Bycullah

 In the previous blog we explored where you could have travelled to in the days of turnpike roads should you have turned off the Reading & Hatfield at Hut toll (in today-speak that would be from Hatfield Road to Colney Heath Lane).  We followed a private toll road via Tollgate Road until reaching the Great North Road east of Welham Green, which is the Enfield & Lemsford Turnpike).

After the closure of the toll system the roads became open for public use without charge as ownership transferred to the Highways Board and then to many county authorities, as they still are today.

For us on the east side of St Albans there are two interesting connections between the town of Enfield after the closure of the toll system, specifically Fleetville, and the other Marshalswick.  For those who have already clocked the title of this blog will have guessed  that the Fleetville connection is probably Bycullah Terrace, the parade of Hatfield Road shops opposite Morrison's.

The section of Hatfield Road between Arthur Road and Woodstock Road South.

In passing, the Marshalswick connection is Jersey Farm, for Dr Corner moved his farm from a part of Enfield Chaseside close to the Northern Hospital because the Piccadilly Line extension was being built nearby.  More of that on another occasion.  

Enfield Chase and its early settlements, some of which still feature within the modern London
Borough.  
COURTESY THE ENFIELD SOCIETY

The outer terminus of the Liverpool Street to Enfield Town station which helped to promote
early residential commuting development in the nearby Bycullah estate.

There has been a long-standing bus connection between St Albans and Enfield.  Route 313 bus
waiting at St Peter's Street.

We will focus on the Fleetville connection which is close by on Chaseside, west of the historic town of Enfield.  The Chase itself was an ancient open and wooded space across the boundaries of Hertfordshire and Middlesex.  As London expanded and the communities of Southbury, Edmonton and Enfield itself, grew larger, the part of the Chase close to the Town (Enfield Town) attracted the first railway route (of three), so an estate close to the station and close to the western boundary of the existing urban area was sold for residential development; mainly large detached villas and equally spacious semi-detached homes, of which the key road was named Bycullah Road.  Today the majority of the addresses have been replaced by blocks of flats and modern town terraces.

Bycullah House and its extensive grounds in the early 19th century before the City commuting
 estate across nearby Chaseside.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Before the early 19th century development there was already one sizeable estate property immediately north of the station, separated only by Windmill Road.  It was named Bycullah House.  The estate land probably amounted to several acres having been purchased by a retired officer of the British Indian Army, Col R D Riddell.  At present I am limited to evidence from published maps which show a large house, a number of separate buildings, lawns, formal gardens and smallholdings.  A private drive (later extended into the current road called Bycullah Road) connecting with Windmill Hill.  Bycullah House, and therefore the later Bycullah Road was named by Col Riddell from his association with the district of the same name in Bombay (now Mumbai).

Portion of late 19th century Bycullah estate to the west of Bycullah House from which the
estate and its connecting road took its name.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

After Col Riddell's occupancy of the House, and its subsequent owners, the Bucullah residential estate grew beside it.  Within around 70 years a writer and printer with some experience and investment moved into Bycullah House.  His printing business was adjacent to Fleet Street, easily accessible from the Town station.  His name was Thomas E Smith, who had opened Smith's Printing Works at Fleetville in 1897.

The connection with Fleetville begins here with Thomas E Smith both owner of Bycullah House
and Smith's Printing Works, the beginning of Fleetville, then outside of the city boundary.

He had naming rights over the nearby roads, including the section of the Hatfield road adjacent to the works, which he called Bycullah Terrace.

Mr Smith died in 1904 and Bycullah House passed on and remained occupied until the Second World War, surviving as a building, but minus much of the remaining surrounding grounds, until the 1960s.  However, we can show that a residential road in Enfield and a very short length of Hatfield Road, Fleeetville remains as a link to Thomas E Smith and a Colonel of the British Army in India.

Bycullah House has now been replaced by infill housing.  Bycullah Road is at the bottom of
this aerial view.  Halfway is a new access drive to the modern houses, which was the original
access via a private driveway and Windmill Hill.

Tollgate

 In the UK there are  approximately 112 roads with the name Tollgate* in them, for all suffixes (lane, way, street, road corner, and so on); in addition there are a modest 15 roads with the word Tollhouse in them.

The first of several Tollgate Road street plates after leaving High Street, Colney Heath.

The answer to the question why such a route contains Tollhouse or Tollgate must be straightforward enough: during the period of around two centuries up to c1880s (although some closed earlier) in which  turnpike roads existed it is surely a section of road approaching a toll gate and/or toll house which will have been given – verbally at least – that most obvious of names.

