Villas Past and Present

 You can imagine that, as soon as the western part of Beaumonts Farm was offered for sale in 1899, development plans emerged along the Hatfield Road's north side frontage.  To begin with it was probably limited to a few marker posts in the ground at the eastern end where land narrowed towards Beaumont Avenue.  Almost immediately a six roomed villa was erected (number 385 before the 1930 re-numbering, and named Innerleithen).  From new until a few years ago it has only been occupied by two households,  William Cowley, an elementary school teacher until around 1919; and then George Butlin followed by his daughter, Doris.  

The five villas erected prior to 1910.
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Two further villas, 387 and 389, followed quickly, 389 being occupied by Alexander South, a tailor's cutter at the Nicholson coat factory in Sutton Road.  There was space for two more properties, the second having a triangular plot, both of which were finished c1910. Villa number 385 is clearly identifiable today as it is adjacent to the eastern boundary of Queen's Court flats, although these won't reappear in our story until much later.

In our previous post we noted the growth of the former Currell's garage and the widening of its plot to accommodate, initially an exit drive for the British Road Services trucks, and later a further property for parking up a number of cars – still used for this function today.  The two properties absorbed in this way had been occupied by George A Curgenven, a railway engine driver, and next door in a bungalow, his son Arthur George Curgenven, who was a postman. The properties are visible on the extreme right of the middle  image in the previous post, but both had been demolished in the 1950s and 1970s respectively.

The initials FP locate the Alley (originally known as Crosspath). The five villas shown in the top photo are bounded in yellow; the two villas sited on the remaining land (bounded in red) are near the
Hatfield Road boundary and marked in blue.
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View of the five villas from the Ashley Road corner.  Behind the man and dog are the two villas
marked in blue on the map above.  In the distance is the chimney of T E Smith's printing works.
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We are therefore left with a sizeable site bounded in red on the map above and on it arrived two villas (framed in blue) somewhat larger than the earlier five to the east: 383 named Balgowan as early as 1903 and 381, named Waratah a couple of years later. It seems inevitable that both, with their expansive gardens, orchard and tennis court, would eventually be ripe for further development.  A development company known as Parkfield Developments acquired the legal and financial interests in both properties and submitted proposals in 1935 for a number of shops fronting Hatfield Road, an access road and blocks of flats between the shops and the Alley.

The Council,  empowered by a number of town planning acts in the 1920s and 30s, considered the applications and refused them in 1935, and again in 1937; making it clear it thought Fleetville already had enough shops and adding more would contravene the Ribbon Development Act.  Quite apart from the safety issues around the proposed access road, and close to the busy lorry access road.

Parkfield, in an apparent attempt to force the issue, began the process of demolishing the existing houses, although site clearance was not complete by the declaration of war in 1939.  The Council acquired the site as a base for the emergency National Fire Service and a building was quickly put up on the west side of the site.

Aerial view of Queens Court (centre) with the new flats replacing the 1959 library to the left
and the five original villas approaching the double roundabout on the right.  The straight line of the Alley from the double roundabout disappears in the group of trees towards the left edge of the
photograph.
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The eastern block of the award-winning Queen's Court.

The land remained unused, and the NFS building vandalised, for a further seven years after the war finished, and the Council then gave itself planning consent for three blocks of flats with an access road (but no shops!), work beginning in 1952.  The imminent Coronation prompted its naming Queen's Court; and the design received a national architectural award.  The original build had open passage entrances and staircases and the only subsequent alteration had been  the addition of front entrance doors to each block.

Both the Fleetville branch library (shown here) and Cell Barnes Lane branch library are now
closed.

The former library site, at the western edge of the site acquired by the city council. New flats built c2012.

One small part of the site was reserved for a branch library when the city's libraries were under its control. This opened in 1959, having been lobbied for by ward councillors since the 1920s, but is now replaced by a small block of flats.

The whole of the north side of Hatfield Road has now been explored, from The Crown to Beaumont Avenue, which the author hopes readers have enjoyed.  After a suitable interval we will turn our attention to the south side of the road from The Crown itself, along a similar distance to Ashley Road.

The Garage

 Between the twin shops, which were the subjects of the previous post, and the Beaumont Avenue corner were a small number of villa homes which had been built before the First World War, although these are not for us to discuss here.  To the east of the two shops were two adjacent plots which had been acquired by Mr A Johnson of Grosvenor Road, presumably for investment, for they remained empty until the mid-1920s.  Two further properties,  a detached house (233) and a bungalow (235) and both owned by George and Arthur Curgenven respectively, were eventually subsumed in to the business originally launched by the Currell family. There was also a triangular plot at the rear, next to the alley (Crosspath) which belonged to the Oakley family of Sheephouse Farm, London Colney.

