Nineteen Twenty Four

 As we approach the end of the year and as we often gather with friends and family we tend to recall people and events we have shared. The extent of them is largely governed by the age of those who are participating in the game, if that is what it might be called.

It is doubtful if such activity will telescope back a full century; so this is where the first volume of St Albans' Own East End comes in handy. Here, then, is a brief trawl around our city's eastern districts to discover what was occupying people's minds in 1924.

We begin with small fires spotted in two unoccupied buildings by observant nearby residents who were fortunate to find access to a telephone.  First, a Sunday passer by to Nicholson's coat factory in Sutton Road, and the morning after a late performance at the Grand Palace Cinema in Stanhope Road. Neither fire was serious, but both gained a small item in the Herts Advertiser.

Sunday, any Sunday, had a very quiet atmosphere.  Shops remained closed, as were theatres and cinemas.  Even council-owned recreation grounds were closed, or where necessary, children's play equipment was padlocked. A fair proportion of the population attended church and/or Sunday school.  So two young men having a kick about with a football in Camp Lane were apprehended by a duty policeman.  That incident as well was featured in the local newspaper.

1924 saw the removal of the line of trees in Victoria Street at the former home of Samuel Ryder.
Within a short time shops lined the road where the trees had been.

Samuel Ryder, proprietor of a seed firm and donor of what is today a well known golf trophy, had just moved into a house in Clarence Road. While his previous house survives as a small part of Loreto College, preparations were being made to fell a line of trees alongside Victoria Street which had formed the boundary of his garden, replaced by shops at the front, and houses at Marlborough Gate behind.  There was much public disquiet concerning this "improvement".

Clarence Park had opened in 1894, and one of its features had been a bandstand, in the same position as today's structure which is seen in the photo below.  It was a timber structure topped with brushwood, and which by 1924 had deteriorated so badly the structure required replacement. The Council, however, declined to take responsibility for  its replacement.

The Hatfield Road side of Clarence Park had, before 1894, been a field belonging to St Peter's Farm.
It was known as the Fete Field as a number of public events had taken place here.  Those events
continued to take place as the Herts Advertiser reported in 1924.

Completed homes on the Springfield Estate.

A slow start had finally been made in laying out the ground between Camp Lane and Cell Barnes Lane for St Albans' contribution towards World War One's Homes for Heroes, to be known as the Springfield estate. Earl Verulam had agreed to sell his Cunningham Hill Field to the Council for the purpose.  There would be another four years of building before its completion.

August Bank Holiday was always a celebration fete and sports day, and 1924 was no exception.  Such events had taken place even before Clarence Park had been laid out on a field commonly known as the Fete Field.  This open space became the recreation ground of the park and fetes continued to be held there until they were later transferred to the more spacious Verulamium Park.

This wold have been one of many posters put up in advance of Bill Cody's Wild West Shows.
But it was a copy-cast event which arrived in St Albans in 1924, three years after the closure of
the final Buffalo Bill's entertainment.

1924 saw the arrival in town of a travelling show cunningly close in name to Buffalo Bill's famous Wild West Show. It was named Bronco Bill's Wild West Show!  As many circuses and shows did at the time, it pitched up on the Gaol Field, now developed between Camp Road, Alban Way and Flora Grove.  With so little other permanent  entertainment in the town such shows were highly popular. In 1924 residents were just a few years too late to witness Bill Cody's genuine show.  People were beginning to feel its entertainment rather dated, and with a few racist elements too.  But that didn't stop Bronco Bill from attempting a copy-cat version.

Electricity had come to town at the very beginning of the century and the "electric snake" had been buried under pavements in the roads around Campfield Road's electricity station.  In 1924 the NorthMet company planned to extend the cable to envelop an area around north and east St Albans – its precise route is unknown today – in anticipation of future factories and homes.  How excited we must have been!

Since 1921 there had been considerable expansion in the bus services offered, including a new route to a new place called Welwyn Garden City.  But it was also possible to ride from St Albans all the way to Hitchin and Bishops Stortford without changing, suddenly bringing Fleetville very much closer in travelling time.

The sale of Hill End, and to a lesser extent part of Beaumonts Farm had encouraged house building on the south side of Hatfield Road.  Until 1924 housing stopped at Beaumont Avenue and Ashley Road was still a muddy track; the next few years would see see main road growth as far as Oaklands.

Marshalls Wick House remained unsold in 1924, and within a short time the house will have
been demolished and the former private drive will, with a little alteration, have become a
public Marshals Drive.

Several unsuccessful attempts had been made to provide an alternative use for the old Marshalls Wick House.  While plans for laying out roads on the surrounding grounds had begun, but in 1924 the house did not appear to be wanted for anything.

In other parts of St Albans, farmers protested at the poor market facilities in Market Square (the area in front of the St Albans Museum + Gallery).  Two of the three existing railway stations, all called St Albans, were renamed St Albans City and St Albans Abbey; the result of a re-grouping of smaller companies which had taken place the previous year.

