Sutton Lakes

 Last week we landed at a cul-de-sac which was once part of the branch railway sidings at Fleetville, and is now called Coach Mews.  This week we move just a few metres to locate a railway bridge across Sutton Road which was shown in the previous blog.

The 1872 Ordnance Survey shows Hatfield Road with the unnamed toll house next to the
farm track (now Sutton Road).  The then new branch railway crosses and climbs very
gently over the track.  Space for a future siding is on the right of the bridge.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Many residents living in or around Fleetville have little or no knowledge of the bridge; its loss was some fifty years ago, although the bridge deck was lost even earlier.  But the story of this little railway bridge began some forty years before any building in Fleetville was planted on the landscape.

The line which Sutton Road takes today was a farm track right on the edge of Beaumonts Farm, and it was there because there had also been a stream here – water courses often marked the boundaries between properties or districts.  The track beside it was used by carts and their horses working that part of the farm.  The stream appears to have been a former stream even by the early-nineteenth century and it is probable the track followed the bed itself rather than being laid beside it.

When the railway arrived in the 1860s the embankment was created to ensure farm carts were still able to use the track; thus what is known as a simple occupation bridge was constructed.  The little embankment beside Coach Mews was created to enable the trains to climb over the cart track, which of course is now Sutton Road.

A collection of photographs on flooding events.  The top image identifies the second board walk
with probably Nicholson's employees on their way to work at the factory just visible on the
left on the far side of the track.  The centre image is probably earlier than the top one.  Adults and
children can be seen at the top of the embankment.  The bottom photo demonstrates the
challenging task of getting a cart below the bridge in flooded conditions.

The cart track was little wider than the carts themselves and so the bridge parapets were also not very wide – certainly not wide enough for two carts to pass.  Across the top iron beams were laid to support the rails; only one pair as it was a single track railway.  A simple wooden fence crossed the bridge to protect the rails, but this may not have been an original feature, added later when pedestrians passed underneath to the new factories and homes nearby from the early 1900s.

What must have been clear from the start is that loaded carts could not easily pass under the bridge, even if empty ones could.  The response to this issue was to dig out more subsoil from the trackway under the bridge.  But it was quickly realised that this brought the water table closer to the surface and in wet weather the cartway easily flooded.

To assist pedestrians a raised wooden walkway was constructed, first on the Fleetville Sidings side of Sutton Road.  Later photographs show a similar timber walkway on the west side of the road, replacing the former structure.  The purpose of both was to enable safe passage for pedestrians above the water level when the hollow under the bridge was flooded, which it frequently was.  The second boardwalk must have been removed some time before the Second World War; it certainly wasn't there afterwards.

The deeper the floodwater the more extensive was its surface area and extent.  Most of the known flood images were probably taken as they included children's activity, enjoying the novelty of an informal paddling pool.  The sobriquet Sutton Lakes was made popular from these early years.  One issue arising for the wet weather lake formations was the increase in numbers of pedestrians climbing the embankment on the east side and crossing the railway line at the top.  While this was never a busy railway, such a venture can never be considered zero risk, and it is children who inevitably would, and did, attempt it, undoubtedly for the fun rather than for need.

Photograph looking towards Hatfield Road taken in 1967 shortly before the bridge was
"decapitated" and all rail traffic had stopped.
COURTESY ROGER D TAYLOR

The bridge has disappeared.  Improvement works to benefit Alban Way.

Access under the bridge for vehicles was limited, both in width and height – headroom was 10 feet and the creation of a very narrow pavement of no more than two feet width ensured travel levels were low; bicycles and small cars only!

No time was lost after the 1960s final closure of the route;  the bridge deck was unceremoniously  removed, but it was sometime later that the parapets and embankment were demolished.  Quite a day when the hollow was finally filled in and kerbed full width – a normal road, and the bridge was just a memory.  However, nearby residents will attest Fleetville has not yet seen the end of flooding at this little corner of town.

Sutton Road looking towards Hatfield Road at the Coach Mews junction.  The approaching
truck would have had no chance of being driven from Fleetville to Camp in "bridge days".
COURTESY GOOGLE STREET VIEW

Coach Mews

 This week our peep into a residential street suggests a Victorian origin, but if we were to investigate further a surprise awaits us for the houses set well back from the Sutton Road by which we gain access reveals a small number of short and neat rows of modern homes. Surely this is a tight infill development making use of a different land use altogether.

Coach Mews suggests an example of West London cul-de-sacs where horse drawn coaches were housed; the keepers, or coachmen, living in accommodation over.  But if we walked along Coach Mews in search of such a Victorian terrace we would be quite disappointed.

Stand on the Morrison's side of Sutton Road and this will be your view to the left of the
former Nicholson Coat factory – its name still affixed to the front elevation wall.  This
is the entrance to Coach Mews.

The Coach in the street plate name is intended to be a link to early railway coaches, and the first clue to the former use of the site is along the roadway we use to reach the houses.  Alban Way is the walking and cycling route which makes use of the branch railway between Hatfield and St Albans (London Road and Abbey stations).  Locally it is the path behind Morrison's supermarket.  A (very very) low bridge once carried the railway over Sutton Road, with the assistance of a regularly flooded hollow cut into the roadway.  Today we are able to  cross the road on the level – the cutting having been infilled, and walk with a not very high railway embankment to our left.  Shortly we divert to the left and climb to the top of the embankment and discover our Coach Mews homes to the right.  If we kept walking our destination might be Ashley Road, Hill End, Smallford or Hatfield; a delightful leisure way, or perhaps a cycle run making a short cut to work.

The view along Sutton Road from the Hatfield Road.  Regular flooding encourage the name 
Sutton Lakes.  The large sign on the top of the embankment announced Fleetville Sidings.

The view along Sutton Road on the southern side.  On this occasion it was snow, rather than rain,
which made a splendid scene for the photographer.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

The railway line, of which the sidings are part, were laid some thirty years before any buildings appeared in Fleetville, apart from a toll house.  The line jumped over the farm track, now Sutton Road, with barely enough headroom for a farm cart.  The siding on which the present houses are built, was added when the first factories arrived at the turn of the twentieth century.  The entrepreneurial owner of the coat factory, Mr Nicholson, who had purchased much nearby land, invited factory owners to rent some of his land in Hedley Road with the benefit of a railway siding at the back of the plot.  The fact that most of Hedley Road is today lined with houses suggests that the factory idea was not popular.

Sutton Road lies N to S towards the left of the map.  The orange line forms the boundary of the
Sidings of the branch railway which were added in the early 1900s.  The strip within the
orange box but south of the railway embankment was acquired by Alfred Nicholson for
future factory sidings which did not materialise.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND.

Over the next thirty years there were occasional promises from the railway company of opening a passenger station on the site for the benefit of the people of Fleetville, which would enable passengers to reach the capital via either Hatfield or St Albans.  Unfortunately, bus companies were becoming popular by the mid-twenties, even before the days of London Transport (now Transport for London).  The former's Country Department ran bus services throughout Hertfordshire,  passengers being able to board a bus along or near Hatfield Road to the City Station. So Fleetville Station never came about and the passenger railway closed in 1951.

A group of the modern homes along Coach Mews.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREET VIEW.

The siding, however, remained for the delivery of coal, delivered by what were then called goods trains.  Lorries owned by a selection of local coal merchants called at the siding – a coal yard – to deliver different types of coal to their customers for their open fires and domestic boilers.  The coal yard did not survive until the 1970s, and the opportunity was eventually taken to add to Fleetville's population with the homes we see today.