Streets we named

 There are developers who are content to build homes and go as far as laying our their estate and perhaps consulting a list of house types and road names.

Then there are those who do the job properly, who feel embedded in their home areas, who grew their businesses within their home patch, later expanding and feel a pride in delivering home style names and roads to connect where they began with wherever they have reached in their business experience.  The developer Thomas H Nash, Nash Homes, was one such firm.

So, let's explore a few of Marshalswick Farm Estate's roads and pick a few connections.  It may help us to discover that the Nash family were of Chiltern origin, and it also helps to understand that the region abounded in brickworks and is nationally known for its timber industry, especially for furniture manufacture; the major town in this respect being High Wycombe.

Let's start with High Wycombe, original home of the T F Nash family.

A green corner of Wycombe Way "round the back of The Quadrant."

Straight away therefore, we have connections with the town of High Wycombe, having given its name to an unprepossessing thoroughfare behind The Quadrant, often known for its long-stay parking and tall brick walls. 

A short step along The Ridgeway long distance path...

... now formalised into a National Trail.

A rather shorter The Ridgeway extending from Marshalswick Lane to... well, further along
Marshalswick Lane.

But on a completely different scale is The Ridgeway, created to circumscribe the residential development, leaving Marshalswick Lane at one point only to rejoin it just over over half a mile later.  Part of the actual route had been laid out for Nash in the form of a lengthy track curving through the former Marshalswick Farm.  Historically, geologically and topologically, The Ridgeway is a an ancient long-distance track way of some 5,000 years of almost constant trading use between the West Country and The Wash, and containing a number of ground monuments cut into the chalk surfaces at occasional locations.  Much of its distance is now part of a National Trail.

Traditional flint houses in Great Kingshill.

View along Kingshill Avenue.

Of the small settlements north of High Wycombe the earliest to have been given a Chiltern name, was named after Great Kingshill – and its partner settlement of nearby Little Kingshill.  At Marshalswick two roads get a bite out of this naming as, in addition to Kingshill Avenue was a C-shaped road known as Kingshill Crescent.  However, the latter was altered to Queens Crescent in 1952 (ascension of Queen Elizabeth II) to reduce confusion for the postman! 

Rather more than a village today: Hazelmere.

A corner of Hazelmere Road

Hazelmere Road bisects the eastern half of the estate between Sherwood Avenue and The Ridgeway south. It would be hopeful to think of Hazelmere still being recorded as a village although it has long since outgrown that status with much post war housebuilding (not I think by Nash! and not in the Nash style).  For us in St Albans and nearby Hatfield it is appropriate that the parents of aviator and aircraft designer Geoffrey de Havilland, Rev Charles and Alice de Havilland, had a church minister living nearby where Geoffrey spent his childhood.

A corner of Hughenden Valley.

A calm Hughenden Road.

Hughenden Road also a forms a link between Sherwood Avenue (together with Wycombe Way) and The Ridgeway, forming an attractive soft edge to the high density zone (HDZ).  The link is with the dispersed Buckinghamshire locality of Hughenden Valley, where is located Hughenden Manor, formerly home to the Disraelis (Benjamin Disraeli, twice Prime Minister).

I wonder whether Chiltern-related roads also feature in other Nash developments in the company's history.  Expect a footnote another time; meanwhile we're not done yet with roads in Marshalswick.

Entente Cordiale

 These two words may have passed you by during this week, but those who were very much part of the national and local scene at the beginning of the twentieth century were fully aware of Entente Cordiale.

For centuries there had been deteriorating and then improving relationships between the governments of Britain and France; for much of the time those relationships were unsatisfactory.  So, for the new century extra efforts were made to patch up quarrels and carry out a range of "shaking hands".

Entente Cordiale did not result in formal signed and countersigned documents, but did ensure that better relationships were able to counter a growing German influence on the continent.  For both countries there were opportunities to show off national pride in traditional social, artistic and cultural demonstrations.  And St Albans played its part, so the acquisition of numbers of flags of both nations was essential for events taking place on or around 8th April 1904.

The opening ceremony at the cricket pavilion in Clarence Park in 1894.  Wet of course!
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

A view of the newly laid out recreation area of Clarence Park.  All three structures shown here
are still part of the park scene, although the current bandstand is a replaced structure.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

One venue which St Albans could show off with some pride was Clarence Park, largely completed and formally opened ten years earlier in the company of royal and national dignitaries, and of course the cream of county and St Albans society – given that the opening in 1894 took place on a working day, the pride of the populace and their attendance was largely missing, given their need to attend work places.

Three years after the park's opening a commemorative celebration of the city's teachers in
schools was held in Clarence Park.
OWNERSHIP OF IMAGE UNKNOWN

A number of celebratory and inaugural events took place in the years which followed, and it was natural therefore that Clarence Park was also selected as the venue for Entente Cordiale.  The Town Hall and Market Square were suddenly considered inadequate, almost as if the centre of St Albans was judged to be a poor relation site.

A dance routine forming an element of the Entente Cordiale celebration at Clarence Park in 1904
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

We have the briefest of descriptions of the event; we know there were speeches, dancing, singing, flag waving and dramatic scenes similar to those of later pageants.  In addition to the "full turn-out" of officialdom, the event was attended by "large crowds".  The use of this term must be treated with some caution, as much will depend on the numbers expected.  While the agreement was signed on 8th April, a Friday, it is not certain whether the event in the park was held on the same day.  It would be good to hope the following day would have been for the celebrations; more citizens and those from the surrounding districts would have been able to attend.  On that last point, however, the city council were luke-warm to the thought of residents of the rural council enjoying the park facilities without a grant on their behalf being transferred to the town!  An example of local entente cordiale did, however, gradually break out in the ensuing years!