In much the same way as so many roads in the vicinity of railways are labelled Station Road or Bridge Street.

The side road gate and house (no longer extant) near Hatfield Road in Colney Heath Lane. Named
Hut Wood Toll.  Painted by John Westall.

Through our east end of St Albans passes a section of the Reading & Hatfield Turnpike. Today the route is Hatfield Road and St Albans Road East, and if you peruse the website www.stalbansowneastend.org.uk you will discover a whole topic about the R&H, including its side roads which branch from the turnpike and where toll houses and gates lay in wait for those paying a charge.

But there is a road with the label Tollgate Road just east of Colney Heath village, although there appears to be no recorded Turnpike Trust to control this length of road.  Tollgate Road begins at the roundabout at the south-east end of High Street, Colney Heath.  It retains this name until becoming Dixons Hill Road shortly before reaching and bridging the A1(M), a modern road, although in former times the target would undoubtedly have been the Great North Road which is now labelled A1000. 

High Street view south-east to the start of Tollgate Road.

On the north side of the road was a separate farm known as Little Tollgate Farm, the main farm
on the south side.  Both are now Tollgate Farm.

After the road changes its name to Dixons Hill Road in the vicinity of today's A1(M) it passes
through Welham Green.

Evidence from various maps shows various short sections have been remodelled to enable the road to join the A1(M) and then aim for the A1000 near Welham Green Station where this road is still formally named Great North Road.  This section of the Great North road was controlled by the Galley Corner to Lemsford Turnpike Trust (Galley Corner can be found near Enfield).

The road crosses over the railway and reaches today's A1000, Great North Road, which was
controlled by the Galley Corner & Lemsford Turnpike Trust.

So we know of two turnpikes, the Reading & Hatfield, and the Galley Corner & Lemsford, between which appears to be a roughly west-east road by the names of Colney Heath Lane, High Street, Tollgate Road and Dixons Hill Road (formerly just Dixons Hill).  The give-away name is, of course, Tollgate Road.  Further emphasis is placed on the name as it passes Tollgate Farm, and formerly Little Tollgate Farm on the opposite site of the road. And that's not all; an area of nearby woodland has been called Tollgate Wood.

The vehicle is turning into the entrance of (Little) Tollgate Farm, as shown in an earlier photo.
Take note of the green bank beside the road and in front of the car.  The constriction would have embanked or possibly fenced to enclose half of the present road's width.
We will observe it on both of the maps below.

At this point we should refer to a detailed spreadsheet listing all known tollhouses, whether extant or lost, in Hertfordshire**. Number 34 on the list names the gate "North Minns" [sic] but describes the location of the gatehouse as "Tollgate Farm, Colney Heath, Roestock."  Further location detail describes "Tollgate Road, from Mimms Hall, north of North Mimms Park."  Rather disappointingly, the spreadsheet informs us that, as with the majority of gate houses in the list it is "lost", in other words, it no longer exists  and had not done so at the time of the 1890  OS 6 inch map.  Visual inspection of the 6 inch and 25 inch map of 1897 confirms this.

Although there were occasional buildings along Tollgate Road at this time, none was labelled Toll House and none existed on the boundary of the road as would be expected if the intention was to restrict road width and stop traffic to collect tolls. 

There is one more alleged fact about Tollgate Road.  While the majority of turnpikes were organised by Trust – the clues are in their names – an unknown number were privately owned, and the toll road where this house presumably stood was allegedly a private company. So the same amount of data does not survive in the public record.  It is not possible to prove that its private status is the reason for such lack of information; nor is it possible to prove how long in distance the private road was.  It is likely the majority of vehicles using it were making passage between the turnpikes at the Hatfield Road and the North Road.  A toll house midway would have seemed a likely option.

Until now we have one tantalising clue about an apparently privately owned turnpike (or toll) road, but insufficient to be specific about exactly where, nor its specific purpose.

