Friday evening at the Trestle

What did you do last Friday evening?  If not an impertinent question, you might have stayed at home or made a visit to the cinema.  Of course you may have been working a night shift.

Former chapel, now Trestle Arts Base

Forty people or so made a visit to a place in St Albans' East End which many have heard of but fewer know much about.  The Trestle Arts Base is at Highfield, surrounded by new houses and is close to the open spaces managed by Highfield Park Trust.  The former chapel of Hill End Hospital has now been brilliantly converted into flexible spaces for arts activities, performance, including mask work, and exploration opportunities in the performing arts for children, young people and adults.  We will return to Trestle in a later blog, but in the meantime do visit www.trestle.org.uk

Former Hill End (centre), Cell Barnes (top left)
Ashley Road industry and Camp (top right)

The purpose of Friday evening's function was to enlighten residents who live locally on what lies under their feet, especially if they live at Highfield itself.  A talk was the centre-piece of the evening, held in the Apex Room at Trestle.  Originally titled A Place Called Hill End and renamed Highfield: What Lies Beneath for this event, the talk explored the history of mental care and different ways in which society has managed it during the past two centuries.  Hill End was one of those huge sprawling Victorian edifices which always struggled with increasing patient numbers and earned an enviable reputation for developing care and treatment strategies; even giving life to a daughter hospital nearby called Cell Barnes.

Friday's visitors were able to pinpoint various hospital facilities, now demolished, in relation to the current homes on the site, and understand more about the layout and names of some of its roads.

The ticket revenue for the event will support Highfield Park Trust and the upkeep of the beautiful former hospital grounds and new open spaces.

Surviving Hill End ward block

More talks

A number of groups and organisations ask for talks about the East side of St Albans, which is Mike's speciality subject, following the publication of his two books, St Albans' Own East End.  A programme of talks is being arranged for 2016, and organisations are invited to book a date for their members.  During 2016 all of the donations collected at the talks will be in aid of that final million for the new Museum project by Renaissance St Albans.

Groups have a range of subjects to choose from:

The 'Mike' talk at Trestle last Friday.

A Crown Story

Nurseries and malting, treadwheels and commuting, a fete field and a park.

Beaumonts: a story of two manors

One missing manor, then another, a Cromwell Connection, a take-over, then everyone wants to live here.

Camp: the place on the hill

No better place to live than near a stream or two, and watch the militias at play.

Fleetville: a game of consequences

There was no planning or order here; no-one in control; but there were opportunities as well as penalties.

Flicks at Fleetville (about 25 minutes)

St Albans’ fourth cinema; the one no-one’s even heard of.

The Chalk Rooms of London Colney

How a village managed to educate its children.

A Place Called Hill End

The story of a missing community that came to a place and called it Hill End.

East to Smallford (for second half of 2016)

The connections between land, people, road and rail from Oaklands to  Hatfield.

Paying the Price

The fogotten story of the Reading and Hatfield Turnpike Road.

St Albans’ Own East End: an overview

The parish which became the backbone of two books.

Letting photographs tell the story (for second half of 2016)

What stories are revealed from the surviving photographs of St Albans’ East End?

Letting ‘Herts Ad’ photographs tell the story (2)

What stories are revealed from the Herts Advertiser Re-photographing Project?

For further inquiries please email saoee@me.com