Finally, the formal closure took place of the old prison in Grimston Road.  Of course today the front and outer wall looks the same;  the prison cell block removal was the main loss.

Somewhere New to Live

 In recent days two local news stories broke, and both were essentially about places to live, if not places where we live.

There is a general awareness of the huge shortage of accommodation to rent, and also the cost of houses to purchase has, as a matter of course, breached the one million pound mark in a number of districts.  That fact is down, at least in part, to the shortage of houses available for sale, which in turn is exacerbated by insufficient land on which to build, and is constrained by the noose of the Metropolitan Green Belt.  Such is not exactly news to anyone living in or around the city; it is one of life's consequences.  The District Council has attempted to complete satisfactory Plans previously – and each takes several years to complete and then submit to government for approval.

Work on the latest Local Plan which identifies land for future commercial and residential development is now complete and has passed through a public consultation phase.  Beginning in the New Year the Planning Inspector will begin his/her task before, hopefully recommending that St Albans' Council is free to adopt it.

Recent housing: Kestrel Way.

But of course it is not simply a question of identifying ground and thinking of a number.  Future development has to be sustainable and supportable by a meaningful amount of service provision and physical infrastructure.  Hopefully, the future provision will catch up with shortages experienced by growth in previous decades – and without forcing the end price of family homes beyond that which is tolerable.

New housing is not simply a matter of identifying open land on the periphery.  How many times have we walked along a road and convinced ourselves a tiny yard or a long rear garden with some road access will no doubt be converted into a single house, a pair of minuscule flats or a small row of slimline "town houses".

The second news break this week comes from the University, itself creating housing demands of its own.  Older buildings from College Lane are due to be demolished, although their number was not disclosed.  There is a hint that green space between individual structure will in future become an essential consideration of the university landscape, which had not always been evident in former piecemeal expansion projects.

One of the proposed future changes at the university.
COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE

A new medical school will be opened at College Road, while over at the de Havilland campus a business school will be developed.  It seems only recently that the new physics and engineering school building was opened.  Mindful that university buildings are not the only components of university infrastructure, UH has stated currently the number of students number 36,000 and staff total 3,000.  With the new departmental schools the number of additional students being catered for will be 2,000.  It seems clear that in numbers terms the proposals are part of an expansion rather than a change of departmental emphasis.  No mention was made of additional student accommodation on one or both sites.

Although the proportion of the total student population travelling to and from their own homes to Hatfield was not stated, there would be an increased requirement for commercially sponsored student blocks as are becoming more popular in and around centres of learning.

From the 1940s decision to locate the mid Herts secondary technical school in Hatfield, that little seed from the 1944 Education Act has brought forth a thriving university, but of course it does have a space implication!

... and from last week's blog post:

Rubble from the former reservoir tank which served a private water supply at Oaklands.
COURTESY TRIGPOINTINGUK

The  subject of providing a private water supply at Oaklands Mansion and its surrounding farm in the days when Oaklands was detached from the rest of expanding St Albans, has encouraged responses from readers who recall details of the wind pump and tank at the top of a hill on the Oaklands estate.  Comments have ranged from the tank being identified as a "home base" for local children and their games; triangulation markers/benchmarks fixed by map surveyors; and the method by which the disused concrete tank was demolished – recollections include physical breaking up and the use of explosives; perhaps both.  Although the rubble had remained at the top of the hill on the edge of Oaklands Grange housing development until recently, and I had therefore assumed was still lying in-situ, apparently a contractor undertaking clearance operations at the conclusion of building operations had removed the tank rubble as well.  So the last evidence appears to have ... disappeared!  It is also evident that members of an organisation called TrigpointingUK have been keeping watch over this site and regularly photograph changes in the location.  Another reader recalls television filming taking place at the site, and at least one other benchmark on the estate.  Many thanks to those who contacted me, but we are still searching for photographic evidence of the eight sail/blade wind pump atop its structure.  We'll keep looking.

Piping a supply

This blog is all about Oaklands which these days is a very busy place, especially in term time as it is one of the homes of Oaklands College.  Most of us know it historically as the home of Oaklands Mansion, but I am sure most residents of the St Albans' east end districts have never seen it, hidden, as it is, by copious numbers of trees.  So, here it is to start off today's post – although it doesn't look like this in 2024.

An early pastoral scene of Oaklands Mansion. much is it would have inspired its first owner,
William Knight.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

 I was shown a version of a 25 inch map recently, specific to Oaklands, and discovered on it a feature which is not normally found on standard Ordnance Survey maps.  The map was published in 1919, timed to coincide with the sale of Oaklands Park by Hampton & Sons, Land and Property Auctioneers, at the behest of the County Land Agent.  Two elements were additional to the original Ordnance Survey: an area of 315 acres enclosing the Park was treated with a green colour wash, and the feature property, Oaklands Mansion, was highlighted in red.  The other addition was a network of black lines reaching out in several directions from the Mansion and its outbuildings, and labelled "approximate line of water pipe".  This network was limited to the Park area and was therefore self-contained, not connected to a public supply, for example, along Hatfield Road.

