After 78 years

 

The Beaumonts estate as first laid out. Much of Beaumonts Wood has gone to provide ground for the schools and their playing fields. The broken orange lines never saw the light of day – a short stub of the extended Central Drive is now Oakwood School's entrance drive.

This map was surveyed in 1939.  The Central Drive/Oakwood Drive corner
is on the far right.  It would have been a cross-roads.  A swathe of wooded
ground has already been carved out to make the extension of Oakwood
Drive towards Sandpit Lane, which never happened. There are
other roads with no homes yet behind them. They would appear after WW2.

The final tranche of land belonging to Beaumonts Farm was offered for sale in 1929 and was acquired by holding company Watford Land. The company set out the road plan which would connect with Sandpit Lane, Beaumont Avenue and Hatfield Road, and at subsequent auctions plots were purchased by a number of mainly local house-building companies.  Two spine roads, Beechwood Avenue and Oakwood Drive, were to connect Hatfield Road with Sandpit Lane.  A third one had already existed, and had done so for centuries, Beaumont Avenue.  Beechwood Avenue had been aligned  with the agreement of the council, to connect with Marshalswick Lane as part of what was then known as the Circle Road (ring road).

Three connecting roads also appeared on the development map: Elm Drive, Central Drive and Chestnut Drive. None was completed to their finished lengths.  For the next ten years house building continued, working from Hatfield Road and the southern end of the estate, until in 1940 everything halted because of the war. Most of Beechwood and Elm had been completed. So too had the southern end of Woodland.  Hazelwood south was largely finished on one side and Oakwood had almost reached the future Central Drive.

Oakwood Drive looking towards the corner with Central Drive and in the direction of Sandpit Lane (not, of course, visible).  The (cream) house straight ahead would make such an extension impossible
today.

But restarting such a development after hostilities had finished would financially and logistically be a challenge; many pre-war housebuilding firms did not survive the interregnum, and the post-war license system limited how much building each could carry out.  In part the council came to the rescue by purchasing the swathe of ground from Woodland Drive to the school playing fields boundary.  A revised road layout was devised which took the boundary up to the playing field fence, which would then prevent Oakland Drive from continuing from the Central Drive junction as far as Sandpit Lane. Which later enabled number 51 Central Drive to be constructed in the space of the redundant road line.

The council then built a number of houses for rental in Woodland Drive and Hazelwood Drive north.

Of course, since our home area was effectively a huge building site children of the 1940s and 50s were able to take the short route from Oakwood Drive to Sandpit Lane by walking along the western side of the chain link fence erected by the County Education Department; and once the Hazelwood houses were in build it was easy enough to hop over the fence and follow the same line along the inside edge of the school field.  You could wonder how the author knows that odd fact if you like!  You could even wonder how much is known about the oak tree part way along that walked path close to where the Verulam School's pavilion is located.

Blue circle: Oakwood/Central corner. Red circle: approximate location of oak tree near Verulam School changing rooms. Yellow circle: beginning of path along Eagle Way. Green broken line: intended path
from Eagle Way to Central Drive. Green dotted lines: informal pathways worn by children in the 1950s.

Almost as soon as we had climbed over that fence we were able to nip across the field to Oaklands Wood, still there behind Oakwood School's site but now much depleted.  The woodland wasn't in any sense public; we knew that because there was a large sign fixed to a tree which informed us to KEEP OUT.  But we ventured there anyway.

I have reached this far in the post to reach the connection between the 1950s and a decision made recently...

Standing out against the sky at Oaklands Grange.

... in the 21st century and at the new housing on the edge of  land belonging to Oaklands, called Oaklands Grange.  Now that the homes are largely all out of the ground an increasing number of people have become familiar with Oaklands Grange and its access to Sandpit Lane not far from the opposite driveway from Newgates, a former mini farm, and the access drive from the Verulam School field.

To leave the Oaklands Grange development residents must walk first to Sandpit Lane – ah ha, so quite close to the old informal route youngsters walked in the 1940s and 50s; seventy-eight years or so after a certain number of those young children found their own way between Sandpit Lane and Central Drive.  If they weren't going to build the extension road, we'll find our own way.  So, an informal path was gradually worn in.   

The future path begins.

The path from Eagle Way skirts outside the boundary of Oakwood School towards
Central Drive.

Children living today at Oaklands Grange are to be given an alternative to the walk along Sandpit Lane, Beechwood Avenue and Central Drive to reach their schools.  They will be able to take a short cut.  The formal start of the path is already prepared at the southern end of Eagle Way.  Pass a few trees westwards and you will reach the former KEEP OUT sign and pass to the outside of the Oakwood School boundary, now itself wooded to reach the school entrance at Central Drive.

Two informal footpaths worn by 1950s children not trying very hard to keep out of trouble, now become part of the 2020s story of families finding their way between home and school along almost the same footpath.  There is little doubt that the child evacuees who came to be part of Beaumont Schools during the 1940s also adventured along these two routes to reach Sandpit Lane and to explore Oaklands Wood and its KEEP OUT sign.

We will look out for the official opening of the new link path, hopefully soon.