A pair of plots purchased by Henry and Sydney Currell in the mid 1920s is bordered in orange.  To
its right is a house and bungalow built at the same time but eventually demolished to enlarge the
commercial premises; the house to allow for an exit from the site, and the bungalow to provide
multiple parking for car sales and rentals.  The green plot was originally owned by the Oakley's of London Colney. Map published in 1937.
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What would happen here was connected with Henry George Currell who, in 1907, moved with his family from North Mymms to Burnham Road and then Princes Road (later renamed Woodstock Road South) in Fleetville.  A son, Sydney George, was born in 1909, and in 1927 father and son jointly set up a haulage and motor repair business by acquiring the two plots 229 and 231 (the orange block in the map above).  At the road end a house was constructed for Sydney and from which the business was run, while workshops occupied the rear and later expanded onto the former Oakley nursery garden (edge in green on the above map) as Currells' business grew.  People walking along the alley always had a clear view of the business premises, and foliage permitting, would still do were it not for the size of the current building.

When first opened in 1927 there was just one access, but as the number of visiting vehicles grew a one-way system developed with a separate exit on the eastern side of the site, the space for which required the demolition of another house.

Expansion of the business widely advertised in the Herts Advertiser, this
in 1937.
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Given the space, and the servicing facilities available, the business expanded in the mid thirties, first into house and office removals, and a little later into a carrier business, which made efficient use of vans and trucks which might otherwise lay idle.

This photo was included in the previous blog.  Of the three properties to the right, the first was 
Sydney Currell's house, the second, belonging to George Curgenven, was demolished for
the exit driveway, and the bungalow far right belonged to Arthur Curgenven and was
demolished to provide multiple parking for rental cars.
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Currell's remained under family control until 1948 when the wide-ranging nationalisation British Transport Commission was formed and road haulage was rebadged British Road Services (BRS). Most of its vehicles were painted National green or National red.  From then on the comings and goings along Hatfield Road became more frequent and vehicle sizes larger.

BRS transferred to the Transport Holding Company in 1963 and was  charged with disposing of those premises not required.  The site was soon sold to Valliant Coaches and then Smith of Maddiston Haulage.  Before the end of the decade we were all offered the opportunity of calling in as Sydney Currell's house was taken down and the Hatfield Road Petrol Filling Station opened, initially with attended service.

Five separate plots eventually became one transport hub!
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Competition from a duplicate station across the road owned by St Albans Co-operative Society on its former bakery site eventually ensured that neither survived in the face of increasingly larger petrol stations owned by the major oil companies.  The former Currell's site turned its attention to car sales and to vehicle hire, which is why we had Milcars and Thrifty Car & Van Rental more recently.

This site has certainly entertained a busy schedule in the past (almost) one hundred years. 

Traditional Semi-detached Pair

 After taking a short break from exploring the north side of Hatfield Road, and having reached the recently redeveloped former trading premises, we discover a pair of semi-detached homes erected in the mid 1920s.  They do not appear on an OS map until the 1937 edition but were occupied as residences during the 1920s.

Circled are the two shops which are 225 and 227 Hatfield Road, first erected in the 1920s as
private residences, but only remained as such for a few years.  To the left of the circle is the detached house, until recently Bugess & Co, and to the right the car franchise.
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As has been usual along Hatfield Road it did not take long for conversions to take place into retail premises.  Let's begin with recent trading for those of us who walk past the shops today. Number 225 is a convenience store which is akin to what the shop has always been identified with.  The name on the fascia for much of its time had been Leon Turner, a business taken on by Leon Ralph Turner, whose family lived in Sandpit Lane, close to the Beaumonts Cottages.  Eventually, the shop became part of a franchise, but it has always remained a local convenience shop strategically located at the eastern end of the "mile of shops" along Hatfield Road.

The two local shops, each with the original arched front doors still visible and the modifications
needed to convert to shop frontages.  Photograph taken in 1964.
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Number 227 has had more opportunist owners in recent years, now supplying small office needs, but for most of its time customers came here for their basic ironmongery and domestic goods sold to them by Mary Blackstaffe; her husband meanwhile working as an engineer.

There were very little in thew way of rear garden spaces as most were accommodated by the factories which were the subject of the previous post.

Recent view in which cars are parked on what would have been the front garden space had the
properties remained residences.  Note that the blue canopy to the right replaced the former
detached house described in the next post.

The photograph taken in 1964 shows a neat and uncluttered frontage to the shops, in spite of the open air "showroom" in front of Blackstaffe's.  My own recollections of purchases from the 1940s and 50s included slices of carbolic soap from a long bar, washing crystals sold by weight in paper bags, and household candles – essential during the times when electric power cuts were a regular occurrence.  The times have treated the frontage reasonably well.  Number 225 lost its original front door (access was via its narrow sideway), becoming part of the shop converted from the original front living room.  Number 227's display area spilled into its hall while leaving the structure much the same.

When closed the building presents a very different
atmosphere.

Today the plot boundaries of many properties are not so clearly defined as usages have changed, and this includes the fence boundary to the right of number 227, the lack of which today gives a false impression of the vehicle access width past the next property I will describe; the one which until recently belonged to Milcars.  That, and the triangle of land behind will be for next time.  Although an attempt was made in the 1930s to add a further parade of shops, such expansion did not come about; Turner's and Blackstaffe's effectively calling a full stop to Fleetville's shopping facilities.