A Better Entrance

This week we pause to consider a few of the issues which come about when a site is purchased and a note on a planning map: "future school", or in the case of Hatfield Road "future schools".

Whether primary or secondary there was a huge difference between what was provided in an educational building. In today's terms the facilities to be found in the pre 1902 Board schools or the later elementary establishments can be considered very basic , where even effective winter heating might be absent.  The County Council, on its formation, became responsible for building and maintaining schools where they were needed.  In the early years after formation in 1889 the Council engaged an architect for each individual school, but in the 20th century it set up an increasingly sophisticated architect department to develop standards common to groups of schools; and these standards developed and improved with time.

The Rural School Board were responsible for creating a school for the widely-spread child
population in surrounding hamlets.

So, using just a few select examples, what did we discover from actual experience?

You would have thought a mains water supply was a basic requirement, but Camp Elementary School was opened without a water supply extended this far from the nearest supply; and in Sandridge senior boys were detailed to carry water buckets from the village pump when required.

In 1908 (Fleetville Elementary School) lavatories were strictly outside at the far end of the playground; and the playground surface was gritted.

When the land was purchased for senior education in Fleetville the space was deemed sufficient for one boys' and one girls' school.  Ten years later when the girls Central School was built only one school could be accommodated.

The County Architect Department developed a building style with interchangeable components
This style of building is widely distributed across the county.  Staff at Beaumont Boys' School
in 1959.

By 1938 when the two senior schools were required even more urgently, Beaumont got its pupils in one building, girls upstairs and boys on the ground floor, with the absolute minimum of sharing!  Playing field space, according to the government, was required to be even greater.  The site reserved for a girls' grammar school in Brampton Road was instead used for a boys' school, while new housing hemmed the school in on all sides.  The regulations required more playing field acreage for boys than for girls; which is why the pupils of the Boys' Grammar School (now Verulam) have, since 1938, walked to their remote site in Sandpit Lane, and continue to do so.

A hall was multi-purpose in the early days, with a requirement to divide into two classrooms, even in the 1920s (London Colney).  It must also double up as a gymnasium in 1930 (Central).  Even Beaumont (1938) was in build when the next advance came, and a separate gymnasium with changing rooms became a new requirement.  This facility was also added to Central later.

When Beaumonts Girls' and Boys' Schools were designed a gymnasium what not required 
separate from the hall.  This new requirement was added as the schools were nearing completion.
Changing rooms were included.  When more modern sports hall facilities were later built the 
gymnasium was converted into a library centre.

From 1930 a platform suitable for drama was added to the hall at Central, and at Townsend an adjacent room was included for teaching and changing purposes, and by 1938 (Beaumont) two small classrooms were added for changing rooms.  Similar improvements were made for staff facilities and administration.  And considering many school still closed at lunchtimes down to the 1920s, catering facilities weren't added until post-war with many schools being supplied from central kitchens elsewhere in the city.

A detached house was included when required for the caretaker and his/her family.  This is at the Fleetville Juniors site, formerly Central, Girls' Grammar, Beaumont Girls, Sandfield; all names
applied to schools occupying the Hatfield Road school site since 1931.  The house no longer
serves its original function.

When schools might be built further away from the urban area and where caretakers need to be close at hand, the authority either acquired a nearby house or had one built in a part of the site.  This added provision was in place by the mid 1930s (Central – detached house), Marshalswick  (bungalow in 1959) and St Albans College (flat in 1959).

The main entrances to schools were also given a more prominent statement where possible.  Central was added in 1937 when the caretaker's house was built.  The need for parking, visitors, staff and other vehicular pressures often limited the possibilities, and Beaumont was only significantly improved within the last two or three years.

Camp and Fleetville schools have had to squeeze more onto their fixed plots even, in Camp's case the removal of a former head teacher's house, and in both cases removal of part of the schools' infrastructure onto new sites (Fleetville Juniors across the road onto Central,  overcrowding of Camp to form Windermere, and overcrowding of Fleetville to form Fleetville Extension School, renamed Oakwood).

