Making Something Fit

 The need for new schools, especially senior establishments, forced Hertfordshire Education Authority to search diligently for appropriate sites, often catching up with builders and developers forging ahead with their housing estates.  Equally, the authority, was playing catch-up with government's regular changes of requirement and its own decisions to improve building and facility standards.

This week we ask the question why the students of Verulam School continue, after 86 years, 
 to walk to their games lessons between Brampton Road and Sandpit Lane.  Here
is the imposing school building when first opened in 1938 – although not visible until
reaching the inner end of the school drive.
COURTESY HERTS ADVERTISER

These playing fields, now adjacent to Oaklands Grange, at the eastern end of Sandpit Lane, was
originally purchased in the 1930s for the future senior school for Marshalswick.  Minds were
changed when the Education Authority realised it had purchased a site at Brampton Road which
was too small for the school it wished to build.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

This all leads to the question of why, since 1938, the pupils of Verulam School, have walked their way to the eastern end of Sandpit Lane for their sport zone (games field).  Why did the Education Authority not incorporate the buildings and the games field on one site?  Good question.  The short answer is the sudden requirement for all areas to create new grammar schools if no alternative buildings were available, and in St Albans, there were was only one; the Central Girls School, opened only in 1931.  The plan was to create a  grammar school for girls on a new site and convert the Central School for a boys' grammar school.

Negotiations between the Authority and Earl Spencer, to acquire a portion of his new development between Brampton Road and Jennings Road, which was already under construction, managed to shoe-horn sufficient space for a new school between Park Avenue and Hamilton Road.  Unfortunately most houses in both of those roads were already completed and occupied.  Similarly, Brampton Road homes were largely occupied, except for the space opposite Sandfield Road.  The reason for such a space by the mid thirties is thought to be a new road linking Brampton Road and Churchill Road intended to connect Hatfield Road and Sandpit Lane.  This aborted section of the Spencer development, intended to assist with the Authority's purchase also prepared the way for the new school's entrance location.

Brampton Road running left to right in 1924, near the bottom edge. Clarence Road is partly
developed on the left, the gardens of Woodstock Road are on the right, and Jennings Road is
only partly laid out.  In this large space Park Avenue, Hamilton Road and the school would
find their spaces.  Had it not have been for the school another road linking Sandfield Road and
Churchill Road would have been driven through this space.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

In 1939 the School is one year old and new homes have enveloped its grounds.  Its front
drive opposite the end of Sandfield Road is the only part of the road which never was which
still exists. This was the school which was, together with tennis courts, how the school was
intended.  The Authority acquired the site to the right of the drive as the school's caretaker
accommodation.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The space available for the proposed school was further restricted by the lengths of the rear gardens in the three roads, though not the south side of Jennings Road where housebuilding had not begun.  So, under the circumstances quite limited, but under the authorised layout requirements for schools it was sufficient for a girls' grammar school, and so the plans were drawn up.  In the meantime the Authority bean-counters suddenly realised the existing Central school in Hatfield Road was already a girls' school with accommodation for girls' facilities.  Rather late in the day, Central became the new Grammar School and the boys were provided with the new buildings in Brampton Road.

By 1963 more buildings have been added and a tennis court relocated; garden ends have already
given way to school space.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The rules for space, particularly for playing field space were inadequate for a boys' school (of any kind – it was the gender which counted, not the specialism).  The future school for Marshalswick was aborted and became the playing field for the Boys' Grammar School.

It did not take long for the existing 1938 buildings to become inadequate for the new school.  By 1963 the main quadrangle block to be extended on the south-west corner and to the east; and a new building and swimming pool to the north.  

Since then, other accommodation and a car park has been added to reduce the grassed area to little more than an amenity space, perhaps just sufficient for a single football pitch.  The school has also now  acquired houses in Brampton Road, and a few rear gardens have been nibbled to squeeze in buildings.

The layout of the block today as revealed by the current Open Street Map
COURTESY OPEN STREET MAP CONTRIBUTORS

The same view, one hundred years forward from the earlier 1924 map.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREET MAP

So, if had not been for girls toilets already in place in 1938 at Hatfield Road, today the Verulam site may have been an established girls' school, boys would have had their school at Hatfield Road – and would probably have ended up on an extended site in Sandridgebury Lane.  It all came down to how much land the Authority agreed to purchase and therefore the flexibility to expand, their maximum pupil numbers, and what may be expected of the establishments over time.

Shoe-horning is not the answer.