Oaklands Mansion (coloured red) and adjacent buildings – including its home farm homestead – 
as shown on the auctioneer's map of 1919.
COURTESY OAKLANDS COLLEGE ARCHIVE

In this section of the map the Home Farm homestead from the first map is now bottom right, 
and the long straight line identifies the "approximate line of water pipe".

Not surprising really for the beginning of the twentieth century, as there were few buildings of any kind eastward of Fleetville whose nearest and most recent homes barely reached where Queen's Court is located today.

In fact, the first owner of the nearest supply of fresh water, William Knight, would have been living on top of his very own well supply in the basement of the Mansion itself; a source which undoubtedly predated its early nineteenth  century construction and served the three dwellings (Threehouses) which had been so close to where the front of the Mansion was intended.  No doubt the structural condition of these three dwellings was poor and generally "got in the way" of the new house.  We can only speculate on the approximate age of the well, and as with many wells was probably deepened on occasions as the water table required.

When the water supply network was probably first laid in the late 19th century it was to better serve the Mansion and nearby kitchen gardens.  Such an improvement may have been in the time of Charles Dymoke Green.  One can imagine how an extension to provide a water supply to one or two of the nearby fields came a little later as the usefulness of a pipeline network became clear.  So, two branches were dug into the ground to the edge of fields east of the Mansion behind the small Hatfield Road fields, and close to the orchard and poultry area north of the kitchen gardens.

The long pipeline from the previous map eventually reaches the highest location of the
Park where a wind pump and tank (reservoir) was sited.  The pipeline was extended
westwards to serve Beaumonts Farm, though not Beaumonts cottages.

These feeds were gravity fed from a long section of pipe to a deep well on the highest point of the Park, where stood a wind pump, although the map labels it as a windmill.  This stood atop a tank, or reservoir – the map uses the latter term, although this was demolished once the house and park were connected to the public supply.

There is some confusion about the terminology: is a windmill or a wind pump?  Mills are often the favoured term, unless it is a mechanism for using wind power to directly lift water from below ground for storage and later consumption.  These are generally simpler mechanisms for use in remote landscapes on farms, often with up to eight blades, as at Oaklands.  Other definitions are available!

To transport the collected water gravity is used but the length of pipe from the pump to the Mansion and eastern fields was considerable.

Beaumonts Farm homestead when the pipeline reached it. The building was located close to the
junction of Woodland Drive north and Central Drive.

Once Mr Fish had acquired Beaumonts and it was realised its farm was still reliant on a well near the homestead – close to the junction of today's Central Drive and Woodland Drive, and the inefficiency of the supply was recognised, Fish had a separate pipeline connected to the hilltop pump.

The new pipe descended east-south-easterly towards the park boundary.  It would have been known in 1919 that Oaklands' interest in Beaumonts Farm was of limited duration; it was already gradually being broken up for development.   So there was no need to inform potential purchasers of the Park what lay below ground beyond the boundary.  Only the Park was for sale. The probable route across Beaumonts land was directed along field boundaries and through woodland tracks, the final leg traversing what is now Central Drive.  It is possible some of the water supply fed existing ponds at the Woodland Drive junction, the site of the former moat.

For most of their very early histories the moated house and manor house were undoubtedly served independently, from the nearby stream at the foot of what is now Eaton Road, and then a well, at least once deepened, near to the homestead where Irene Stebbings House is located.  We are informed that the supply was not of certain quantity to serve the tenant farmhouse, and so was deepened once more.  

A disagreement flared when the land agent arranged to the Beaumonts water supply to be charged for since the farm house and Beaumonts Farm were no longer part of the Oaklands estate and were due to transfer to new ownership, Herts County Council, in 1919.  Tenant Mr Coombs refused to pay for the piped water, and decided instead to call in the professionals who deepened his well once more.  And that is where the matter rested until demolition of the farm house in 1938 for the Beaumont north estate development, the well being permanently capped. 

Yes, Oaklands Grange is now full of houses, but the circled spinney hides the former location 
of the wind pump and its reservoir.  Here is the highest point of the former Park.

The pipeline itself may no longer be visible and the pump contraption is long gone, but we can trace where it had been.  And those who can do so most easily live at Oaklands Grange, on the south side of Sandpit Lane.  Walk up Osprey Drive from Sandpit Lane.  Where its name changes to Eagle Way, turn eastwards to face a shrubbery not cleared for housebuilding.  You may still find pieces from the former tank which stored water pumped by wind from the aquifer below the highest location of the park.  Present residents will be aware of the wind strength near the top of this exposed slope.  That was just the right location for a wind pump!

