is reproduced on 
Volume 1 of St Albans' Own East End.

This photo taken outside the former Adult School between Stanhope and Granville roads,
proudly announces they are Benevolent Cup winners of the Mid-Herts League in
1924/5.  Towel man/manager was Charles Tuck whose house and business was in
Hatfield Road just beyond Sutton Road.

And one source of football interest wasn't a factory at all.  It was a shop, Bishop's Stores, whose owner also ran a boys' club, the Carlton Club which could field multiple youth teams.  Several images from the Carlton have come my way from former team members.  What is still missing, however, is firm information on the man behind this enterprise, who we assume was a Mr Bishop; yes?

His shop was at 113 Hatfield Road from before World War 2 until 1952.

Rescue Mission: the park chalet

 Places, whether they are sites or individual buildings, have their time and then they are gone; disappeared apparently forever and replaced with something else.

In Clarence Park we are fortunate in that these  structures all remain – the cricket pavilion, the entrance lodge; although the smaller cricket stand and the football stands, neither of the latter two were original 1894 structures.

This aerial photo was thought to have been taken c1946.  The cricket pavilion is bottom left, 
although the jumping sand pits appear not to be present.  The triangular grass patch in front of the football field featured the chalet and very close to it was a tree which most children of the
time will remember.

A further little building did not arrive until the 1920s, and yet is no longer part of the park and has not been so for probably fifty years, which may surprise some of us.  The tea chalet, which lay on a grass triangle between the main cricket pavilion and the football ground, was a popular feature of most family visits, whether there was an event taking place or whether children on their own or families had arrived for an afternoon out.

Today the triangle is more difficult to define; a low curved ornamental wall is in front
of where the chalet used to be, and the much-loved tree has surely been taken down for
those now on the triangle are far too young to be the same age as the Chalet.

It is uncertain why the facility closed and was demolished, nor exactly when.  The chalet was certainly there throughout my childhood and my frequent visits with friends or family; cricket matches, sports days, entertainment events and so on.  The original building is thought to be a small bungalow shape with a pitched roof, but at some point had a verandah added around the outside for shaded outside seating as well as including part of the entrance.

Did anyone take a photograph of the tea chalet?  I very much hope so – we've missed it ever since, and nothing else has successfully replaced the service it offered.  Wouldn't it be great if we could present the chalet in its setting on this page.

Meanwhile, one further image which surfaced shows the front verandah of the chalet.  See below:

Overlooking the part of the cricket ground overlooking the cricket pavilion and the tennis
courts, the photographer is seeing the scene though the front verandah of the refreshment
chalet.  
Courtesy Betty Ewens