Bycullah

 Let's begin with the name of the row of shops which is west of Arthur Road.  When the printing works arrived in 1897 we would have been looking towards the north of Hatfield Road and to a field extending from Andrews greengrocery to the access road, now the new Montague Close.  Print firm owner Thomas Smith had these properties built, and named the row Bycullah Terrace.  His home was a very large house called Bycullah House in Bycullah Road on the wealthy west side of Enfield.

The terrace c1908 with the grocer on the left corner of Tess Road, now Woodstock Road South.
In the distance only one house, now replaced by the blue flats, had so far been built on the south side, east of Sutton Road.

The same view c2000. The road has been moved slightly south to allow space for parking
outside the shops.

On weekdays the parade would be busy in the early morning and early evening with employee
arrivals and departures at the printing works; and workers or managers visiting the Dining Rooms
or the Institute (right) during the midday break.
COURTESY DAVID MILES

The terrace as built consisted of three houses, intended for managers of the print works, set in the centre of the terrace, and three shops on each side of these homes.  They were to serve the "Ville" of homes being built in the rest of the field.  As occurred elsewhere in the Ville many of Smith's houses were let to non-employees.

Only one impediment obstructed the buildings, a milestone for the toll road, but the buildings were arranged to sit immediately behind the object (see my blog "A Mile is Not a Mile" 1st February 2020, because the milestone is certainly not in front of any of the shops today).

In 1964 the area is busy enough to require a pedestrian crossing, which was set out for the
Ballito works and the Central and Fleetville Schools.  Today the area is crowded enough for a second crossing in Woodstock Road South.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

The three houses in the centre of the block remained residential until 1930, although there were short periods when unoccupied, the house which is now the optician began as Fleetville's first physician and surgeon, William Graves.  A year before the arrival of Dr Frederick Smythe at Fleet House (see last week's post), he  practiced at Bycullah Terrace.  Next door was Joseph Hassall, superintendent of the County police, responsible for the police station in Tess Road, also as referred to in last week's post, although the house remained unoccupied most of the time before 1911.  The third house remained completely domestic until  the mid 1950s, and the ground floor wasn't fitted out as a proper shop front until after 1960.  It was Kendall's Coal Merchant, and the author recalls entering through the street door and paying the family fuel bill in the front parlour.

This picture was taken a few years after the house was converted into a shop for Kendall's.
COURTESY STEVE KENDALL

Percy Hall's hair salon to the left of the first house, which would later be converted for Kendall's.
COURTSEY JACKIE ALDRIDGE

The first two houses had an earlier conversion shortly after 1930.  A H Smith opened a bakery; this later became A & E Spurrier, who was also a baker, then ABC Sandwiches, before the current optical services.  In the middle house Mr Dellar tried running a Wallpaper shop for a short time.  It was also Percy Hall's hairdressing salon before he moved along the road, but for the majority of its life it has been a grocer: Pollard's, Green's, Key, and Saar Convenience Store, today using a vinyl on the front window to replace an actual window display, as is the modern trend.

If the shops were intended for the Ville residents it will be interesting to discover the extent to which they were for everyday requirements, and whether the same applies today.  Of the western group of three, the corner establishment remained a grocer for a full century: Charles Philips, Frank Lovegrove, Leslie Bennington and Dixon's.  It is only in recent years that it has offered cultural foods.

Mrs Blakeley and her father outside her shop which generations of children identified as the "sweet shop"
COURTESY CHRIS WARD

Next door a general shop, which would be known as a confectioner – children would know it as a sweet shop and their parents would purchase their tobacco products.  P H Stone, who started at Primrose Cottage shop, where the Rats' Castle PH is today, moved there and then transferred to 157 Hatfield Road.  Mrs Blakeley arrived in the mid-1920s.  William Grace, a manager from de Havilland Aircraft Company, retired from that role in 1946 and took on a quieter role running the shop. Around 1970 it became a dry cleaners and now, with the internal walls removed it is Alban Locksmiths.  Retained is the step between the former front and rear rooms, as the the left shops were built on a small hill (as seen in Woodstock Road South).

The third shop began as William Helmsley's stationer, drapery and the little district's post office, before being taken over by John Smith, of the same family who moved to new premises as Rankin Smith c1930, since when the Warwick family ran the shop as Fleetville Fisheries, with an open front and roll-down shutter.  Today the shop is one of the many shops owned by Simmons, the bakers.

A 1964 photo showing Kendall's as a fully converted shop, and the Fleetville Cafe, tables in the windows and a corner counter on the left. Many residents would have recalled the clock above the
shop which often only showed the correct time twice each day!
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

The first of the three eastern shops has always been the local cafe (in earlier times known as Dining Rooms).  It is only from c2016 that it became Fleetville Fish Bar and then Nonna's Pizza.  The middle shop of this group (217) spent the first five years or so as an ironmongery, and was then the parade's butcher, in the care of two families: James Finch and then Horace Presence. Now it is a barber's.

On the Arthur Road corner during the occupancy of the
chemist run by H Bowman.

Finally, on the Arthur Road corner, this shop had three separate lives; first as a greengrocer, then a bookmaker and repairer, and finally H Bowman, the chemist, in roughly equal measure.  Intended for part of the leisure trade in modern times anglers are now served.

Most residents today consider Fleetville to be a significantly larger area than when the Smith Ville was developed.  But it is generally accepted that Bycullah Terrace and its environ is the true heart of Fleetville, partly because it was Thomas Smith who named it so, and this is where the first bricks were laid.

Although there are nine roof elements, one for each property,  two of the three houses share a single wide canopy, with a smaller decorated brick elevation fitted with triple casements each.  This is best viewed from the opposite side of the road.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW