The Price of Coal

As with many other householders I paid my dual-fuel energy bill recently by direct debit online.  As a child I was regularly sent to place an order for coal or coke at one of the many Coal Offices, and subsequently to take the invoice – the bill – with cash to pay for the delivery recently received.

The coal offices were in Fleetville (for Stantons, then Kendalls), at The Crown, and at offices gathered around the railway station.  One of these little portable buildings stood next to the gate leading from the goods yard at the station.  If you have arrived to living in the St Albans district more recently than c1980 you will possibly not realise that the goods yard occupied all of the space which is now the busy station and the car park building. 

Martell's Coal Office c1970.  Today at Station Way.
COURTESY BOB CRISP

This week I received a photo, possibly taken c1970, which shows Martell's Coal Office – not an accessible building, I notice.  Today it might not even pass planning regulations as the door steps dropped straight into a blind bend straight off the Victoria Street bridge, and just as the footpath ends.  Inevitably, the building could not be permitted to remain once the new Station Way was laid to join Grimston Road and Hatfield Road with its seemingly endless flows of taxis, buses and cars.

COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW.

But there it was, and although it appears to have been abandoned at the time, someone thought to photograph it and in the context of the wider scene.  It is clear that the goods yard – which we would probably call freight today – is also neglected as more centralised handling of freight trains had been developed by the seventies.

After just over a century the station, formerly on the Ridgmont Road side of the tracks, was transferred to the other side, and the big talking-point of the period was electrification.

A 1950s coal bill for Charrington's, whose coal office was on the city-side of the tracks.

Today there is nothing left of the coal office, but we know exactly where it stood.  I did attempt to take a photograph from the same spot; taking my life in my hands, it proved impossible given the vehicle flows on the traffic light controlled junction.  I will try again early one Sunday morning, but meanwhile here is an alternative courtesy Google Streetview.