Nineteen Twenty Four

 As we approach the end of the year and as we often gather with friends and family we tend to recall people and events we have shared. The extent of them is largely governed by the age of those who are participating in the game, if that is what it might be called.

It is doubtful if such activity will telescope back a full century; so this is where the first volume of St Albans' Own East End comes in handy. Here, then, is a brief trawl around our city's eastern districts to discover what was occupying people's minds in 1924.

We begin with small fires spotted in two unoccupied buildings by observant nearby residents who were fortunate to find access to a telephone.  First, a Sunday passer by to Nicholson's coat factory in Sutton Road, and the morning after a late performance at the Grand Palace Cinema in Stanhope Road. Neither fire was serious, but both gained a small item in the Herts Advertiser.

Sunday, any Sunday, had a very quiet atmosphere.  Shops remained closed, as were theatres and cinemas.  Even council-owned recreation grounds were closed, or where necessary, children's play equipment was padlocked. A fair proportion of the population attended church and/or Sunday school.  So two young men having a kick about with a football in Camp Lane were apprehended by a duty policeman.  That incident as well was featured in the local newspaper.

1924 saw the removal of the line of trees in Victoria Street at the former home of Samuel Ryder.
Within a short time shops lined the road where the trees had been.

Samuel Ryder, proprietor of a seed firm and donor of what is today a well known golf trophy, had just moved into a house in Clarence Road. While his previous house survives as a small part of Loreto College, preparations were being made to fell a line of trees alongside Victoria Street which had formed the boundary of his garden, replaced by shops at the front, and houses at Marlborough Gate behind.  There was much public disquiet concerning this "improvement".

Clarence Park had opened in 1894, and one of its features had been a bandstand, in the same position as today's structure which is seen in the photo below.  It was a timber structure topped with brushwood, and which by 1924 had deteriorated so badly the structure required replacement. The Council, however, declined to take responsibility for  its replacement.

The Hatfield Road side of Clarence Park had, before 1894, been a field belonging to St Peter's Farm.
It was known as the Fete Field as a number of public events had taken place here.  Those events
continued to take place as the Herts Advertiser reported in 1924.

Completed homes on the Springfield Estate.

A slow start had finally been made in laying out the ground between Camp Lane and Cell Barnes Lane for St Albans' contribution towards World War One's Homes for Heroes, to be known as the Springfield estate. Earl Verulam had agreed to sell his Cunningham Hill Field to the Council for the purpose.  There would be another four years of building before its completion.

August Bank Holiday was always a celebration fete and sports day, and 1924 was no exception.  Such events had taken place even before Clarence Park had been laid out on a field commonly known as the Fete Field.  This open space became the recreation ground of the park and fetes continued to be held there until they were later transferred to the more spacious Verulamium Park.

This wold have been one of many posters put up in advance of Bill Cody's Wild West Shows.
But it was a copy-cast event which arrived in St Albans in 1924, three years after the closure of
the final Buffalo Bill's entertainment.

1924 saw the arrival in town of a travelling show cunningly close in name to Buffalo Bill's famous Wild West Show. It was named Bronco Bill's Wild West Show!  As many circuses and shows did at the time, it pitched up on the Gaol Field, now developed between Camp Road, Alban Way and Flora Grove.  With so little other permanent  entertainment in the town such shows were highly popular. In 1924 residents were just a few years too late to witness Bill Cody's genuine show.  People were beginning to feel its entertainment rather dated, and with a few racist elements too.  But that didn't stop Bronco Bill from attempting a copy-cat version.

Electricity had come to town at the very beginning of the century and the "electric snake" had been buried under pavements in the roads around Campfield Road's electricity station.  In 1924 the NorthMet company planned to extend the cable to envelop an area around north and east St Albans – its precise route is unknown today – in anticipation of future factories and homes.  How excited we must have been!

Since 1921 there had been considerable expansion in the bus services offered, including a new route to a new place called Welwyn Garden City.  But it was also possible to ride from St Albans all the way to Hitchin and Bishops Stortford without changing, suddenly bringing Fleetville very much closer in travelling time.

The sale of Hill End, and to a lesser extent part of Beaumonts Farm had encouraged house building on the south side of Hatfield Road.  Until 1924 housing stopped at Beaumont Avenue and Ashley Road was still a muddy track; the next few years would see see main road growth as far as Oaklands.

Marshalls Wick House remained unsold in 1924, and within a short time the house will have
been demolished and the former private drive will, with a little alteration, have become a
public Marshals Drive.

Several unsuccessful attempts had been made to provide an alternative use for the old Marshalls Wick House.  While plans for laying out roads on the surrounding grounds had begun, but in 1924 the house did not appear to be wanted for anything.

In other parts of St Albans, farmers protested at the poor market facilities in Market Square (the area in front of the St Albans Museum + Gallery).  Two of the three existing railway stations, all called St Albans, were renamed St Albans City and St Albans Abbey; the result of a re-grouping of smaller companies which had taken place the previous year.

Finally, the formal closure took place of the old prison in Grimston Road.  Of course today the front and outer wall looks the same;  the prison cell block removal was the main loss.