Absent photo: Brickworks Cottages

Ashley Road crosses between Hatfield Road and Camp Road (left to right).  Brick Knoll Park is
the industrial estate occupying the majority of the photo on the site of the former brickworks.
Cambridge Road meets Ashley Road in the lower part of the image.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

This week we are travelling southwards from Hatfield Road along Ashley Road.  It is a busy highway, a section of the formerly named ring road, and that part of it as far as the bridge was laid out in the 1930s, intended to connect the homes of the Willow estate.  However, the entirety of the route from Hatfield Road to Camp Road had previously been part of a private farm track, with certain permissive rights from 1899 when parts of Beaumonts Farm was sold.  It was known locally by some as the Cinder Track and by others as the Ashpath.  The bridge referred to above, though not the same structure as exists today, was an occupation bridge carrying the farm track over the Hatfield & St Albans Railway (now Alban Way).

Land to the east of the track was believed to have been dug in the late 19th century on a small scale for its clay and used for making bricks.  When the wider area was sold in 1899 this field was specifically marketed for its brick making opportunities.  The brickmaking firm of Fenwick Owen, with existing interests at sites in Welwyn, acquired the field along this track, which today is an industrial estate.  Two parallel roads on the west side of the track, Hedley Road and Cambridge Road, were being developed in the early 1900s although a narrow band of land close to the track was also dug, its clay being taken across to the main works on narrow gauge rail wagons.

Early postwar aerial photograph viewed from above Hill End Hospital towards north-west.
HR = Hatfield Road; CR = Cambridge Road; AR = Ashley Road; HEL = Hill End Lane
red broken line = former Ashpath/Cinder Track; yellow circle = former hump back bridge
green circle = Brickworks Cottages

The major brick making focus grew on the east side; the kilns sited close to the railway leading to a small loading area for the finished products to be removed by train. But the larger area was gradually dug for the clay.  The temporary wagon tracks laid on both sides of the Ashpath transported the raw material to the brick shaping shop  and then to the kilns.  All bricks output from this site were impressed with the letters OSTA (Owen St Albans).

In 1899 when the site was set up this was very much a rural business, with the nearest residential development at The Crown in one direction and a few homes at The Horseshoes in the other.  North and south was open country other than isolated farm houses.  Owen's therefore took the decision to build a group of three cottages at the works for resident employees.  

Top: 1937 OS map; eastern end of Cambridge Road meeting Ashpath/Cinder Track. Brickworks
Cottages circled green.  Below: aerial image of the same map view.  The former Brickworks
Cottages site now under industrial estate car park and outlined in red.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND and GOOGLE EARTH

Of course it took only a few years before housing encroached nearer to the brickmaking, thus benefiting its business.  The cottages, generally known as the Brickworks Cottages, survived until around 1960 although they may not have been occupied during the post-war period.  The works lay dormant during hostilities and a brief revival proved unsuccessful.  The pits were used by St Albans Corporation for tipping refuse during the 1950s, while plant machinery and concrete batching operations leased parts of the southern end.  During the 1960s the Council developed a plan for industrial estates in outer parts of the city, of which this, Brick Knoll Park, was one.

So ended the life of the three brickworks cottages.  Stand at the end of Cambridge Road and look across Ashley Road.  To your right is the road access to Brick Knoll Park industrial estate.  The cottages were located directly opposite and to the left of Brick Knoll Park; they lasted just sixty years.  Given their remoteness they may have been oil lit for a while although it is not clear when or even if mains services were installed.

Brickworks Cottages was one domestic building divided into three cottages and in a remote and unlit part of St Albans well beyond the houses.  So, few people would have taken much notice and most would have been unaware of them.  Does it matter that we have no visual record of them?  Well, a successful company built them (probably using its own bricks) and employed men to produce its output for over fifty years.  Three of those employees were fortunate in living in these dwellings in spite of any discomforts.  

1911 census entry for the Sida family living in the first cottage.
COURTESY THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES

The 1911 census does inform us of three of the early households. Clay miner Edward Sida occupied number 1 with his wife and 7 children, the two oldest also working as clay miners on the site. Number 2 was occupied by James Street, his wife and two school aged children.  James is described as a brickfield labourer.  In the third house was Charles Charge, his wife, two school aged children and the parents of Mrs Charge.  Charles was a brick maker. So, in those three rather isolated dwellings, lived a total of 19 individuals.

Though we may have little idea who they or their families were, nevertheless their lives and their homes deserve to be remembered, and their endeavours remain in many of the houses which others built  in the surrounding streets.

Searches of photographs showing the track from the bridge to Camp Lane (as it was then named) have resulted in a complete blank – so far.  The call therefore goes out: has anyone seen, or owns an image of this section of track and especially Brickworks Cottages?  Until then this little part of St Albans lacks a visual record of its past from 1899 to 1960.