Breakspear Estate

 Last week I introduced those who had never been to the prison (while remaining innocent!) to the cut-de-sac road behind the end of Grimston Road at the City Station.  Shirley Road.  Built on land left over from the construction of the county gaol.

The green block was Frederick Sander's private garden although we know nothing of its character.
Camp Road then separates the garden from his orchid nursery. The blue Broken line a section of
the former Sweetbriar Lane path.
COURTESY HALS

Frederick Sander, the "Orchid King", having apparently made a good income from his shop in George Street aspired to acquire a field known as Nine Acres on the east side of Camp Road, on which he laid out his orchid nursery and home – paid for by building the houses on the adjacent Cavendish estate.  He also acquired the former Fete Field (now the recreation section of Clarence Park) and the slopes of Gaol Field on the west side of Camp Road.  It is not clear the reason for the latter two purchases, except that he laid out his own family garden on a small part of the latter field because it was not possible to find sufficient space adjacent to, or even close to his home; the nursery glasshouses and warehouses left no private space.  Today Ss Alban & Stephen Infant School and Nursery occupies the site of the garden, and Ss Alban & Stephen Junior School thrives in place of the orchid nursery.  I have yet to find a photograph which shows the layout of the garden, although the OS map does sketch a generic design.

The former garden, now Ss Alban & Stephen school Infants and Nursery School.

Following the death of Mr Sander the land, including the garden, was sold by the family.  The garden initially become the site of Ss Alban & Stephen Elementary School and is now an expanded Inant and Nursery school. Then the development of the Gaol Field slope was, at least in part, taken forward by C Miskin Ltd.  Broadly a fan of roads diverging from Grimston Road passing in front of the prison, downhill towards Camp Road and the Hatfield & St Albans Railway.  At the centre of the fan linking Grimston Road is Breakspear Avenue.  The road commemorates twelfth century Nicholas Breakspear (Pope Adrian IV) who had spent his formative years at the St Albans Monastery.  The other roads are orchid related: Flora Grove, Vanda Crescent and Edward Close.  The latter recognises Sydenham Edwards who launched the Botanical Register in 1815.  Flora Grove was laid with the possible intention of connecting with a spur from Dellfield via a bridge over the branch railway.  Such a connection did not take place.

Edward Close is short and does not make it all the way downhill to Camp Road, the land having been acquired by Samuel Ryder and donated to Trinity Church for the laying out of tennis courts and then a scout centre, before being sold on in the 1970s for housing. The modern houses are accessed from Camp Road by Ulverston Close.  This part of the field was, however, quite separate from what was known by the "Electric Estate".

This Miskin estate was an advance in house building during the late 1920s.  The majority of earlier homes were supplied only with gas, although electricity was ordered for specific villas and town houses, at the behest of their first owners. 

Announcing the new "Electric estate".  A spelling error has crept into the name of one of the 
estate's main roads!

The show home, on the south-east side of Flora Grove, was equipped with a range of electric lamps, kitchen utensils, cooking and heating appliances.   The advertising let potential purchasers know that space was being left at the side of each house for the future building of a garage if required.

The lower end of Flora Grove.  Beyond the trees was the branch railway.

Crossing Vanda Crescent the route of former Sweetbriar Lane can be traced.

Former Sweetbriar Lane as it approached Camp Lane at Dellfield.

Grimston Road had been laid as a continuation of Victoria Road (before it became Victoria Street).  A track known as Sweetbriar Lane gave a connection from Victoria Road to Camp Road using a line of route which was subsequently built on by the Breakspear estate.  The track, now a footpath, can still be walked with just one deviation between Breakspear Avenue and Vanda Crescent, and another in order to cross the branch railway, now Alban Way. Sweetbriar Lane was the main connection with the farms and hamlets on the east side of St Albans, so arriving and leaving the market was via the Chequer Street/St Peter's Street/Victoria Street junction – although the latter road had other previous names.

The estate roads offered a mix of freehold and rental properties and the agent was William Young of St Peter's Street, opposite to the cattle market located in front of the Town Hall.

The upper section of Camp Road reveals the former Yokohoma Nursery until developed post 
World War Two.

We can track the development of the estate from the surviving residential directories, and it is quite evident the pace of construction was fairly swift, with most plots having been sold by 1930.  The earliest homes in Flora Grove were in the lowest section adjacent to the branch railway.  The properties at the very foot of Camp Road, too, were prompt to be built.  The only portion left until after the Second World War was up to up to and including number 10.  Until the mid fifties was Yokohama Nursery which occupied much of the ground.  The short access drive for the later development was named Ninedells Place, previously the name given to the nursery on the opposite site of Camp Road which had been purchased by Sander for housing on the Cavendish estate.

There has been more, much more, to reveal about the land next to the prison and on either side of the the Sweetbriar path than might have been expected.