Been here before

 There have been five public houses within striking distance of the centre of Fleetville during its history: in no particular order, the Rats' Castle, the Bunch of Cherries, the Crown, the Camp and the Baton.  All have had their periods of success; all have struggled at some point to remain viable businesses; all pulled pints under the auspices of more than one owning company in their time, two are no longer trading – the Camp and the Baton, and one succeeded in remaining viable under a change of name; the latter opened for fifty years as the uniquely titled Bunch of Cherries before its new owner, Greene King, rebranded the premises the Speckled Hen.  And the Crown has soldiered on since the 1890s with little controversy, changing its pattern of offering according to the needs of the day.

The Rats' Castle in its Benskins guise on the corner of Hatfield Road and Sutton Road.
Its original design was by St Albans' architect Percival Blow.

In the past few days Star Pubs & Bars Ltd, which is part of the Heineken Group, has announced a rebranding of the Rats' Castle.  It is probably too early to pick up much feedback from the Rats' regular customers, but one aspect of the refresh of probable interest to the wider group of Fleetville residents is a change of name to become the Old Toll House.

Concept image of the building and badged as the Old Toll House
COURTESY STAR PUBS & BARS LTD

We have, of course, been here before.  The Rats' Castle had first opened as a Benskin's house, before its Watford brewery site closed down in the late fifties, although the company continued with its properties division.  The pub was later snapped up by Ind Coope and then absorbed into Allied Breweries.  It is uncommon for incoming owners to respect any local traditions; they usually feel the need to "put their own stamp" on their acquisition.  Alternatively, existing landlords occasionally give their properties a facelift in the expectation of an increased valuation at sale.

One of the hanging sign designs produced by Benskins for its property in Sutton Road.

So, where have we been here before? Under the umbrella of Ind Coope the company adjusted signal name by making it a little snappier.  Down came the hanging sign for the Rats' Castle, to be replaced by The Castle.  Both had pictorials depicting an imagined castle, but the rodents were clearly the problem as they had completely disappeared.  It was an attempt to sanitise the story.  

The short-lived design which replaced rats with a mounted horse and gave dominance to a moated
castle.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

However, many residents felt an attachment to the story as it stood.  In fact, it was not just a fiction or a legend; it was based on fact, even though the account evidence is hard to find, and relates to the structural condition of an abandoned building in which every passer by in the late 19th century apparently became aware of the rodents having made their home in the unattended thatched roof of what had been a former, but short-lived toll house.  The period which had given the sobriquet to the Beaumonts farm field against the future Sutton Road, would soon be growing homes instead of grass; because there were no key buildings of any kind nearby. Rats' Castle was used to identify that little part of Hatfield Road; and when the houses arrived the name Castle Road was selected to access them.

When the time came to name a pub to serve the growing community this name was a given, even though if someone back then had suggested the Castle on the basis there was already a tangible label in place, I wouldn't have been surprised if the Company had selected it.  But this was a period of quirky labels like the Three Headed Pig, the Nobody Inn or the Jolly Taxpayer!  So Rats' Castle it became.

The company's current intentions simply remove the Rats' reference altogether and turn to the actual function of the little building which arrived two building generations earlier: to clarify, the turnpike toll house came first, to be followed by a house named Primrose Cottage, and finally the public house designed by local architect Percival Blow.

It began its life with Whitbread as the Bunch of Cherries; its location
formerly was known for its nearby cherry orchard at Winches Farm.  Under
Greene King the company unashamedly named its acquisition after one
of its branded beers.  In fact, copyright protection prevented its continued
use as the Bunch of Cherries.

You might or might not recognise it, but this is a concept montage of interiors of what will be
the Old Toll House, presently the Rats' Castle.
COURTESY STAR PUBS & BARS LTD

The Old Toll House is a perfectly respectable title for a public house, and it's story is based on fact.  Unique, however, it is not. Up and down the country restaurants and public houses abound with references to the turnpike roads which passed their front doors.  If not Toll House or Old Toll House there are Toll Gates or an abbreviated the Gate or the Turnpike.  Just as the Bunch of Cherries at Oaklands was and remains unique, I have failed to located another Rats' Castle.

The Castle had a very brief existence; the volatility of residents, and I suspect the pub's regulars, were too attached to the given name and the earlier sign resumed its place within a matter of months, although with a new landlord appearing.  Will the Old Toll House have a longer, more permanent life than the Castle?  I suspect there will be locals who will still be referring to "the Rats'" or the "former Rats'" in a generation's time – as long as the business lasts that long.

See also: http://www.stalbansowneastend.org.uk/topic-selection/rats-castle/

Repeat Performance

 Long-standing residents of the eastern districts of St Albans and who are familiar with the St Albans' Own East End website, may have recalled the section about a little cinema in Fleetville which never got to open; there is also a chapter about the building in the book St Albans' Own East End Volume 1: Outsiders.  You might like to refresh your memory about the events before reading on here.

