Business Honeypots

 At the start of the new year may I take this opportunity of wishing everyone New Year Greetings, and hope you continue to enjoy exploring with me another thirty or more stories about our East End during the coming twelve months.

Herts Advertiser front page 13 February 1866
COURTESY NATIONAL NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE

Just before Christmas a fellow researcher forwarded a file depicting the front page of a very differently designed Herts Advertiser dated 3rd February 1866.  It was full of detail as can be seen here, above, and very different from today's newspaper of the same name.  The purpose of sending me the file was the publication of the opening of Springfield Station along the freshly completed Hatfield & St Albans Railway.

Or, to make it clearer to read:

THE GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY HATFIED & ST ALBANS BRANCH

Notice is hereby given that a NEW STATION is now open for public traffic AT SPRINGFIELD on the above branch between St Albans and Hatfield. London February 1866.

Two points to mention before continuing with the account: the station name was later changed to Smallford; and the route, now closed, can today be walked as Alban Way, with the station building still extant behind its platform.  I will return to this station later in the post.

Smallford Station, opened as Springfield Station
COURTESY ROGER TAYLOR

Yard from which businesses worked at Smallford Station.
COURTESY ROGER TAYLOR

London Road Station.
COURTESY ROGER TAYLOR

What was not brought to my attention, and which is equally interesting, are two further advertisements on the same front page about another station – in fact the only other original station on the branch line – St Albans, which much later was better known as St Albans London Road.

The full advertisement highlighting the station's opening is shown earlier, but the advert above is also an astute piece of joint enterprise; the company advertised the opening of the station, and Mr Fordham, who had promptly opened his coal sales business at the station yard, announced his products in terms of types of coal and their prices.  It is likely that the standard terms of business were that Mr Fordham's prices included delivery to customer's premises.  An additional offer to potential customers states:

An allowance will be made for the toll gate to purchasers sending their own carts.  

Today we would call it a discount!  Mr Fordham may have considered this to be a brilliant way to pull in customers.  But he was not the only business operating at the station. A larger panel at the top of the page announced Messrs Fish & Ford occupying a site at the Yard, or Wharf, at the station.  A number of coals is shown, although they were not priced.  However, in a space at the end was displayed:

NB. TOLL GATE ALLOWED.

Today that brief statement may not mean much to us, but we will try to understand further.  What links these two advertisements, and ultimately the Springfield opening at the top of this post, is the existence of a toll gate.

Turnpike roads, such as those passing through London Road and Hatfield Road, were a useful private enterprise device by government in the 18th and 19th centuries to improve the national road network without the government of the day becoming directly involved.  The turnpike trusts, once set up, may have been very successful financially, but often they found it increasingly difficult to balance the books at times when the cost of maintenance exceeded income from tolls and ever more sophisticated evasion methods and avoidance of payments.  Eventually, government bought out trusts when their terms became due and transferred responsibility for them, first of all to Highways Boards and subsequently to the then new county highway authorities. 

London Road was part of the St Albans Turnpike Trust which extended to Ridge. London Road Station, opened in 1866, had to negotiate the issues of existing beside a turnpike road until the early 1870s when tolls were no longer collected from the nearest gate at the junction of London Road and Old London Road.

Charges varied according to the amount of wear caused to the road and frequency of travel; thus owners of large carts and horses paid more, and empty wagons were charged less than loaded ones.  The modern principle of a carnet was also in use for frequent use carters.  A business which relied on taking coal from the station, or customers arriving to collect coal, all required access via the toll road and the company's business plan had to take this irritant into account.  It appears that Mr Fordham built his toll charges into the price per ton of coal, but he could offer a lower price for customers bringing their own carts or wagons because they have borne the toll. Their discount was, it seems, unspecified, opening up some negotiation at the time of payment.

Messrs Fish & Ford enticed their customers by stating there is a prior financial arrangement at the toll gate, implying they can pass through without payment, but presumably the price per ton is a little higher.

The former Horseshoes toll house, demolished in 1935, is on the left. Gates protected the road ahead.
COURTESY THE HERTS ADVERTISER

The London Road toll house and gate looking towards the city.  The entry to Old London Road
was to the left. The toll house stood on the open space which today is at the apex of the flats of Tollhouse Point.

The Reading & Hatfield Turnpike was not a well managed Trust but it struggled on for longer, finally locking the gates open in 1881.  Coal businesses also set up at Springfield/Smallford station at the same time as at London Road.  I have not seen references in these  adverts for discounts or prior arrangements with the Horseshoes toll gate.  There were certainly properties along or close to Hatfield Road/St Albans Road West, but many householders, and the businesses themselves, may have been able to avoid the turnpike altogether in favour of nearby lanes, even if the journey was a little 

longer.  

There is no hint of a complication in purchasing coal from Springfield Station in this advertisement competing for space on the same front page:

SPRINGFIELD RAILWAY STATION

J CONSTABLE begs to inform the gentry and inhabitants of the neighbourhood, that he has commenced the business of a COAL MERCHANT at the above address, where he intends to supply the public with the best Coals at the lowest possible prices, and for which he begs to solicit the favour of their patronage.  Orders will be promptly attended to.  All coals direct from the Colliery.

There was certainly competition in the air, but who might have given the best terms?