Ellenbrook in 1946

 In the next of the series of posts inspired by a series of aerial photographs, we have hovered over Ellenbrook, which before modern times was neither part of Hatfield nor an outlier of St Albans.  A collection of aerial photographs appears on the website of Historic England (HE), part of a survey undertaken by the RAF in 1946.  Unless HE has been selective in what it has published from its archive we believe the survey aircraft made a single sweep west-to-east over St Albans.

The featured imaged looks down on part of St Albans Road West and de Havilland Aircraft
Company.  This 1946 survey shot also includes the Comet Hotel (right lower centre) finished in 1936.
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To locate our bearings, the image above is broadly as map and compass with north at the top of the photo.  The road in the lower half of the picture is St Albans Road West with Smallford on the left.  It joins what is now Comet Way (formerly called the Barnet Bypass laid in the 1920s) which joins the photo on the right from the Welwyn Garden City direction and sweeps southeastwards to meet the A1 – now the A1(M) Roehyde Interchange.  The only other roads  of note are the private service road linking the many facilities within de Havilland Aircraft Company, and in the top right corner a lane which linked St Albans Road West and Harpsfield Hall Farm.  The remains of this farm could be seen to the right of the lane.  

Harpsfield Hall Farm which was demolished to accommodate the expansive aeronautical activity.

A late 1920s view of the Flying Club between the completion of the bypass and the
arrival of de Havilland Aircraft Company, which relocated from Stag Lane,
Edgware. The future site of Comet Hotel is left centre with the mentioned 
Ellenbrook homes c1910 beyond along St Albans Road West meandering towards
St Albans.

From the massive hanger to the smaller specialist workshops this company had, of course, completed its massive output of Mosquito aircraft.  It had first occupied the site in 1929, taking over parts of three farms: Harpsfield in the north-east, Nast Hyde in the south, and Popefield in the west.

However, the landscape was not completely empty when DH arrived, for the London Flying Club had occupied the eastern part of the site from the early 1920s.  During that time it was known as the Hatfield Airfield.  

There was even development activity before then.  During the first decade of the 20th century land from Nast Hyde was sold to defray costs of upgrading Great Nast Hyde House.  New houses were erected in St Albans Road West and in Ellenbrook Lane from 1910, and to attract potential owners a golf course was laid out beyond the north side of St Albans Road West, and an agreement was reached with the Great Northern Railway to erect a halt (Nast Hyde Halt) so that residents could board a train to Hatfield Station and then join a fast service to London Kings Cross.  The development was brought to a halt soon after 1914 with the golf course later buried under DH's runway.  Housing on the south side of the main road eventually became the Selwyn and Poplar estates.

Ordnance Survey map from 1937 showing the location of the former homes on the north side
of St Albans Road West.  Comet Hotel is at the map's centre.
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Occupying a broad swathe across the middle of the aerial photo can be seen a few of the early Nast Hyde houses, sandwiched between the main road and the DH service road. Most of the heads of household had London-based jobs, which supported their wide and long plots on which were spacious detached homes.  The house furthest east (where now is the Mosquito roundabout) can be identified by its wide C-shaped front drive.  It was later converted into a social base for the Flying Club; and the last house in the development became a hotel now known as Beales.

As the land demands of de Havillands increased so the houses along the main road were sacrificed.  If you had travelled from St Albans to Hatfield by bus in the post-war period you may have been aware of the homes – and then they were gone!  Today the expansive university parking zone occupies where those families once lived.

The Benskin Comet Hotel newly finished in 1936, showing the beacon on the roof.

In order to allow the Barnet Bypass to connect with the A1 in the late 1920s – shown on the photograph lined with poplar trees – the then  Ministry of Transport negotiated with the Nast Hyde estate to purchase a swathe of land.  Benskin's Brewery took the opportunity of purchasing a triangle of land in a prime position just where the bypass curved off towards the south-west.  The public house and hotel which it had built, and is now listed, took its name from the newly arrived de Havilland Aircraft Company, calling it the Comet, referring not to the post war jet aircraft but the Comet Racer of the thirties.  A motif of this iconic aeroplane has been displayed on the hotel's frontage ever since.  

The Comet Hotel was not just an ordinary hotel design. The architect was keen to shape it in the form of an aeroplane, which can really only be appreciated from the air.  Cockpit, fuselage, tail and wings, albeit stumpy ones, can all be identified.  It is possible that the wings could later have been extended had the need arisen, but this did not occur.  Today the Comet has been fully restored to its original design, following a number of ill-conceived alterations over the years.  Even the roof beacon has been replaced, the purpose of which had been to guide early pilots of small aircraft to the airfield in the days before radio guidance.  The grounds appear surprisingly spacious and the car park uncluttered; although in 1946 a new entrance/exit has been laid to Comet Way to add to the access on St Albans Road West.  The gardens to the rear of the Hotel have now themselves been developed with new student accommodation.

The extension to the top featured image, also taken in 1946.  The C-shaped drive at the house opposite
the Comet Hotel car park is on the extreme left (both of the lower left corner), and the turn-off right towards Hatfield is top right, above which can be seen the former Stone House Hotel with the light coloured surfacing.  Its location can be identified because the road St Albans Road West still exist although the bypass end is now covered by the Galleria car park.
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This week I have added an extension to the featured aerial image, borrowed from part of the adjacent photo.  The main road eastwards joins the Barnet ByPass, and from memory was controlled by a set of traffic signals.  By the 1950s the bypass was very busy and Hatfield New Town was emerging.  On the supplementary image the junction is on the lower left – just below that C-shaped front drive I wrote about above.  To reach the centre of Hatfield by bike, car or bus, vehicles kept to the right lane on the bypass until reaching the wide gap at the next junction on the right, which is a continuation of St Albans Road West.  When traffic flow allowed drivers moved forward to enter the new road.  Today this is at the parking end of the Galleria.

Cavendish Road bridge when newly finished in 1956.  The photograph was taken from the 
Queensway roundabout.  The bridge was demolished c1983 and replaced by ...
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... a flatter bridge under which is the Hatfield Tunnel.  The Galleria shopping centre, on the far side on the right, was constructed over the tunnel.
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Of course, today at the  roundabout in front of the Comet Hotel there is a new road, Cavendish Way, which is part of Hatfield New Town's strategic road network.  When created in the 1950s it bridged the Hatfield & St Albans Railway, which had already closed for passengers.  Hatfield bound buses diverted to this new road and then used Queensway to reach the centre of the New Town.  The bridge was replaced in the 1980s in order to bridge, not only a now closed railway (Alban Way), but also Hatfield Tunnel.

How this entry to Hatfield has altered in the past hundred years.