The main character in the story, which took place during 1912 and 1913, was Russell Edwards who had arrived in St Albans at the time and took residence of a house in Granville Road, now among the houses later replaced by Cotsmoor and W O Peake, manufacturing coat makers.

A version of the "tin church" type of demountable building popular at the start of the 20th
century. To be put together at the corner of Hatfield Road and Tess Road (now
Woodstock Road South), but never completed.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

Briefly, Edwards took a lease on a site in Fleetville where, since the 1930s was built the Post Office, and still trading as such. His imagination encouraged him to open a little cinema and manage the enterprise – or so he informed everyone – and his intention was to make use of the funds of others in the enterprise.

Edwards had not only acquired the site; possibly a dubious claim, but he advertised in the national press: ""Partnerships – Advertiser requires about £200 to acquire fully equipped picture theatre, now running. Has taken £30 weekly; electric plant, seat 450; expenses nominal; no opposition."

None of the claims was true: this was to be an enterprise based on deceit.  Yes, he had a site, and yes he had acquired a building – a second-hand structure formerly a small meeting hall; but this was in pieces awaiting workmen to put it together.  He had no knowledge of the building's capacity, and from the drawing made by a St Albans' designer and architect there would probably been seating for less than half that which our entrepreneur had claimed.  Of course, if the structure had not yet been erected how could the costs and profits have already been known?

For the deceits which Edwards committed he was brought to court in St Albans, one of many such visits he made on various matters. Even spent time in prison. The court had to decide how various creditors were to be paid what was owed to them. Edwards was committed for trial at the next Assizes on a charge of perjury, given that he had made many false claims about his affairs to the court. 46-year-old Edwards pleaded guilty and was committed to prison for a period of fourteen days.

The completed Palace Theatre, Mill Street, Luton in 1913.
SOURCE UNKNOWN

Residents of Luton would already have been aware Russell Edwards had form, for before he moved to St Albans he had been planning a somewhat larger development project in the centre of Luton, where he aspired to build a "large theatre and place of entertainment" to be called the Palace Theatre, 17 Mill Street, today a road of apartments and hotels near the rail station.  Number 17 was acquired by a mortgage syndicate, led by Managing Agent Russell Edwards as its managing person. The cost was projected to be £20,000

As in St Albans a case of bankruptcy was heard, as well as one of contempt.  The bankruptcy was to be answered, not by Edwards, but by an investor who had been enthusiastic enough to answer an advertisement published by Edwards in the Daily Telegraph, requesting investments of £750 to put into a profitable and successful new place of entertainment. A Mr R G Byers was, possibly, the first and maybe only investor, upon much would be expected, and he would become the unfortunate one in the dock with much of his property now in the hands of the Sherriff.

Edwards, who was expected to produce numerous documents to the court absented himself on occasions, with excuses for being away or ill in bed, eventually being summonsed for contempt of court.  He appeared to be adept at manipulating others to become responsible for payments or documents for which he himself was legally responsible and often benefited.

One end of Cowper Road, Harpenden, where Russell Edwards was building a house for
himself and family, partly using materials taken from the site of a theatre development in
Luton for which Edwards was responsible for managing.  It is also alleged that he returned
some of those materials before he "got found out"!
COURTESY GOOGLE STREET VIEW

He also appropriated large quantities of building materials from the theatre site after proper delivery had been made and signed for, to be dispatched to a house site in Cowper Road, Harpenden, which he was building for himself and his family.

As to the advertisement's claim of a successful theatre, there was no company, no theatre, not even a site for one; only an option to purchase the site had been agreed.  But one document which did come to light was an apparent agreement between Byers and Edwards stated that, following completion of the place of entertainment, Edwards would take 1000 guineas per annum from the income of the Palace.

At least the theatre was completed, for advertisments began appearing by
mid-1913 in the Luton Reporter newspaper.

Mill Street today, showing where the Palace had been; close to where the photograph
above had been taken. The cream building is a hotel today.  The Palace occupied the
 right half of the cream site.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREET VIEW

How could Edwards have been free to continue his rather dodgy business dealings just one year later and in a different town?  And what was his penance for for sing benefactor Myers into bankruptcy while creating/arranging so many apparently falsely composed documents, while stealing quantities of building materials for his own personal gain?

Cape and Burleigh

 This is one of those posts which points out back of beyond streets which most of us have not explored, let alone heard of.  Between Sutton Road and Ashley Road is Castle Road, named after the field of the same name, which itself was named after the informal title of a turnpike toll house in the 1880s, the Rats' Castle.  Castle Road became a diversionary route when parallel Hatfield Road occasionally flooded near to Sutton Road.

