Historic streaming

Ask anyone for the name of a river in St Albans and the answer will naturally be the Ver, with a name sourced from the former Roman settlement which has made the city well-known.

A reference might also be made to the Colne, into which the Ver flows, especially as this snakes  through Colney Heath and London Colney.  Both have been favourites for generations of families and their times of recreation.

Which raises the intriguing question about whether all rivers and streams are named.  Perhaps the notion of giving a watercourse a name only became the norm as maps became more common, from the eighteenth century onwards.  Though I have to admit, this might not be strictly true.

Let's explore more watercourses in the East End, all of them which flow, or flowed, from north to south.  A short stream or brook called the Ellen crosses under St Albans Road West en-route to the Colne.  Today it carries little water and is at its most natural as is passes through Ellenbrook Fields, although through Ellenbrook itself it has been culverted.

Just west of Smallford is a stream, also north-to-south, which has two names.  North of Hatfield Road it is known as Boggy Mead Spring, whereas south of there it has the delightful name of Butterwick Brook and was responsible for providing a name for the original Smallford settlement, since there was no bridge over the stream.  This also finds the Colne.

There have been sufficient hints and surveys in the past pointing to a stream which rose at or near The Wick and flowed southwards parallel to Woodstock Road into what is now Sutton Road and then turning near Campfield Road, across Camp Road and London Road before meeting the Ver.  No-one has seen it in recorded history, of course, but there is still sufficient evidence when we experience very wet periods.  Unlike those just described no name has been ascribed to it that has been documented.  And a similar absence of name for a further stream which may have flowed, at least seasonally (a bourne?), also from The Wick, roughly following Clarence Road, dropping down to the previously described stream on its way to the Ver.  For this one we have to rely solely on the topography – much altered of course with urban development.

There is one other stream, and this one suffers from not showing us a direction of flow, still less a name.  But there is a suggestion.  The 1840 tithe map identified two adjacent fields, where today are the Willow estate and Ashley Road industry, and named Hither Bridge Field and Further Bridge Field.  The fields would already have had established names, and 1840 was before the nearby railway.  One of the fields lay on the highest land in the immediate district, and we can still discover Drakes Drive, Cambridge Road and Ashley Road descending from the "heath".  In fact from the Hatfield Road/Beechwood Avenue junction, drive the car towards Oaklands and the first thing you notice is that you are climbing a gradient.

So, if a stream rose hereabouts where might it have flowed after the bridge which we assume was in one of the two fields?  One possibility is down the Cambridge Road gradient to join the stream flowing near Campfield Road; another is along the line now Ashley Road and Hatfield Road towards the same stream as it crossed into Sutton Road.

There was a time, therefore, when the East End was awash with streams which disappeared as the water table dropped.  As to when that might have been, someone may, as I write, already be undertaking the research, which incidentally, is unlikely to reveal stream names!