A Muddy Alley

 This week's blog is very different; it may have a couple of street plates, but if many vehicles use it – which they don't – there will be comments about the surface, and flooding occasionally.  Signs inform about privacy, for this is not a publicly maintained road.  It should have sported the name Central Drive, for that was its intended name, or so the maps promised from 1929.  But World War Two reared its vicious head while the Beaumonts building estate was only partly complete.  So the road which should have begun at Oakwood Drive barely reached Beechwood Avenue by 1945, and children of the time could continue what they had had always enjoyed; jumping in puddles, exploring the thicket, at Christmas collecting holly, and taking their usual shortcuts through the muddy alley to Beaumont Avenue.  It wasn't really a short cut; just as long or short as any other way to where we wanted to walk or cycle.  But it was far more interesting; far more of a mini adventure, and the lane was called the Muddy Alley for good reason at times.  And still is!

Farm Road from the Beaumont Avenue end.  Though thicketed on each side the track has probably
never been wider than we see it today.

 

Because it is a privately owned route many nearby residents are still unaware of post-war detached and semi-detached homes down there somewhere in the darkened lane!  Even during the earlier days of the new estate Beechwood and Beaumont homes with sizeable gardens had made arrangements for accommodating future homes which might line what became known as Farm Road, even though they had not originally been intended; just like Harptree Way, lined only by the rear gardens on both sides.  But there are today four homes embedded on either side of Beechwood and Beaumonts properties.

Farm Road from the Beechwood Avenue end, although before the 1920s it extended as far
as halfway along the western end of Central Drive.  Indeed the farm lane was intended to be named
Central Drive right through to Beaumont Avenue. 

The farm quoted in the title of the lane was Beaumonts Farm which stood until 1938, approximately where Irene Stebbings House in Woodland Drive now stands.  The lane or track, which of course still branches at right angles off Beaumont Avenue and is still as thickety as it always was, although until the houses came it was rather longer, opening up once more where the electricity sub-station in Central Drive now is.  For probably a thousand years or more men and women have trodden their way to work the land, driven their horses, ridden their carts from the time since our forebears first ploughed the land, taken their crops to market or traded with others nearby.

Beaumonts Farm homestead demolished 1938 to permit a start on new homes in Woodland Drive
north, although it would be another eight years before most would proceed, halted by the Second 
World War,

The previous farmhouse and Manor House drawn c1800 shortly before its demolition.  The
foreground with a little jetty is a moat inside which was an even earlier building of probably
mid mediaeval age.  Remains of the moat were still evident before laying out the houses on the
corner of Central Drive and Woodland Drive south.
COURTESY HISTORIC ENGLAND

Before the farmhouse was built in the 1830s there had stood the former 17th century manor house close to Central Drive and Woodland Drive south; and before that an even earlier medieval house lay protected inside the arms of a moat.

As our forebears had started out on a journey, with fresh water from a spring or the well, or even from the stream where Eaton Road is now just about dry, their trek or ride would have led them along an ancient route way across country on or off the chalk and bisecting tracks or later roadways, leading in other directions.  First from the left would have been the roadway towards Bishops Hatfield and Ely, and later the way to London.  Leaving Beaumonts on the right a traveller could first have reached the Roman Verulamium and pre-Roman settlements to the north and all manner of trading places and manorial headquarters in between.  

1946 aerial photograph showing Beechwood Avenue, the white
road to the right. Farm Road and the western end of Central Drive
cross the centre of the photo.  On either side of the lane is land
not yet developed (see also map below).
COURTESY HISTORIC ENGLAND

Ordnance Survey 1939 survey illustrates the undeveloped land shown in the aerial photo
above.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

How people communicated, settled and traded a thousand years ago may have been very different, but communicate, settle and trade they did.  Had we have lived in the 16th century within striking distance of the farm lane and the ancient track, we may have been aware of the Manor House and its barns and stores which held a strategic and defensive significance; Thomas Cromwell, or at least his men, were regular visitors to maintain a fair number of horses at the ready here and in other nearby locations in case of insurrection or trouble from the wider region.

Beaumont Avenue (or simply The Avenue) taken in the first decade of
the twentieth century, but the route as a cross country track has a
heritage extending back millennia, long before land was brought into
cultivation; before even permanent settlement.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

We who today live in our residential area of Beaumonts, great in number though we may be, whether freemen and women or serfs and occasional travellers or traders, their domestic accommodation was scattered and were subject to the community rules and laws governed by manorial lords from the manor before more settled and uniform local government became the norm.

Our local communities have come a long way in the past one or two millennia and we would not recognise our district's past in any shape or form today. But we still walk the former lane to the farm, called Farm Road; and following much rain possibly still known as Muddy Alley.  Names stick, just like the mud and wet chalk!

Punctuate appropriately

 Fifteen years ago when the title of this website and of the two volumes of the book were being considered, I, as author, was determined to use part of a quotation spoken by a well-known St Albans' councillor of the time – 1912.  He had described the growing development of Fleetville as being part of "St Albans' Own East End".

My publisher advised that I should avoid any title which included an apostrophe, for specific reasons that search engines are, well, specific and that "most searchers would not bother to include an apostrophe in their search term."  The second alleged fact may well be true.  In fact, the first may also be true in some cases.  Computer search engines may, indeed, be confused by apostrophes – or other punctuation as well – but designers of software are surely more intelligent and so their software should be able to handle punctuation as part of their searches where required.

The author won in the battle of apostrophe or no apostrophe!