Castle Road extends left to right across the top of the photo.  Cape Road is from top to bottom
on the left, and Burleigh Road is from top to bottom on the right.  The triangular open
space is in the lower part of the image and below that is the green strip of Alban Way.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

Manufacturer Horace Slade was also a building developer who at the turn of the century acquired a nominal amount of back land between Castle Road and the former branch railway, now part of Alban Way. Two cul-de-sac roads were laid out c1900 and given the names Cape and Kimberley following British success in the second Boar War.  Kimberley was renamed Kimberley East in 1926 and renamed again to Burleigh in 1928.

Above name plate identified the former name of the road before 1926.
Below is the name plate for the first two homes complete in Cape Road.

Spasmodic development took place before World War One, with later fill-ins.  An awkward end block between the two roads against the embanked railway track was acquired by building firm H G Bennett and wood dealer William Halsey who also had a house adjacent to the Cape Road site.

Over in Kimberley Road (now Burleigh Road)  a small nursery holding existed until c1930, although it was probably out of use before then.  The St Albans Cooperative Society, searching for a bottling plant for its milk department, purchased the former nursery for its own building, with an entry onto Burleigh Road.  Although a driveway  might have been possible onto Ashley Road that road was not surfaced and developed until a short time later.  After closure of the Dairy its buildings remained empty for many years until the modern homes replaced them.

Above: on the site of the original nursery arrived the dairy owned by St Albans Co-operative.
Below: an array of modern home which replace the Burleigh Road dairy.

Bennett's site, and that of Halsey's, became a growing and successful site for supplying building materials for the trade and retail, their owners, including Pratt's changing hands over time; even employing staff from the Hatfield Road company of Lavers when that  timber yard closed.

The old entrance gate at the lower end of Cape Road.  Through here trundled in and out the trucks
loaded with building materials. 

In 2023 the site was acquired by developer Viciniti which proposed, and received planning consent for 37 homes – a mix of flats and houses.  I guess that most of us assumed building had begun and continued at its own good pace, although activity appeared to pause as the company, including several other of its sites fell into administration.

This unfortunate process is not without its problems: continuity is important and when there is a break followed by a different team moving onto site issues can arise, although not inevitably so.  New costs are also introduced which would need to be absorbed.

Above: plan of the proposed new housing development at the lower end of Burleigh Road.
Below: a partly finished building within the dormant development.

Developer's image of how the earlier unfinished block is intended to look when complete.
COURTESY VICINITI

Nevertheless, according to recent advertising the part-complete development has been offered to the market, so perhaps it will not be too long before work resumes.  One fact we are informed about, as long as the new developer does not alter its arrangements, the names of two new roads between Cape and Burleigh roads will be known as Iceni  Close and Viciniti Court.

Kitchin in Harts

 Today's title attempts to include two seemingly mis-spelled words into the blog.  Recently I was fortunate to receive a historic folded map of Hartfordshire drawn by Thomas Kitchin.  I have discovered Mr Kitchin's name occasionally with an e instead of a final i; and the mapmaker insists that our county, though often spelled with an e, should "always" use the letter a.  Which I suppose is correct even today when we pronounce the name as in tart, rather than as bert!

I have to admit I had not heard previously of Thomas Kitchin, and I'm pleased I now have, even more so that he had a connection with St Albans.  Although he appears not to have been born here, he lived in the town (as it then was) during his later life, with a residence in Fishpool Street, and was honoured in death by being buried in St Albans Abbey (Cathedral). Note, in the church, not at the church.

The home of Thomas Kitchin in Fishpool Street, photographed a few years ago before more
recent scaffolding appeared.

In 2024 a blue plaque was fixed to the front of Kitchin's former home, which sent some of us
scurrying for more information about the eighteenth century cartographer!
COURTESY ST ALBANS CIVIC SOCIETY

I had clearly not paid sufficient attention to the Civic Society website either, which records the progress made on the current range of blue plaques.  A recent plaque affixed to a Fishpool Street house marks that belonging to Thomas Kitchin himself.

Thomas Kitchin produced a wealth of maps during the eighteenth century; and his Hartfordshire map seems to have been revised on occasions, the one I now have has a date of 1775 appended to the cover.  The original would have been monochrome, but my version had a hand-painted colour wash add to distinguish the various Hundreds into which the county was divided. 

Naturally, for the purposes of this blog I was keen to inspect the eastern districts of St Albans, which, at the scale produced included rather less marked detail than, for example, the Dury & Andrews map of the same period.  Which, in turn, features fewer detail than William Kip's county map of 1610 – it was probably a derivation of an earlier engraving.

To provide us with a comparison, Kip's map of the county dates from just 35 years after the opening of Shakespeare's Curtain Theatre in Shoreditch.

