Percy Hall

Many wonderful stories about the East End of St Albans are emerging as news of Volume 1 spreads, or through contacts with Fleetville Diaries.  A ninety-one year old who spent his early years in Clarence Road.  The grandson of the manager of Patience, Butcher, at the Crown – Aberdeen House as it was called then, on the corner of Albion Road and Hatfield Road.  The family of Mr Hobbs, owner of the Hatfield Road garage which is now Kwik-Fit, whose home had been in Colney Heath Lane.  Then there is a former teacher who has remained in the house her parents purchased on the Beaumonts estate in 1937.  And the family of the first landlord of the pub with a unique name: the Bunch of Cherries, which began life as a pair of builders' huts.

Fleetville Saloons 195 Hatfield Road

Finally, this week the family of hairdresser Percy Hall has been sharing details of the various properties in Hatfield Road, and in Cambridge Road, in which his business prospered.  The one most of us whose memory extends back that far is 195 (now the New World shop).  But others had been next to the Liberal Club and next to former Ben Pelly opposite the Cemetery.  However, it was discovered that for a short time the very first shop was at Bycullah Terrace, where currently Londis trades.  It was great to discover the second photograph (below), where Smith's, bakers (later Spurriers and ABC) is on the left and the premises which is still a house in this picture, where Kendall's traded.

Fleetville Saloons, 211 Hatfield Road, c1935

There are four new schools photos on the website this week, all from the former Marshalswick Boys' School where music teacher Neil Hamilton developed and maintained a number of choirs, bands and other groups.  Also in the Group Pictures section is the Marconi football squad of 1960, when they were County League Champions.