Battle From Hastings

 Occasionally, this blog takes a diversion from any series of posts which is currently running.  As regular readers already appreciate we are steadily working our way along the south side of Hatfield Road, but the previous post gave us a rare opportunity to explore a newly discovered turnpike mile post.  It came about through an exploration of what would, in the 1920s and 30s, have been a small rural school along Watford Road which was under threat of closure.  After that closure had taken place shortly before World War Two, the children having transferred to the new Mount Pleasant School, Bricket Wood, the building seems to have re-opened again in 1940.

A weekend camp by children from Hastings Grammar Boys' School while in Hertfordshire
during 1942.
COPYRIGHT UNKNOWN

St Albans played host to two groups of schools (and at least one college) for at least part of the duration of the war.  The first group arrived with the Pied Piper evacuation in September 1939 with schools from Camden, among them Princess Road, Haverstock Hill, Rhyll and New End.  The following year a second wave of evacuations arrived from the Hastings area, including the town's grammar schools. No definitive list of all schools who moved has been located, nor their host schools in the receiving areas, in our case St Albans.  So when a new school is discovered it is a cause for celebration, partly because it still triggers personal memories, and partly because it is part of the story for both host and evacuated schools and their towns.

Children from St Mary-at-the-Castle School, Hastings enjoying a meal at St Stephen's
Parish Hall in November 1940.
COURTESY HERTS ADVERTISER

In November 1940 the Herts Advertiser published a photograph of children and staff of St Mary-in-the-Castle School, Hastings.  They are seen enjoying a meal sitting in St Stephen's Parish Hall.  So far we do not know to which local school they were attached, but it is possible that the parish hall and St Stephen's closed school could  have been sufficient to accommodate them; St Mary's was not a large establishment.  From the above photograph it is clear that at least some of the children were of junior age, and as with many schools at the time St Mary's was an elementary School with all three departments, infant, junior and senior located in very old and outdated buildings in the cramped centre of Hastings.

We know the name of three adults from the caption: J W Brittain was the Head who accompanied the children, along with member of teaching staff Miss F A Poole.  Mrs Foster was the cook, who may have been local, or an adult – perhaps a parent – who came with the school.

The red roofed building in the centre, the former St Mary-in-the Castle School, still stands
in the centre of Hastings, but a current school with this name no longer exists, no doubt
having been subsumed into one or more larger establishments during the post-war period.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

Some south coast schools returned to their home towns in 1942 when the bombing threats had subsided and it is assumed St Mary's did likewise. Before the school moved to St Albans the Sussex local authority had been planning a re-organisation of its schools and buildings.  When that process resumed after the war the original intention of retaining the original St Mary building came to nothing owing to its poor condition, and under new names and sites this and other schools became part of the Ore reorganisation in the 1950s.

Nevertheless, the people of St Albans were no doubt pleased to have hosted St Mary's-in-the-Castle School during its wartime evacuation. Equally, it is to be hoped the St Mary's children and their teachers enjoyed their time with us.  We know that many former evacuee children, as well as their hosts, remain in contact with each other via bespoke organisations, some with their own regular newsletters.  It may yet be possible to recover some memories of the connection between St Mary-in-the-Castle, Hastings, and St Albans.

More Turnpike Evidence

 The former Reading & Hatfield Turnpike road in the 18th and 19th centuries divided the north and south sides of Ellenbrook, Oaklands and Fleetville before the tolls were removed and the road was maintained at public expense by the Country authority.  Today we call it Hatfield Road which continues on its way through St Albans, St Stephen's Hill and Watford Road to Watford and Reading.

The mile marker along Hatfield Road outside Popefield Farm, near Smallford.