William Kip created a new engraving c1610 from an earlier cartographer, probably from the
mid seventeenth century.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

A partnership of Andrew Dury & John Andrews resulted in a 1766 county map produced on nine 
sheets.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE RECORD SOCIETY

Thomas Kitchin produced a number of county maps, including Hartfordshire.
This version is dated 1775 and is likely to be sourced from previous engravings.
COURTESY OLD MAPS LIBRARY

The Kip and Kitchin maps are of similar scale, although their production is well over a century apart.  Kip dispensed with roads altogether, in favour of streams and rivers, and most importantly key properties where gentlemen of note resided, and specifically any warrens they may have owned.

Kitchin recognised the importance of roads which connected towns and the distances between them.  The road on this sample of his map is the one between St Albans and Hatfield; the circled number being the number of miles between them (6.0).  Other roads which connect with the Hatfield Road are also drawn.

Dury & Andrew have presented all key roads which are part of the local network, the topography and a simplified field layout.

Beaumonts, then a manorial seat on all maps is spelled – and perhaps pronounced – in three different ways: Beamondes, Bemonds, and Beamond.  Oaklands was too recent to appear on any map and was not sufficiently important to be added to the engraving as its original name, Three Houses; it had first been identified under this name in the fourteenth century, maybe even earlier.

Once again Kip is too limited in detail to mark what today we refer to as Marshals Wick. Both Kitchin and Dury use the letter c (Marchals Wick).

As we might expect the larger scale of Dury & Andrews provides the opportunity of marking a number of farms.  We know that Jersey Farm had only changed its name in recent times, but its former label was already in use in 1766; so it will take more investigation yet to discover the source of the name Evan in Evan's Farm.  Nearby, where we might have expected to find Marshalswick Farm – or rather Marchals Wick, we see instead the name Wheelers (or Wheeler's); so these two names extend back at least three centuries.

The present day location of Cunningham Hill had previously been known as Curry Comb Hill.

Finally, our newly-found Kitchin map incorporates information not included on the above extract.  Spaces around the map's edges reveal a range of abbreviations (which it labels Explanations): Vicarages, Rectories, Windmills, Watermills, Post stages, Parks (presumably grounds  attached to the private domains of gentlemen of note), Market Days, and Roads open and healthy. Parliamentary Boroughs have stars attached.  We are usefully reminded, for the benefit of map users of the eighteenth century, that the number of furlongs in each mile is eight.

So, the three historic maps sampled above were very different and provide us with a range of contexts for understanding the landscapes of our county in previous centuries.

A Topper

 Thomas Smith, the owner of the printing firm of the same name which launched into the locality, opened his works (now Morrison's) and forever is associated with naming the district after the Fleet Street district from which the business derived.  Thus we know Fleetville.

Two blocks of nearby land had remained undeveloped at Thomas' death in 1904, and it was left for Smith's sons to manage.  One was land between Royal Road and Tess Road (now Woodstock Road South).  On the latter corner, where is still the Post Office, was – for a fleeting moment – a little cinema; but that is another story, told in detail on the accompanying website.

When Dr Frederick Smythe first arrived he occupied 209 Hatfield Road. In 1930
the property included ground floor rooms, one of which may have been a
waiting room and consulting room.

On the other corner was an impressive brick detached house constructed soon after 1930. In that year arrived "the local doctor".  He was Dr Frederick Smythe, in the terminology of the day physician and surgeon.  He took up residence in Bycullah Terrace, and presumably had his consulting room there, on the ground floor.  Today, the premises is EHS, between Simmons and the Convenience Shop.

The Hatfield Road elevation of Fleet House, although its address has always been in Royal 
Road.

The Royal Road elevation, originally the front, as indicated by the newer brickwork which
had been the porched front door when first built.  On the far left is the slimline detached
house constructed in the garden of Fleet House.

Dr Smythe lost little time in purchasing a plot of land from the Smith estate, the afore-mentioned location on the corner of Royal Road and Hatfield Road, and had the brick detached house constructed for his consulting room and domestic accommodation.  There was even space for a small garden and a pleasant green space behind the boundary wall. The front garden is today far more enclosed by foliage than the managed beds of the early post-war period. Whether Dr Smythe named his property or whether it was applied later I'm not certain, but it was certainly known as Fleet House; why not, for it was in Fleetville?

There came a time after World War Two, when circumstances changed.  From a single household it became two households with its division into a ground floor flat and one on the first floor accessed via an external stairway.  Further, on the garden in Royal Road was built a slim detached house with an equally slim driveway for a car.  Thus there were three households on the same original plot.

The elevations and plans appearing on St Albans District Council's planning web portal to indicate
what was was proposed in 2023.
COURTESY ST ALBANS DISTRICT COUNCIL

For those of us who have walked along Hatfield Road recently we have noticed a board heralding imminent works.  With some surprise the lovely house quickly lost its roof, not in a storm but by careful removal.