A North Yorkshire street plate, traditionally set with an apostrophe.  Last week North Yorkshire
decided to banish apostrophes on new street plates.  Within a matter of days the authority had
changed its collective mind in the face, apparently, of public opposition.
COURTESY BBC/NAJMODAK

You may recall that recently the North Yorkshire local authority, responsible for the naming of streets and the fitting of appropriate street plates.  It appears the authority has recently declared street names which require the inclusion of apostrophes would have to be displayed without them, on the rather dubious grounds that computer finding and sorting aids can't locate streets in their indices "because those same computer lists do not include them; they therefore can't be found!"  Existing plates will remain with apostrophes or without them as initially made and not replaced.  But in future streets would definitely remain sans apostrophe.

The new policy did not last long; barely a week in fact.  Announced, published in the press and pilloried by local residents who had fully learned such usual grammar and did not wish to tut-tut every time they walked past St Michaels Lane or Butchers Walk.  Others may prepare themselves armed with black permanent pens to add or otherwise alter an errant sign, possibly even adding "gr" as a correction mark!  The NY authority turned its back on the new policy as quickly as it had been invented; and all is back to normal.

This most certainly IS St Albans, located adjacent to Jersey Lane.  I have no knowledge of
Jodie and presumably the creator of the plate had received no instruction concerning an apostrophe.

Now, what about St Albans?  There are well over three hundred named streets in St Albans' Own East End, and fortunately for those who are obliged to manage the "house style" these days only thirty would require the use of an apostrophe, if only its application was not ignored.  The latest installation appears to be Jodie's Court – though I am still attempting to discover who Jodie is or was.  This road is displayed completely without an apostrophe.

Now here's an interesting set of installations: you might imagine that a long road equipped with a full set of six street plates all or most of these in Marshal's Drive would be completely lacking in apostrophes.  However, the opposite is true: only one plate is missing its apostrophe; hooray!

Proof that online or computer created indexing can indeed work with apostrophes.  Google located
Marshal's Drive correctly and showed the reference on screen.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

Five out of the six Marshal's Drive signs carry an apostrophe; this one is at the top
end of the road.

Its nearby companion was originally spelled with a double L, but careful use of white paint
obliterated the second L with the exception of a comma shape left in black to form an
apostrophe.

Meanwhile, at the lower end of the road one plate was manufactured with no apostrophe, no
doubt as a later replacement.

But in an intriguing error, one sign was originally manufactured with a double L but no apostrophe.  At some time after being located at the upper end, white paint was applied to obliterate the second L, but part of the top of this letter was shaped to form a pseudo apostrophe! Inventiveness!

On an example of other signs, in Hatfield Road outside St Paul's Church is a grammatically correct
St Paul's Church sign header, above ...

... and nearby the notation is minus the word Church and minus an apostrophe; oh, but it does
include an abbreviation stop, which is missing from the first panel.

But away from street plates there are a few inconsistencies elsewhere  too.  Walk along Hatfield Road and you will find two signs on the frontage of St Paul's Church.  One says St Paul's Church; the other just plain St Pauls (but without the word Church).  Did the signwriter decide, no church so no apostrophe?  Or were there deeper meanings at play?  Just one example, but I am sure there are others if we were to search for them.

Selwyn

This week's group of three featured roads.

 Thousands of us drive along Hatfield Road between St Albans and Hatfield, and give scant attention to the residential district between Smallford and Ellenbrook.  Before the twentieth century there was Popefield Farm on the north side, and Wilkins Green and Great Nast Hyde (GNH) to the south. The house ran a farm at that time, and if you walked south of Wilkins Green Lane, behind GNH, you would find a second farm known as Little Nast Hyde.

Little building in evidence between Smallford and Hatfield in the 1890s.  Here are Great Nast 
Hyde and its farm, and just across Wilkins Green Lane is Little Nast Hyde Farm.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

A photo study of Great Nast Hyde composed and photographed by Arthur Cherry of St Albans
over a century ago.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

GNH includes Listed Elements on the English Heritage database, but that is not the reason for its inclusion in this week's blog.  Nor is its age of over 400 years.  Nor is the adjacent Little Nast Hyde farm.  However, for much of this time the estate and house was owned by the Kentish family and then a branch of the Hart Dykes; there were other owners as well!

In order to structurally improve the house after a long period of neglect at the beginning of the twentieth century land between the later .... and Ellenbrook Lane was sold for housing development, a golf course and a little railway halt to connect with Hatfield Station.  The development had been interrupted by the First War and in the 1920s estate land was acquired for the building of the Barnet Bypass, now part of the A1(M).

Selwyn College Cambridge

Bishop George Augustus Selwyn
COURTESY ATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

This provided the opportunity to restart the aborted house building and so materialised the sale of the remaining unbuilt land on the GNH estate.  It is believed that it was this sale which became a bequest to benefit Selwyn College, Cambridge.  The connections and chronology is not certain, but Bishop George Augustus Selwyn, having played  key roles in Cambridge and New Zealand, later became Bishop of Lichfield.

Following his death in 1878 a number of Cambridge scholars planned to honour Welwyn's life by establishing a college in his name.  While there were buildings it was not until 1926 that Selwyn changed to become an approved foundation college; and there must have been building works and bursaries associated with such an upgrade status.  We presume that an owner of GNH had been an associate of the college and possibly a former scholar; resulting in the donation of funds from this part of Hertfordshire.

Ordnance Survey 1937 showing the mainly complete Selwyn estate in the centre of the extract,
and the recently begun Poplars estate to the left.  St Albans Road West crosses the top section
of the map.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The two estates referred to in this post.
COURTESY OPEN STREET MAP CONTRIBUTORS

In view of proposed estate's connection with the college the three roads which comprised the residential development were named Selwyn Drive, Selwyn Crescent and Selwyn Avenue.  One further road, Brookside, was completed post WW2, as was the development on the west side of Ellenbrook Lane, begun in the 1930s and completed in the 1950s.

Selwyn Drive
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

Selwyn Avenue
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW