Absent Photo: Third Hand Chapel

 This week we'll remain in Hatfield Road and walk westwards towards the Bycullah Terrace shops, opposite Morrison's in Fleetville.  A most unusual story is about to be revealed – and for further pages on this topic see the links at the foot of this post.

OS map 1922.  The vacant land belonging to the printing works bordered in red; that leased for the
cinematograph bordered in orange – and is now the Post Office plot.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

On the western corner of the Woodstock Road South junction is the Post Office; that is where our story is centred. Before the First World War its name was Tess Road.  Apart from the then new Bycullah Terrace shops the nearest Hatfield Road buildings would have been at Harlesden Road to the west and the villas which were the subject of the previous post to the east; although the printing works owner had employee homes in nearby Royal Road and Arthur Road.  Hatfield Road did look strikingly empty in spite of the opening of the elementary school in 1908. I should confirm that the printing works, The Fleet Works, was the first business to set up hereabouts, and was located where Morrison's store is today.

An impresario, maybe of doubtful reputation, arrived in town, and took a lease on the corner plot from the owner of the printing works opposite.  He may, or may not, have erected a board announcing the imminent arrival of a new cinematograph building in keeping with the entertainment fashion of the day.  His name was Russell Edwards and was previously known to the courts for various financial irregularities.

Hatfield Road c1914.  Smith's printing works on the left; Bycullah Terrace shops on the right.
Arrowed is the vacant land just beyond the shops and where Russell Edwards chose to
assemble his cinematograph building, a former chapel or parish hall.

There arrived on the scene several cart loads of metal, timber and panels of corrugated iron.  They had been brought from the Midland (now City) Station where their rail journey from Colne in Lancashire (or Colne Valley, Yorkshire) had begun.  Local people had become used to quirky buildings and Meccano-type temporary structures before.  Tin churches were quite common. But what was this one? Difficult to work it out from the piles of assorted stuff on one corner of the site, although it apparently wasn't certain whether the stacks were fully on the correct site or partly overflowing onto the adjacent plot, which Edwards also chose to use without the owner's permission.

During the next few weeks a variable number of casual workmen turned up each day to assemble what today would be called a pre-used building.  In fact it wasn't even second-hand, but third-hand, and it appears that several assorted parts were missing.  The structure's last use was as a chapel or parish hall, so is that what the people of Fleetville were going to get?  If the workmen can be persuaded to remain at work – many had not been paid for some time –  the word on the street was they were being promised a cinematograph building.

This would have been the view of the building from Hatfield Road.  The projector box, far 
left, was thought not to have been part of the acquired kit and would have been added on
site, if there had been space without incursion on to the neighbouring plot. Tess Road
(now Woodstock Road south) is on the immediate right.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

The Council was offered a set of plans, as shown in the images below, and proposals for a building which the Council may not have been aware was already in build.  Unfortunately, the Council turned down the plans, because as Russell Edwards had been enterprisingly concocting his Fleetville project a new safety law, the Cinemas Act, was added to the statute books.  This specified how cinematograph buildings should be built, what facilities they should comprise and the standard of those facilities.  The new Fleeville cinematograph, it turns out, did not comply and was not likely to have been the comfortable exhibition building customers might have expected. 

The proposed plan for seating (green) supposedly for up to 450 customers.  There appears not to

be a specific place for payment to be made, although many early buildings ran on the fairground

principle with moneys collected outside.  Electricity had only arrived in St Albans in 1908 and it

would be some while before Fleetville would benefit.  The Engine Shed would have housed

a generator.

COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

There were other issues too.  One of Edwards' investors was lied to about the details of the project and suffered other financial problems. The purchased building was also too large for the plot, and instead of modifying the structure to fit, he instructed his workmen to "borrow" a part of the next plot, which unfortunately had not been fenced off.

There is no doubt, it was a basic building on a flat floor – even though the elevation drawing shows a sloped floor – and would not have been appropriate for use in winter.  There was one male urinal and no evidence of toilet facilities for female customers.  A tiny porch opened out onto the footpath of Hatfield Road.  If you were to visit the Post Office today, including the vet's premises next door, and then walk round the corner to the rear of the Post Office plot, that is where the promised 450 cinematograph viewers would have supposedly been accommodated on their chairs.  

The building never opened to the public; wasn't even finished. Edwards was taken to court for various financial irregularities and non-payments to creditors or his workmen.  Edwards was imprisoned, but meanwhile the court sitting required the building to be demolished, the component parts and the land sold to reimburse creditors.  So Fleetville residents never got to be entertained here.

Although the opportunity was very brief, did anyone grab a camera and record any part of the construction, particularly the nearest it reached to completion?  Or maybe even the workmen who were not paid but had to return home to their families to put meals on their tables.  Fortunately, we do have access to the plans and elevations, which are shown here, but unlike artists painting what is in front of them, can we be sure there were drawings of the original structure when it was in use at Colne?  Did W H G Hubbard, architect, make his drawings from measurements, from the building's original site, or from a company sales catalogue?

The cinematograph site remained cleared for sixteen years before the current building was
erected in 1930 for A Rankin Smith.

A photograph demonstrating how the building appeared in its street setting would be a rare example of any building work actually in progress in this new suburb, but such activity did not, it appears, excite anyone who owned a camera.  Following the cinematograph's  demolition it would be another sixteen years before another building would be brought to this corner plot; the store and post office of A Rankin Smith.

At this period just before the First World War there was an increase in the number of people who had taken an interest in photography, using their skills to sell copies of their negatives to the locals, or as artistic views of street scenes at events across a wider geographical landscape.  Perhaps, even during such a short construction period, one photographic image might have been taken.  But does it still exist?

Link to Fleetville Cinema on SAOEE website.

Link to blog post "Missed the Flicks": https://stalbansowneastend.blogspot.com/2020/09/missed-flicks.html