The arrival of two prefabricated sections which were lifted on the original decapitated building
to form a new upper floor and a third flat for the site.
COURTESY VIC FOSTER

The road has re-opened the traffic cleared and work continues to enable a fourth household to
occupy this corner plot in Fleetville.
COURTESY VIC FOSTER

And on a day in late September 2024 there arrived a crane and a lengthy low loader which reversed into Royal Road – and not without creating some congestion.  Aboard the vehicles were sections of a third floor to Fleet House, pre-built timber sections, lifted into position.  Thus Fleet House, in one day, changed from a two floor house with a pitched roof into a box of three floors of not much greater height.  Access to first and the new second floor flats are both external.

We wish the new inhabitants well, as they enjoy their view over the recreation ground – and Morrisons!

Ladder Jobs

 The following roads are often referred to as a group, the ladder roads: Blandford Road, Glenferrie Road, Sandfield Road and Harlesden Road.  Although it is often assumed they were all developed as a single building estate under the ownership of Horace Slade, the straw hat and cardboard box manufacturer, only three fell into this group.  Blandford Road was developed separately by Jacob Reynolds (of Heath Farm) and H J Skelton.

Of course, there was a much shorter parallel road: Laurel Road, and others further east, Royal and Tess roads but I haven't included these.

To discover more about how the four roads began after the land was acquired in 1898 I had made use of the early almanacs and street directories, but these don't always publish the correct timescales with the consequent delays and inaccuracies in publication.  For the purpose of this article I left the 1901 census alone as this survey would have come along far too soon to provide an accurate picture of occupancy.  Consequently, I gained an overview of the rate of development by means of the directories and the precision of the 1911 census following a decade of growth on the estate.

Blandford Road came to life on the east side along half of its length in a single block completed c1903 and most of the rest left lying green until c1908.  The west side remained unbuilt until the middle of the decade.  Now, let's see whether Mr Slade's estate was any different.

Although we are reminded of housebuilding all over the place in a continuous development, that leads us to a false conclusion.  While there was certainly work proceeding in all of the roads most of the time the focus was limited to a small number of dwellings at a time, probably limited to the availability of sufficient skills building trades employees.  The pattern was very similar to Blandford with building work being concentrated firstly at the Hatfield Road end and the higher numbers left until the middle of the decade.

Much of Sandfield's building work was more spread out, with a few homes followed by plots left empty for a number of years, and unlike the previous two roads, plots at the Hatfield Road end were left empty beyond the end of the decade or even until the 1930s.  One plot on the corner of Brampton Road even remained a green patch until c1960 – it had been identified and reserved for a general shop, but eventually became a detached house.  The shop did arrive, but was located on the corner of Harlesden and Burnham roads instead.

Of this group of roads it was Harlesden which shown the quickest and shortest build period.  Activity began by 1900 and almost all homes were completed and occupied by 1903.  The pattern of occupation throughout the estate seemed to be dictated through a combination of distance from the the park (i.e. Clarence Park and the town), size of plot, and in two of the roads closeness to Hatfield Road.  Where the opportunities arose homes for rental were available at lower rents and on weekly terms, rather than monthly.

So, who was living in these streets during the first decade of the twentieth century?  As might be expected two occupations shares the top spot: railway work and printing.  The growth and popularity of the Midland Railway had encouraged a number of homes to be in build  during the 1880s and 1890s where commuters were close enough to walk to the Midland Station, the Midland Railway employed men to maintain and fire the locomotives for journeys beginning locally; and of course a considerably number of trained and skilled locomotive drivers – the term engine driver became a popular term.

There was a necessity for offices of clerks making out and recording details of tickets creating timetables, and no doubt recording employment details and freight loads.  All four roads had a fair number of employees working on the railway, some in supervisory roles could be detected in the larger properties further west.

And yes, the same can be said for tenants in the printing industry, and no doubt all had local work at the two Smith's works – Orford Smith quickly becoming the Sally Army building at Campfield.  The many skills in the industry were represented on the estate, in machinery maintenance, paper, compositing, proof reading and distribution.  Again there was evidence of more highly skilled employment and supervisory work in Blandford and Glenferrie roads.

1911 would be the last census that would identify the number of printing employees compared with railway operatives; the impending war from 1914 affected this trade more heavily than in rail transport.

Beyond these two industries other occupations were more widely spread and varied.  Two residents were employed in the prison until that closed; carriers, no doubt for local carriage; at least five residents worked in the GPO (post office); a number of tailors, not only those from Nicholson's coat factory in Sutton Road; naturally there were a number of brickies and joiners given the quantity of building work in this part of St Albans.  Engineers, perhaps described more vaguely what their work involved, but one was at the electric arc lighting factory in Campfield.

The ladder roads gave home to a wide variety of employment, and no doubt this would increase and change over the following decades, to include retail, an increase in law, property and banking jobs.  The betterment of wages would begin to alter the mix from rental to purchased homes, particularly when landlords decided to cash in their investments and look for potential house owners.  Enter a new style of banking with the Mutual or Building Societies in th 1930s.