East(er) End Round-up

There are times when we need an opportunity to catch up with events ...  So here we go.

We kick off with a group which has been around informally since 2012.  At Smallford the group took an interest in the vulnerable timber building which was the former ticket office at Smallford Station, located beside Alban Way and recently freshly protected.  The group, then under the auspices of Smallford Residents' Association, applied for, and received, Heritage Lottery funding under All Our Stories; the exhibition and brochure which followed celebrated the community around Smallford and the history of the branch railway line which passed through it between Hatfield and St Albans.  More recently, celebrations were arranged for the railway's 150th anniversary, and now the group is working closely with Countryside Management Service and St Albans City & District Council in the upgrade of Alban Way, including signage and interpretation panels.  In recognition of this the group has created a new organisational structure under the label Smallford Station and Alban Way Heritage Society (SSAWHS), throwing open its membership to anyone with an interest in Alban Way.  Further details will appear shortly at www.smallford.org

Every time I visit Heartwood Forest it seems that I notice the recent plantings much as we tend to view grandchildren or the children of friends we haven't met for some while: "oh, my, how you've grown!"  And if you have heard about bluebell woods but never been stunned by the beauty of the scene others are always talking about, then make your way to Langley Wood.  Passing through Sandridge, the Woodland Trust entry and car park is on the left and the forest routes are well-signposted.  You will not be disappointed.

Recently, the front page and Info Needed pages of the website have carried an inquiry raised by a resident associated with Ashley Road Church: "Can anyone offer any information or account of the Ashley Church at the corner of Ashley Road and Hatfield Road?  Formed in 1939, a permanent building opened in 1954.  Between times the church had met in a former laundry outhouse at the end of the garden of 312 Hatfield Road.  The new church was constructed on part of a triangle of land at the road junction.  Missionary Gladys Aylward is reputed to have made a visit at some time in the 1950s.  Does anyone know if this is so, or have any details of this event, or about the church between 1939 and the present?"  The questioner beavered away and herself discovered documents which confirmed Gladys' visit in October 1955.  The documents in question were the ordinary meeting records and visitors' books kept by almost every voluntary organisation, which, when we add to the notebook page each week, we give little thought to why we are recording it.  But here we are, sixty-two years later, the books have survived and useful information has been gleaned.  Gladys' own handwriting, for a start, and an entry in two languages!  Her talk to the group was on October 26th.  Her topic was verse 17 of  the Second Book of Corinthians, chapter 2.  Fifty-one people attended, the largest audience of the period.  If we wonder why we continue to find space for such documents, it is for occasions like this!

In 1899 a plot of land was sold to the Welwyn brick making company of J Owen.  It was the site currently occupied by Ashley Road (Brick Knoll Park) business park.  The launch of the brickworks here enabled much of Fleetville to be built.  The works turned out bricks until 1948 before being taken over, first for waste disposal to fill the many pits, and then for Holloway's plant hire and Hill End concrete suppliers.  New firms, including car showrooms and Polaroid appeared from the late 1970s.  Finally, the time came to remove the remaining brickworks buildings.  The one removal which everyone will remember was the arrival of the 301st Airborne Squadron Royal Engineers one Sunday in May 1979 to detonate the demolish the 100-foot main chimney stack, in front of a considerable crowd.  The same Squadron had attended the same site in May 1954 to remove another stack of the same height.  And just across the road a chimney belonging to the Co-operative Dairy had also been removed in similar fashion.  Quite a pyrotechnic hotspot!