Gurney Court

 Ah, we're back to Gurney Court again, although the only time it has been featured previously was in connection with the origin of the street's name.  We are not even going there today!  Our visits investigate what might make the road out of the ordinary, different, or even unique.

Gurney Court Road is one of a pair of north-south residential roads (the other being Charmouth Road) built in the 1930s although the proposals for the development predate the First World War. In fact the seeds of development might be traceable back to the 1860s, when the Midland Railway Company was seeking a route to link its line at Bedford southwards to St Pancras via St Albans.  One option, which was not taken forward, was to build through what would later become Fleetville, across Hatfield Road towards Sandridge.  However, the selected route was closer to the eastern boundary of St Albans Borough, through land belonging to Earl Spencer and close to Marshals Wick House owned by the Marten family.

To the right of the Midland Railway are the allotment lands, with the majority of the Marshals
Wick House park on the right side of the map.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The developed parallel roads of Gurney Court and Charmouth roads almost complete for the
1939 published map.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

On one side the fields between the railway and the boundary of the Marshals Wick park north of Sandpit Lane became treatable has a block of land distinct from the larger portion north of the railway, as far as Sandridge Road. 

During the early years of the twentieth century allotments became popular, not so much as a leisure time pursuit, but for the health and well-being of residents on limited incomes and living in smaller terraces with only small gardens.  So pathways were laid out and allotments were let out.  The same land was utilised during the First War for military training, and for the storing of building bricks, not to mention the inevitable intensification of food growing.

There were a lot of homes to sell c1936, and a rather optimistic walking time
to reach the railway station.

The final owners of Marshals Wick House were George Nisbet Marten and Anne Marten, and the house was unsuccessfully offered for sale in 1921, some time after the death of George.  However, once it became evident that buyers for the house might be thin on the ground plans for redevelopment were taken forward.  As with other estate and farm land on the edge of the city Earl Spencer disposed of his adjacent three fields for new homes, while ensuring a proper connection was available from Hatfield Road – for the railway station – through both sections of Clarence Road, to link with his new roads north of Sandpit Lane.  His new road layout conveniently followed allotment paths and the detached and semi-detached homes began to appear, starting with those along Gurney Court Road. 

A coordinated plan of Stimpson, Locke and Vince, still will no office in St Albans, laid out the proposed plan for both the estate and the Spencer land, both largely a grid in layout; Gurney Court and Charmouth roads following a typical plan for the time of very lengthy mainly straight roads in parallel.  The houses were mainly grouped according to a builder's choice and the developer's rule on minimum values for the number of plots the builder had  purchased.  So the effect as we walk or drive along the road is of a pleasing design palette  typical of the mid thirties.

Three typical types of home lining Gurney Court Road.

The road with no homes along it: Harptree Way

On the road's eastern side the houses are punctuated by one very short connecting road, Harptree Way, itself having no homes fronting it.  Under the original layout plan Harptree Way would have been significantly longer, extending across Charmouth and connecting with Home Wood Road (now Homewood Road).

Gurney Court Road is on the right; the Midland Railway cuts itself beneath the St Albans Road
bridge.  Marshals Drive and Marshals Drive sandwiched the North Lodge when laid out, although
today Gurney Court Road continues across the unbuilt plot fronting Marshalswick Lane and
is therefore a little longer.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Next to the triangle at the Sandpit Lane end of Gurney Court Road, where it might be thought the first homes belonged to the beginning of the road's sequence, the numbering reveals these to be the rather intermittently located dwellings of Sandpit Lane itself.  At the north end we may observe the road is now a short distance longer than its pre-war distance, having been driven through to Marshalswick Lane.  The road layout of Marshals Drive has been marginally shortened. North Lodge is now at the end of a stopped up Marshals Drive, allowing for a simpler traffic connection into the Sandridge Road/St Albans Road intersection.  The result is, of course, a congested junction at busy periods of the day.

Consider this: if you lived in the bottom third of Gurney Court Road how far away would be your walkable distance to the local shops?  It was not an error that shops were excluded from this development.  Their exclusion was built into the covenants of the estate! Even the later Quadrant shops are quite a step!