There is plenty we don't know about the turnpike's workings and toll collecting, but most of us are familiar with the Listed mile markers, still in position along the north side of the road.  If you wish to know more about the road in its toll days visit: 

http://www.stalbansowneastend.org.uk/topic-selection/turnpike-road/

The mile markers shown on that webpage are the only ones remaining; most of those following St Stephen's Hill through to Rickmansworth are missing, although they are referred to on the 1937 survey of the Ordnance Survey maps, and it is therefore assumed they remained by the roadside at least until then.  Many people are also aware that road signs were removed as a defensive measure at the beginning of WW2.  However, since no-one seems to recall those east of St Albans being removed and then returned, can the local authority be relied on to have treated those south of the city in the same way, even if it was the same authority?  Clearly not, since they are still not in place.

It has been suggested that the easiest method of managing such heavy metal objects when trying to remove them was to dig a hole beside each one, tip it in and cover it – job done!  But was that the full story and are the posts still there, below the ground nearby?

The focus of this post is the former mile post close to the Noke Hotel.

This section of the 1937 OS map shows the St Albans bypass (North Orbital Road) joining the Watford Road from the top right, at the location everyone knows as The Noke. The red circle identifies the position of the turnpike mile post to the left of the first and only carriageway when the new road was first built.  Lye Lane is the minor road crossing the bypass from the lower right.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Quite by chance recently the Editor was following proposals during the 1930s for Hertfordshire County Council to close small rural schools and move any residual pupils into nearby town schools.  One such building was the school room in Watford Road which languished with 30 children by the time it closed in the 1930s, which is strange on two counts.  First, the Burston estate was being broken up and developed for housing, becoming the formative Chiswell Green.  The council, meanwhile pressed on with a new JMI school at Mount Pleasant, Bricket Wood; quite a distance for walking children from new St Stephen's and Chiswell Green homes.

The second consideration the council did not take into account was the completion of the St Albans By-Pass, linking up with Watford Road as far as the A41.  When first built it was a fast traffic single carriageway, but children from Chiswell Green and St Stephen's would have needed to cross this bypass to reach their new Mount Pleasant, for which the council provided a crossing patrol four times a day to supervise up to one hundred children across the bypass.

The lunchtime crossing patrol from the Lye Lane side. Between the second and third child from
the right can be spotted the light coloured turnpike mile post along the far fence line.
COURTESY HERTS ADVERTISER

Even today the road infrastructure has a dropped kerb and a fenced-off central reservation to enable
pedestrians to cross both carriageways.  This is where the children crossed in 1939.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

For our evidence it was fortunate the council elected to make the crossing point opposite Lye Lane; and it was also fortunate the Herts Advertiser considered the decision worthy of sending a staff photographer to the site.  The picture was taken as the children returned home at lunchtime and was standing where the bus layby is today.  It was taken at the beginning of June 1939.  What a responsibility for Mr H J Cornwall, the crossing man holding the board announcing "STOP. Crossing Patrol".

Now, just look between the second and third children from the right.  Along the fence line, and sitting just where the map says it should, is the turnpike mile marker, 3 miles from St Albans and 5 from Watford.  The Herts Advertiser has proved it.

An altogether more complex junction today for even faster traffic, buses, crossing
pedestrians (probably after leaving or boarding a bus) and vehicles leaving/joining one of
the side roads. The newer carriageway is on the left.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

However, there is no point using a metal detector at the site today in the hope of locating the buried object.  Several improvements have been made to the bypass since then, including a second carriageway on that side of the road.  It may now be under the newer tarmac, or may have been removed from the site along with countless tons of rubble and subsoil in the construction of the dualled road.

But at least we still have photographed evidence it was present at the correct spot along the road in June 1939 and that several times a day it was passed by dozens of children on their way to and from Mount Pleasant School.

The location of the next turnpike mile marker was here (MP), along Watford Road, opposite its
junction with Laburnum Grove, just where the main road was a little wider.  Before
World War Two houses had not been built on the west side of Watford Road.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The Watford Road/Laburnum Road junction today.  Do you think anyone took a photograph here
sometime before 1939?
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

And if anyone has a collection of photos pictures taken along Watford Road in Chiswell Green and taken in the 1930s, evidence of the next marker would be useful.  It stood opposite the end of Laburnam Grove, where Watford Road was always a little wider and where there is now a service road.  Before the war no new homes had been built opposite Laburnum Grove so the view would have been of open fields.