An echo of Entente Cordiale in 1912 between scouts of France and Great Britain.  This friendship
photo-opportunity did not take place in St Albans.
OWNERSHIP UNKNOWN

It appears there were replays in various forms in the years following 1904 before the national and local focus was re-calibrated in 1914, where, we suppose, the Entente received its most demanding test of success and endurance.

Dellfield

 

The loop of Dellfield with its short spurs.  To the right is the cutting of the former Hatfield and
St Albans Railway (Alban Way).  Way up to the left is the parched grass of Cunningham Open
space.  London Road is beyond the top of the picture.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

Recently, this blog told the story of Cell Barnes Lane.  Its northern limit reached Cunningham Hill Farm and the location where the Lane joined Camp Lane, now Camp Road. Go further and we quickly reach a much-changed and complex land layout with the Dellfield residential area at its heart.

For once we can also make reference to the landscape photograph which has always been used as the masthead for the St Albans' Own East End website and this blog.  It was taken from the upper section of Cunningham Open Space, looking above the rooftops of Dellfield towards the city; the heavy tree screen and elevation shielding the view of Dellfield's homes.  Walking along Dellfield itself, and looking upwards towards the photographer, the difference in elevation is remarkably steep.

The 1840 tithe map, to which has been added the names given to the fields at that time. Dellfield
is built on Dell Field and Up and Down Field; Breakspear estate replaces Twelve Acres and
Fifteen Acres; Springfield estate grew from Cunningham Hill Field and Spring Field.
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The same landscape in 1875; still exclusively rural although two railways have now arrived.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

By 1937 the housing is more-or-less as we know it today.  Orchard estate, adjacent to London
Road is partly built (see below).  Only London Road estate on either side of Cell Barnes Lane
is still to come.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

In the mid 19th century much of the land was owned by Earl Verulam and tenanted by Frederick Gough from Cunningham Hill Farm.  The tithe map from 1840  names its fields, including Barn Field and Fox Croft, after which the roads Barn Croft Way and Foxcroft were given their names.  Cunningham Green Space was created from two fields: Barn Field and Four Acres. 

Against the steep hill leading to the hamlet at the crest of Camp Hill was a small broadly triangular arable space known as Dell Field.  It neatly described its form, as one side of a valley side, of which the Camp Hill was a part.  A footpath is still available from opposite the first Dellfield spur; it climbs the hill and crosses over to the former farm via Park Hill Close.  You will certainly appreciate the gradient! At one time a small chalk stream, rising in Marshalswick, flowing towards Fleetville and along where Campfield Road is now created, passed through this dell towards London Road towards River Ver.  The undulating landscape on which the Orchard estate was developed gives us a clue to the irregularity of the topography the stream would have navigated to find its way through this part of St Albans. But evidence of the stream's exact route is missing from maps as it was a watercourse not visible on the surface for several hundred years.

These flats stand at the beginning of the road named Dellfield on a small field called the Dell Field.
Behind them is a steep hill; you will know it if you have walked up Camp Hill.  Also behind
the flats was the St Albans Rubber Works and its associated football field, later to become a
dahlia field for Ernie Cooper of Hatfield Road.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

The road named Dellfield, designed in a long loop, was created c1930, within a long rectangular field which describes the landscape from which it was formed: Up and Down Field.  So, the Dellfield estate was not built on the the field of the same name; that was used to create the access road to reach the housing.  The residential flats built here in more recent times were making good use of the small field which, until then, had offered only a limited contribution to the area's housing.

The Camp Lane and its settlement are on the left, and the Rubber Works when it first arrived
on Corner Acres Field from London Road.  The foreground shows the chalk scarp which
demonstrates the nature of the topography the builders had to contend with
in creating the housing community.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

One short spur on the northwestern length of Dellfield's loop leads nowhere, of course, because the field's boundary coincided with the line of the branch railway from Hatfield, although the field boundary may have been in a slightly different location before the railway arrived.  On the other side of the railway (now Alban Way) Flora Grove was laid on the Breakspear estate.  Although no bridge was created between the two there is much circumstantial evidence of nearby residents making a pedestrian connection between the two estates by means of the railway cutting between the two spurs.

Beyond the Dellfield housing there had been an intention to provide a permanent pedestrian connection towards London Road via what remained of the Half Mile Bottom Field. A footpath was created between two of the houses on the road's southern loop, as evidenced by the 1937 map and the remaining kerb line.  However, the path itself has long since been absorbed into the plot of a neighbouring house.   Clearly, in the early years the route from hear to London Road was an informal but useful link, across what little remained of Half Mile Bottom Field next to London Road as the Midland Bridge strikes obliquely across that road. Doubtless Dellfield residents used the path to reach various work places, or  London Road Station, still open then.  

This field was Half Mile Bottom Field; the map symbols showing closely spaced parallel lines
next to London Road show how the road was cut into the chalk, and therefore the challenge of
turning this field into the Orchard estate – here it is partially complete.  The green line from the
end of Dellfield's loop shows how its early residents could reach London Road.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Looking towards London Road from above the southern end of the Dellfield loop.  This view
looks towards the Orchard estate.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

The remaining field was gradually built on during the 1930s, and the growing little Orchard estate eventually suffocated access to London Road, the path between the Dellfield homes was closed off.

In a not unrelated issue, three of the original semi-detached houses in Aspasia Close were later demolished to provide sufficient space for a number of flatted homes.  It was only then that this spur of Dellfield was given the separate name of Aspasia Close, an extension of the collection of roads named after a genus of orchids in recognition of the former Sander orchid nursery in the locality.

This post has provided some clue to the human effort required to mould the landscape to our needs of the time, but the story would be incomplete if the wider story of Camp Road, and the forcing of the railway through this landscape, was not also explored; which we will do on another occasion.