Section of OS six-inch map surveyed c1879.  The Y shape road layout.  Bullens Green is at the top
with Tollgate Road to Colney Heath to the north-west corner and towards Great North Road
southwards.  At the centre of the Y is a curved line on the right of the road which 
represented a bank constricting the road width.  
Beside the curved line are the lettersTP (Toll Point)

COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The larger scale survey of 1896 shows a more accurate boundary of the obstruction and
a mark indicating it is nevertheless part of the road.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Or are we just not searching well enough?  Searching an earlier OS six inch map does finally reveal where it was; the standard abbreviation for a toll house and/or tollgate is TP, (toll point). It doesn't exactly show a rectangular formation to represent a permanent building, but it does mark a narrowing of the road on the east side – and it is located right outside the entrance of Tollgate Farm itself.  Cross checking with the OS 25-inch map for as late as 1897 the same curved line on the road surface is in the same location, although the abbreviation TP is no longer marked.  The curved line drawn on the roadway would have represented a bank of grassed covered soil or some other obstacle to constrict vehicles to to use a deliberately narrowed part of the road for the benefit of the toll collector.

It is therefore very likely that the private owner of the toll road was also the owner of the farm.  We now have a good deal more knowledge than when I was passing the street plate in the car and asking myself that initial question!

 

* www.findmystreet.co.uk

** www.turnpikes.org.uk

XL-ALL Seeds

 Get ready for our first sleuthing project of the year.  If you are a long-standing reader of the SAOEE website the letters XL-ALL may resonate with you, especially if you occasionally spin through the Questions and Questions Answered pages.

A Ryder mature company catalogue by 1930.

Since the turn of the twentieth century Samuel Ryder's company, Ryder's Seeds, had been operating successfully in the city and was a nationally known brand.  Not only did it feature a very wide range of seeds, but the company operated a mail order facility on a fast turn-round, and boasted packets from one old penny – "penny packets" as they were known.  And if there is a profitable and highly successful trader there will always be a copy-cat business person attempting to deceive purchasers into falsely believing they will be buying the genuine product.

By 1907 such a copy-cat firm was advertising seeds: "the most remarkable business enterprise of modern times.  The seeds are sold at the uniform price of 1d [one old penny] per packet."  The advert tells us that "St Albans is known the world over as the distributing centre for these seeds."  But this advertising blurb did not refer to Ryder's Seeds. This was a firm from Leytonstone, not St Albans.  Nevertheless it allegedly brought its operation here, although we should be mindful  it could just have been a registered address.  Its brand name was XL-ALL, giving the address of Hatfield Road.

When customers contacted the company they were sent catalogues which were, in part, copied versions of Ryder's Seed Catalogue.  Of course we cannot say whether or not XL-ALL actually had seeds to sell; possibly they received the orders, kept the remittances but omitted to forward the seeds.  But even if customers did receive seeds from their orders they certainly were not Ryder's seeds.

We do know that Ryder's took the upstart to court and a restraint of trade order placed on XL-ALL.

All that remains is to discover which property in Hatfield Road was in the hands of XL-ALL for this short period of time.  That is where the matter has rested for the past ten years – until last week at the end of December 2023.

I had spent an afternoon searching new and interesting movie film titles which had links to St Albans and which were lodged with the East Anglian Film Archive, storing stock from Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk.  Among the titles I viewed was a short three-shot silent from 1907 – note that year, which was mentioned above.  The film's title was The Animated Pillar Box made by Arthur Melbourne Cooper of St Albans.

The Animated Pillar Box, shot 1
COURTESY EAST ANGLIAN FILM ARCHIVE

On this post are three key stills from the film, one of which provided a connection with the Ryder- XL-ALL story above.  Cooper just happened to include details of a company painted on a wooden gate. Today we might call it product placement, but in 1907 the details  probably just happened to be where Cooper was filming. Coincidental.

The link is:

https://eafa.org.uk/search/?q=&titleDateFrom=1890-01-01&titleDateTo=2024-12-31&perorg=&agentActivity=&locations%5B0%5D=Hertfordshire&featured=&workType=&descriptionType=&sound=&colourType=&searchSort=relevance_desc&pagination=5

The sixth title in the page list.

Why not freeze the film after the first very long shot and take in the white hand-painted sign announcing the location of XL-ALL's warehouse, apparently behind the gate.

The Animated Pillar Box, shot 2. Was this the opposite side of the road shown in shot 1?
COURTESY EAST ANGLIAN FILM ARCHIVE

The Animated Pillar Box, shot 3
COURTESY EAST ANGLIAN FILM ARCHIVE

The long first shot give us plenty of time for take in the house in the background, the T junction foregrounding downhill, with a footpath and fence behind.  The roadway appears to be rather longer than is first seen in shot one, the lower section only seen in the third and final shot.  The painted fence sign may have been nearby.

