One day they'll do something about it

It can sometimes be a pain driving along Hatfield Road at busy times, with congestion probable at Marlborough Road, Lemsford Road, Station Road, The Crown, Morrison's, Beechwood Avenue, and Butterwick.  We will possibly need to add Longacres to that list before long with the road improvements currently underway at Beaumont School.  Ironically, that same location was congested in a different way in the 1960s, with employees from Marconi Instruments attempting to arrive or leave Longacres, where the firm had one of its factories.

In a thoroughly modern approach the Highways Board undertook a survey in 1878, a couple of years before it expected to take over responsibility for the Reading & Hatfield Turnpike Road, which included Hatfield Road.  It has turned out to be one of the very few historical traffic analyses to surface.  During the week January 12th to 18th, 1,866 carriages passed along it at the point close to where the road passes the Peacock PH, just above Lattimore Road.

Although described as carriages, we can't be certain whether this was simply a generic term to cover all vehicles other than simple carts, or whether it was specific to larger multi-horse passenger vehicles.  This would be an average of 20 per hour during the winter daylight period – it is assumed that enumerators did not remain on station at night.  It would have included both directions, given that the road would not have been laned and vehicles from both directions would have mainly used the same narrow road surface.

In comparison, during the same period 346 vehicles used Holywell Hill at Pondyards, where turnpike tolls were again chargeable (the part in between was managed by the town).  On the face of it this discrepancy is difficult to understand, except that drivers may have found alternative routes to Holywell Hill if they could: but 49 vehicles per day compared with Hatfield Road's 266?

However we explain the difference, it is clear that, even before Fleetville came into being, the east side of the city was generating over five times as much traffic as the road to the south, which, of course, was the continuation of the R & H turnpike via Watford towards Reading.  It would have been useful to compare the stats with London Road as well, but the Highways Board were already responsible for that highway, and if a survey had been undertaken it would have been from a much earlier date and hasn't yet surfaced.

So, where might this traffic from the east have originated?  Certainly there were new houses in the area then called New Town, between the old town boundary in Marlborough Road and the new railway line – the new town boundary would not be extended to The Crown (then colloquially known as the Chain Bar) until the following year.  Beyond the Chain Bar there were few properties, mainly farms and Oaklands Mansion, until Bishops Hatfield (we have now dropped the Bishop), where there was a connection with the Great North Road.  Most of the 1,866 carriages would therefore have consisted of long-distance traffic, but may have included a skeleton omnibus service from Hatfield.  St Albans is therefore assumed to have been the destination for the majority, before returning via the same route.

If the clerks of 1878 were using the statistics in any useful way, such as the probable costs of maintaining the road based on its current usage, it is also possible that they had a forward plan for improvements so that the road could be laned throughout.  Of course, at that time they would have been thinking in terms of the road width now enjoyed along the short stretch between The Crown and Cavendish Road, which we now think of as a nuisance because of its width constraint.  Within thirty years it would all become wider still.

The questions now are: if the survey was to be undertaken again today, how would the results compare?  And, given that, since the Highways Board 139 years ago would not have dreamed that  allowance would have to be made for a virtually continuous line of parked vehicles down both sides, how might we see Hatfield Road changing in the next fifty years?  Remember, the population of this part of Hertfordshire – and particularly between St Albans and Hatfield – will rise substantially if the confirmed plans come to pass.  Discuss!