Royal Road

Fleetville Schools (now Fleetville Infants & Nursery) and four of the semi-detached homes
on the east site of Royal Road.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREET VIEW

 When we refer to Fleetville these days we keep in our mind a much wider area than was originally planned, a tightly packed community of three roads on the north side of Hatfield Road and an associated printing works (now redeveloped as Morrison's on the south side).  For a few short years there remained fields on all sides.  And the name Fleet Ville took its name from the the T E Smith printing company's London headquarters just off Fleet Street – the name of the printing factory locally being named Fleet Works.

Fleet House, now flatted.  The original front porch and door observed by the central
cleaner brickwork. The original gateway was to the right of the parking sign.

As with many speculative developments Fleet Ville was not completed.  Arthur Road was finished, and Tess Road (now Woodstock Road South) was partly complete, although most of its west side was purchased for use as a school and a police station.  Royal Road was barely begun.  We will recognise the three semi-detached pairs of cottages built in the early 1900s, and the Fleetville Schools building whose plot spread Royal Road and Tess Road. A detached property, Fleet House, had nothing to do with the  Printing Works and was not added to the corner plot until the 1930s, becoming the home and practice of Dr F Smyth who had previously occupied an apartment at Bycullah Terrace. Currently the building is in the middle of yet another transformation into flats.

The west side of Royal Road remained unbuilt and passed to Mr T E Smith's son after his death in 1904.  The imperative to complete the housing plan begun by his father, Mr Smith jnr recognised there was no real need to complete the company housing accommodation given the fast-growing building estates between Royal Road and The Crown.

We will never know how Mr Smith's estate would have been laid out as no plans have made it into the public domain.  We assume the west side of the road would have been completed, with a cul-de-sac parallel to Hatfield Road to abutt the boundary of the Slade estate at the eastern end of the Harlesden Road rear gardens.  

The north end of the road with a newly built house at the end of a Burnham Road plot.
The original intention was to keep the roadway open into Burnham Road.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREET VIEW

Later homes built across the intended road junction.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

The northern end of Royal Road was left open, as were the plots intended for Burnham Road behind.  Connecting agreements were not made and after 1910 three additional houses were constructed to the Burnham Road frontage.  Royal Road therefore became a permanent "dead end" and access to Burnham Road was limited to its two end points, Harlesden Road and Princes Road (Woodstock Road South)*

A pre-WW2 photo taken from where the present community centre is now located, and
showing the original railings along the Royal Road frontage.
COURTESY FLEETVILLE INFANTS SCHOOL & NURSERY ARCHIVE

Charles Woollam, a generous benefactor to the city's communities, acquired the remainder of the Smith land and, in 1913, gifted it to the city for the free use of the people of Fleetville as a "pleasure ground"; generations of Fleetville people have identified it as Fleetville Recreation Ground (the rec.) and today many of us know it as Fleetville Park.  That year the city council came close to using the ground for emergency allotments, but instead seeded the soil, gifted us with a set of swings, and installed metal railings on all four sides with gates to Hatfield Road, where Beech Tree Cafe is, and opposite the boundary between the school and house number 12.  Interestingly, gates were installed at the end of the rear gardens of the Burnham Road houses, giving direct access to the Pleasure Ground.

The WW2 underground shelters, still entombed on the recreation ground.  The 
emergency exits are still visible and quite clear in hot dry summers

In 1938 open zig-zag trenches were dug close to the rear of the Burnham Road gardens (perhaps that was when their gates were installed?) and close to the Royal Road gate.  By the war outbreak these trenches were deepened, widened, interconnected, capped and with emergency exits installed – the latter still identifiable in hot dry summers.  An emergency water tank was constructed close to where the zip wire is today.

The temporary nursery brought to the recreation ground in 1942, and still in use as 
Fleetville Community Centre.  A replacement building is planned – finally!

In 1942 a temporary concrete and block building, pre-formed in Hoddesdon, was brought to this site to serve as a nursery for the mothers working at the munitions factory (site redeveloped as Morrison's).  Temporary it might have been, but the same building is still in daily use as Fleetville's Community Centre.

In the early 1950s part of the west side of Royal Road was marked out and signposted as the district's first street parking zone.  Today, it is all but impossible to find a spare parking spot anywhere in the road!

Finally we return to the name by which the road is named.  The plans were being prepared in the period up to 1900; Queen Victoria had celebrated her jubilee, the royal accession and the royal princes topped newspaper stories.  So it was not a surprise for this little cul-de-sac to be awarded a royal association.

* It should be clarified that Tess Road only extended to the entrance of the public footpath, known locally as The Alley.  Between this point and the mouth of Brampton Road was separately developed as a road named Princes Road.  These two roads retained their separate names until 1948 when they were renumbered and given a common name: Woodstock Road South.