Remember, the 1907 advertisement stated the firm was in Hatfield Road, but that is a very long road, extending from St Peter's Street to Popefield at Smallford.  Perhaps it was the nearest developed location to Hatfield Road.  Or the house, of course, may have been demolished at any time since 1907.

So the question is, do you know where the house and its junction is, or was?  Any ideas anyone?

Remembering 1923

 Time to look back even further than last year as it is now we are at least one day into the new year.  As I have blogged previously I'm jumping back before our memories; back to 1923.  Why not indeed?  So here are a few events which St Albans people found to be recent by the end of 1923.

Walking out of the front door of the King Harry PH and into a quiet open space.  Such was the
1920s and earlier.  This view from Watling Street is deceptively quiet for even then this was considered a dangerous junction with poor sightline.
COURTESY HERTS ADVERTISER

King Harry corner: a long time before traffic lights appeared, the junction had long been realised as dangerous, but it would be much improved if various outhouses of the public house were removed.  Clearly any improvements didn't arrive early enough as the field (now St Stephen's estate) had already been purchased for housing and therefore constrained widening and visibility.

Cock Lane: the top of Hatfield Road between St Peter's Street and Marlborough Road is about to be widened.  So, with the benefit of hindsight we can conclude the road does not seem very wide today!  It also helps us to date the Blacksmith's Arms PH which was rebuilt further back from its original footprint.

Swimming certificates: for those of us who remember working hard for these little sheets of thin card, certificates for 25, 100 and 440 yards were awarded for the first time to children attending the city's elementary schools.

It was proposed that the market stalls should be lit by electricity; but these matters take much time to resolve and I recall it being the early 1950s before stalls not in The Square were converted from hissing hurricane lamps

In 1923 the Market Square became a car park on most days of the week (see item further down).
It is difficult to see Waddington Yard (now Waddington Road) in this photo.  In the left
background there is a narrow gap between the buildings, which opened out a little behind into
a yard, hence its former name.  The pub on the frontage was demolished to provide car
access and it became Waddington Road.
COURTESY ANDY LAWRENCE

In 1923, and a good time after the access to Spencer estate and Worley Road from St Peter's Street was still called Waddington Yard.  There was a public house on the corner called the Rising Sun.  This would be pulled down to widen the access.  This happened – eventually – and the name changed to Waddington Road.  But it all started in 1923!

A small parish school along Watford Road, St Stephens, was proposed for closure, with just 33 pupils left, although there had previously been over 60.  Interesting move as the field across the road was about to become St Stephen's estate, and a field on the other side of Chalk Hill (now cross by the A414 was M10) had just been sold for development. Fortunately, the closure was temporary.

The sale of Marlborough House in 1923 prompted a swift change in the Victoria Street 
streetscape.  The line of trees on the right are between Trinity Church and Lattimore
Road, but within a very short time they would be gone with the development of
Victoria Street and Marlborough Gate behind.

Marlborough House, off Lattimore Road, and formerly owned by Samuel Ryder, changed hands in favour of the newly arrived Loreto College. This also marked a huge change in the Victoria Street streetscape, which many residents subsequently recalled as a landmark year.

Oster Hills: this substantial private house was sold and became part of the St Albans hospital estate, initially for the accommodation for nurses; the name Oster Hills quickly became more widely known by St Albans folk.

The Poly: the end came for this much converted and altered cinema in London Road. It succumbed to fire originating from the projection room – in those days of highly flammable film.  The cinema was fully enlarged and rebuilt in 1928, and is still popular one hundred years later as the Odyssey.

Public toilets: in 1923 they were beside The Boot PH in Market Place and not well-favoured.  New toilets were to be built attached to the Clock Tower, but of course, these never materialised. Try the Town Hall or George Street!

You may have forgotten, or never knew, but 1923 was the year when The (Market) Square became a parking plot for cars; except for Wednesday and Saturdays of course.  

Not St Albans, but near enough, in the very early days of Welwyn Garden City – how excited St Albans people were to learn that news and its founder Ebenezer Howard. The Canadian-owned Shredded Wheat Company has decided to build its factory in the garden city.  Its arrival gave the new railway station its informal sobriquet: "a return to Shredded Wheat please!"

Though detailed reasons were not given it was announced that unemployment figures for the last year had fallen from 636 to 363. Which must have given many unemployed or lightly employed residents some hope in a dark world.

By the end of 2024 we'll discover what became the events of the year in 1924, but you won't need reminding of the events of the year on which we are about to embark; they will still be fresh in our minds.

Have a fruitful, enjoyable and successful year; we hope there is much for us all to look forward to.