This Way, That Way

 Wherever we live we have an address with a street name and of course we find our way by navigating the network of roads in the locality.  A small number of the streets have been in existence "for ever"; often the various routes by which people down the centuries have walked or ridden themselves to nearby towns and villages. But it wasn't until the late 19th century that the names by which roads were known were identified by plates fixed at one or both ends of streets. And in a few cases the correct names had to be established, sometimes by people living nearby, as to the name by which the road was to be known.

Since the publication of the two volumes of St Albans' Own East End there has been a list of street names with brief accompanying  explanations.  But before continuing this discourse we should define our boundaries: where the East End of St Albans is and is not.  For the purposes of research for the books the city's boundary follows the Midland Railway line between London Road and the King William fiveways junction at St Albans Road.  The approximately Southern edge is London Road.  The northern border and the mainly eastern limits follow the historic St Peter's parish even though modern parish boundaries may now be at variance and of course not very obvious.  Unfortunately the listing excludes villages such as Colney Heath and London Colney, not because they were outside of the notional East End, but because they were previously published communities in their own right and therefore were not included in the research for St Albans' Own East End.  Eastwards the parish does, however, extend to parts of Hatfield north of the A1(M) as far as Hatfield Garden Village.  It is a very rough and ready enclosure which will suffice for this article.

Within that area exist 378 named roads as of 2023, although a small number of these are names which are no longer in use and have subsequently been updated or replaced. 

Road names broadly fall into one of five groups.  Historical roads tend to be those which we might have described as, for example, the road to Hatfield and which we now formalise as Hatfield Road.

The eponymous category includes the many names which appear on street plates in recognition, commemoration or celebration of someone who had a connection with the district or the nearby land.  There are many of these in St Albans, especially members from large landowning families.

Geographic location – the names of places – might be anything from a building previously on the site, to a nearby village, former field or farm name.  It is also possible that such a name has been invented for effect!

By definition themed road names come in groups; several nearby roads might have the names of trees, for example.  Celebratory names might recognise major or memorable events, as in Royal Road.

And finally we might come across names which defy categorisation, as in The Avenue, or The Cinder Track.  It is what it is! 

Careful research has provided convincing or proven results for most East End roads, lanes, closes, avenues ... but not all!

One very early Fleetville road is Eaton Road, but several leads have not brought up a likely solution.  It is definitely Eaton, not Eton. There was no obvious connection with the land owner prior to development, but of course there were a number of Eaton families living in the county and the St Albans locality.  None, so far, appears to have a useful connection.  Inevitably when a knowledgeable local resident suggests a provable connection it will suddenly become too obvious, but until then ...

A development partnership of Ekins and Giffen in the early 20th century gave us the roads on the Camp estate, all of which were named after Arthur Ekins connections with the county of his birth, Cambridgeshire.  Mr Ekins was a chemist and had a role as the county analyst.  The chosen names were Cambridge Road, College Road, Ely Road, Royston Road (which just sneaks into Hertfordshire), and Sutton Road. But what was Mr Ekins' connection with Wellington that enabled him to name one of his streets Wellington Road?

Not far away on the boundary between the land owned by Giffen and Ekins was that owned by Alfred J Nicholson, who himself named two adjacent streets to his coat factory Hedley Road and Maxwell Road after family members.  On or very near the boundary is Guildford Road; which doesn't have an obvious connection with Cambridgeshire.  On the other hand the name hasn't been discovered among the research for A J Nicholson either.  Where might the name Guildford Road have come from?

On the "estate of tree names", Beaumonts, a recent new development which replaced the site of 1950s garages, has appeared Langford Close.  If you're looking, it joins Chestnut Drive.  So no-one thought of continuing the trees theme, then!  Langford is broadly based; not obviously local enough unless someone has discovered the right information.

On the face of it Gleave, as in the infill development off Woodstock Road North, called Gleave Close, sounds similar to a medieval agricultural term, but clearly is not.  Although it could be a family name.  And that is as far as I have reached!  Incidentally, the houses were built on land once leased to the nurserymen Messrs Sear & Carter who had a shop and little nursery next to St Paul's Church and a large nursery where Notcutts is today.

Catham Close, off Drakes Drive, does have a solution – or does it? Nearby, the 1840 tithe map shows a field named Catham Wood Field.  Catham could suggest the name of someone, but was he significant enough to warrant following up?

Finally an infill development off Blenheim Road is named Sefton Close. Is this related to a community in the north-west of the country,  or perhaps a 19th century race horse – or another connection altogether?  In either case what would be the connection with the location, or St Albans more generally?

If you have a lead which could be followed up on any of the above road do feel free to post a response.