The account this week may not be be about the East End, but it is the same road which connects the two.  Let's try and solve the puzzle of  another turnpike mile marker.

Educational Future

 While we can way find our way along Hatfield Road by means of the frontage shops, we now have a choice: the premises which line the south side of the road, and the occupier of the back land.  We have reached the next of the fields owned by the St Albans Grammar School.  Hertfordshire County Council planned a three-stage re-organisation of schools which had been a mix of board and elementary schools, which had themselves been borne from an earlier collection of British and National schools.  One desperately urgent need was to separate senior pupils from infants and juniors to provide senior schools and distinct Junior Mixed and Infant Schools.

In 1925 Fleetville and Camp districts possessed no schools for senior children of either gender, and the council agreed to purchase a site of less than five acres for a pair of senior schools.  Quite what it thought would fit on this acreage for two schools and its attendant playgrounds is debatable, quite apart from a playing field.

The 1924 map shows the cemetery and a large undeveloped space to its east.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Timber yard – see previous post – and a number of shops and business to the west by the time the
1937 map was published.  Behind is the site of the Central and Senior Girls' School in its original
square building and the separate handicraft building.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

From around 1918 a central school for girls had been operating in a rather ramshackle set of buildings in Victoria Street – partly a former  library, an arts and technology centre, boys' handicraft rooms and a school for girls who would benefit from a full four-year curriculum not limited to the existing leaving age of thirteen.  Most of these spaces had to be shared and were not for the exclusive use of the school.  And as the number of qualifying girls increased the available space became crowded.

New premises was desperately needed for the school and for practical rooms which could be shared with elementary schools lacking in these facilities.  So, new central school buildings came to Hatfield Road, and a search for a new pair of senior schools for the eastern districts would continue (and was eventually found at Oakwood Drive in 1938).

A cooking lesson in one of the practical classrooms.
COURTESY JENNY BOLTON

The new Central and Senior Girls' School school had no need of a frontage to the main road and so was not included in the sale to the education authority.  One pedestrian entrance, still used as such, was created at the eastern end between a motor factor (then West & Sellick and now CAMRA), and a further entry at the western end, later improved for access to the ancillary buildings, parking and a caretaker's house.

A typical HCC architectural design from the 1930s, of expanded buildings at Hatfield Road.
COURTESY JENNY BOLTON

By 1938 the school was changed to become a secondary St Albans Girls' Grammar School, with attendant increases in accommodation and for an increase in places.  In 1951 a new site was built for STAGGS in Sandridgebury Lane, originally intended to become a boys' secondary modern school – the county council changed its mind several times during this period!

Original handicraft and pupil teacher buildings, now unused on the site.

Overcrowded Fleetville JMI school earnestly hoped the former girls' school buildings would be available for them, but the inadequate Beaumont schools, new in 1938, became a boy's secondary modern and its girls formed a new school in Hatfield Road, first as Beaumont Girls school, and then altering its name to Sandfield Girls to avoid the name Beaumont being used for two sites in different locations. All of this new accommodation was required for an increase in the leaving age to 15. Instead, Fleetville Overflow School was constructed in Oakwood Drive, being named Oakwood JMI School in 1958 when it opened.

Aerial view of the current school, playing field, ancillary buildings and the former Family Centre.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

Sandfield School later merged with Marshalswick Boys' School at The Ridgeway; and the parents of Fleetville JMI made a further attempt to move from their, by now, even more overcrowded Royal Road location.  This time they were more successful and the Junior department became custodians of the Hatfield Road buildings in 1975, enabling the infant department to spread out in Royal Road.

Fleetville Junior School is therefore the longest of the five occupiers of the buildings at forty-six years.  The first two occupiers would even have experienced the occasional passing of a train on the southern boundary!