Old Field Names

 Readers will have noted over the years in which this blog has been published that old names for specific locations have been labelled using the names of fields on which, in the end, development had taken place.  Of course, very few people will understand what these names are, or were, and there is only one database which is anything like a complete national reference.  If you are to consult a 19th or 20th century Ordnance Survey map you will discover that fields are given numbers, although the same fields in subsequent surveys are provided with different numbers, which is not always helpful!  The reason is, in part, because during the intervening period land owners or tenants may have separated existing large units into smaller fields, conversely amalgamated smaller fields into larger hedged or fenced areas, or whole farms amalgamated.

The next three map extracts illustrate the issue nicely.  

The above map shows Hatfield Road, coloured brown, at the top, and the Hatfield and
St Albans branch railway further down.  The Avenue (Beaumont Avenue) joins Hatfield Road
and then continues as a track towards the foot of the map.
25 inch OS map surveyed in 1872.
ALL THREE MAPS COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The second map show the same fields on the 25 inch OS 1897 map.

The above map again shows the same fields on the 25 inch OS 1922 map.

On each map the west-to-east road is Hatfield Road with the former Sutton Road turnpike toll house on the extreme left and the junction with the privately-owned Avenue (later Beaumont Avenue) halfway along.  The Hatfield & St Albans branch railway (now Alban Way) disappears off the bottom of each map.  The broken double lines in the top two maps mark the track formerly known as The Ashpath or The Cinder Track linking the Beaumont Avenue junction with the railway bridge and then leaving the bottom of the map.  This track had been made into a road by 1922 and was renamed about this time as Ashley Road.

By reference to the 1872 map the large field which the track intersects is numbered 480 (with an area of 27.538 acres).  By 1897 the same field is numbered 806 and with an almost exact acreage.  But by 1922 the field, by now renumbered 294 is significantly smaller as the western half was sold for development in 1899.  Its working area is down to 13 acres.

The second field to look at in 1872 is east of the first one. Again, each survey numbers them separately. Because, as one sheet of a fuller map we can only see the western part of the field, the area of the complete field number 496 is shown in the margin: 21.212 acres.  The field boundary between those two fields also separates two farms: field 480 belongs to Beaumont's Farm owned by Thomas Kinder, and field 496 is part of Hill End Farm owned by the Gaussen family.

An event in 1920 is recognised in the third map above.  The owner of Hill End Farm from the 1890s was Hertfordshire County Council as owners of Hill End Asylum.  However, the council did not require to use the whole farm, and it therefore chose to dispose of the fields on the Hatfield Road frontage for development.  This is illustrated on the 1922 map where plots are already pegged out and two houses are already complete, the one at the right margin being close to where Oakwood Drive was later laid out on the opposite side of the road.

The third field to pinpoint is on the north side of Hatfield Drive and entirely part of Beaumonts Farm: field 484 (in 1872), 367 (in 1897) and 4 (in 1922).  Although we can't see the northern boundary on these maps, we know that something has changed, as its acreage has reduced from nearly 20 to just under 12.  The northern boundary when the farm was sold in 1929 roughly followed the line of today's Elm Drive.

1840 tithe map covering the same area, although a little extended.  The later railway can be
traced through hedge lines on the west of the map.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

Finally, we'll look back to the map series before the 1872 edition.  Although remarkably well drawn it did not contain as much detail and shows evidence of more basis construction.  It was created in 1840 for this part of Hertfordshire and is widely known as the Tithe Map, considering the purpose for which it was created.  The Award (a written listing) names all of the fields, buildings and other enclosed areas of land, the owners and occupiers, size of enclosed areas from which to calculate value, and the purpose for it was used – payments due to support the church and its organisational structure.  The tithe map was created with east towards the top; when comparing with other maps therefore I have turned the map through 90 degrees – which is why the field numbers are shown printed on their sides!

Notice that the fields were named, not numbered.  But the names are likely to have retained their names over a long period of time, and the record of these was limited to the tenant and landowner accounts and working books.  In some case the names related to topographical features, sizes and nearby features, bearing in mind that not all tenants would be in a position to read or write their own records.  We might not always appreciate the relevance of the names today, but we will reveal more in the next post.

The names of our three fields in 1840 were:

Field 480 in 1872 - Hither Bridge Field (field 738 and 737)

Field 496 in 1872 - Hatfield Road Field (field 718)

Field 484 in 1872 - Three Corner Stewards (field 207)

It is these names I tend to use as they are more meaningful than frequently changing field numbers, and they are more likely to linger in the agricultural vocabulary.  In fact, many current street names are derived from former field names.

In the next two posts I'll explore each of these three fields and how they have changed in more detail.  For a start, we might discover how each of these fields was used when they were part of a farm, and  the nature of the change which occurred to made them a complete  part of modern Fleetville.