A Tour Around 25

 You may have delved into every post this year as and when each was published, or dipped into the occasional topic as its relative interest to you was awakened.  2025 resulted in a total of forty posts, most at the rate of around three per month; so here is a review of what you may recall and/or topics you may have missed along the way.

The big series of 2025 has been coming across roads with names having an interesting story to tell.  The 12 posts altogether covered 57 named streets from across our east end, extending from the boundary of the Midland railway to Harpsfield, and from Sandridge to London Road.  Of course the total number of roads is well over 350, but twelve posts provided a useful summary.  You will discover one article each month throughout the year.  So we can start exploring.

Each of the selected streets had an imagined design, included a summary of the
source description, and its location and colour grouping

Occasionally we have explored the paths around Hatfield Road Cemetery and the lives of former residents.  The most intriguing was the story behind casual employee Francis Tan Kim Choo from Singapore, and the missing 25 minutes of his life.  Linked to the history of the Rats' Castle public house, we pause to remember the life of architect Percival Cherry Blow along one of the Hatfield Road Cemetery paths.

Anniversaries recalled include the months leading up to the end of World War 2, the messy times of the period, and the relief and celebration of the summer of 1945.  There had always been the promise of employment at the opening of former hosiery mill Ballito, arriving in Fleetville during 1925; revisiting the year 1925 to find out what made everyday life in a less populated east end, remembering modern St Albans isn't only now, but was also modern then!

When Ballito Mills moved in during 1925 two firms had previously moved out.
Hafield Road had not been metalled when this picture had been taken in 1907, but it turned 
from a printing house to a thriving building manufacturing knitting fashion
ladies nylon stockings.

We may not realise it but the district does seem to have what must be the smallest village green at Sleapshyde.  Clarence Park does not look quite like the drawings in one of the posts – some residents may be pleased about that – but there was a possibility, and may still become a reality – temporarily of course – during the summer  months.

A game of cricket certainly could not be played on the green at Sleapshyde.  Must be
the smallest village green of all.

A social necessity for all at some point or other wherever we live, is the need to use a public toilet on our walks.  In these times of restricted local council funding just how does our district cater for our outdoor urgent requirements?

One particular house?  You might consider a 1960s house on the corner of Hatfield Road and Beechwood Avenue, which is undergoing a significant change according to a planning application.  Or, also in Hatfield Road, is work delivering a replacement house, possibly a tight squeeze, just beyond Colney Heath Lane. More is being made of existing larger gardens.

Constructed on a former builder's yard, this house at the junction of Beechwood
Avenue and Hatfield is about to become two homes, if planners agree.

The Rats' Castle is still trading, but under a new name (the Old Tollhouse) but parts of the corner's story had become a little muddled over time.  So the account is being sorted to become more accurate.

Same building, but new name in Fleetville. The former Rats' Castle also has an 
unusual back story.  Read the real version in this post.

It's not often we focus on trees, but this year we discovered the felling of an oak tree in a residential garden.  We wait to discover how old it was, and need to have the experience of a tree ring counter to help us!

Have you observed how the property front boundaries of Sandpit Lane vary along its length?  These are the Sandpit Lane Wastes which have at times posed a few problems for residents when their new homes were built behind the current kerb lines.

There seems to be no end to the number of books written about St Albans.  The current total appeared to be about 65, not all in print, however. A few of the more recent titles are announced.

One of the most recent books published about St Albans.
COURTESY SAHAAS

A flurry of new residential developments are at the planning stage and one is shortly to appear at Oaklands with the delightful name of Oaklands Blossom.  We explore how this has come about.

Four posts focus on the former Beaumonts Farm.  How early residents were able to walk legitimately between Camp Road and Marshals Wick before modern streets had been constructed.  Then how a medieval field provided a brick resource for local housing and today for employment.  The request for a search for pictures of two temporary structures which have not been seen since 1938 and the early 1960s respectively, both in Woodland Drive. And finally, how we can still make our way from Colney Heath Lane and St Peter's Church in exactly the same way as worshippers in the early 19th century had walked the same route.

A corrugated iron house similar to this once stood where 83 Woodland Drive is today.
Does anyone know of a photograph of the real corrugated iron house from this
site?  Lived in by three different farm households between c1901 and 1938.

Enjoy re-reading, and we hope you look forward to another blog collection in 2026.

The listing of all  2025 blogs is shown on the right.  One click takes you straight there.

Worthy of Snapping?

 In the heart of Beaumonts Farm there were two landscape features, neither permanent and neither present today, and you might question whether either would have been worth the cost and trouble of taking a photograph of, especially back in the world of film photography.

The focus for this week's post is shown above.  The orange circle is the location of the former
Iron House (or Tin House) until 1938.  The green circle defines the "Green" or waste ground
where the farmhouse, demolished in 1938 had stood for a century.
It was also a post war playing field, shops and, eventually, Irene Stebbings 
House.  The small blue circle is where the electricity substation was installed.

The Iron House

The first was only present before the estate houses – notably Woodland Drive – had been built.  It was a temporary little house constructed of corrugated iron and was known as The Iron House.  They were popular during the same period as tin churches and corrugated iron storage sheds, including Nissen buildings (those with curved roofs still to be visible today.  The farm had one of those too.

A hand-written drawing and label for the temporary Iron House building with an
overlay on a more recent surveyed map.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

We know exactly where the Iron House was because although temporary buildings were never surveyed onto maps they were nevertheless added by hand to certain versions once maps were  published.  By overlaying onto a later map and setting those features from both maps, we have established that the Iron House and its little garden was spread across the plots of numbers 77, 79, 81 and 83 Woodland Drive.  The houses of 81 and 83 themselves were built on the site of the Iron House.

It first appeared on the scene by 1901 and by the date of its demolition c1938 three households had made it their home. Edward Ashwell, a farm labourer, his wife Eleanor, and their 7 year old daughter (in 1901).

Louis Bundy, a cowman, and his wife Merrina, together with four children, moved in next.  Charles and Edith Atkins had moved in by 1915 and were resident for the longest period of time.  They had five children, and we know they had attended Fleetville School.

All we can say is that this image is SIMILAR to to the Iron House which stood
where 81 and 83 Woodland Drive is today.

We know of no surviving photograph of the house, nor of any of the families who were resident.  Perhaps no-one did take a photo, but as to the question was it worth taking one, three families might have thought so although none of them was likely to have possessed a camera. The opportunity might have been afforded to others, however.

So, what is the photograph above; is that not the Iron House?  Well, it is certainly part of AN iron house and was selected to illustrate the kind of structure which stood for roughly forty years one hundred yards north of the farmhouse.

A signboard and playground

For the second structure we jump forward to the 1940s. 

The farmhouse, demolished in 1938 is now the location of Irene Stebbings House, and
during the post-war period had been an enjoyable open space on which children
could play.

 Housebuilding had stopped in 1940 and in several parts of the estate site all had been quiet for nearly five years.  A large block of land between Woodland Drive north and Hazelwood Drive north, and adjacent to Central Drive, had, in the original 1929 plan, been reserved for a church.  St Albans City Council acquired this block  c1945, intending it for community use (unspecified).  Within twelve months J Benskin, Brewery, Ltd erected a signboard announcing the company had acquired land here for a future public house.  In the meantime several occupants of the new homes nearby took the opportunity to dump builders' waste onto the site. By the 1960s the city council had used half of the site for five small shops and there was also a pair of homes at the Hazelwood Drive end.

In the 1960s the rough open space had been flattened and local youngsters created
their own ad-hoc team.  By this time the shops had been built (behind the group).
COURTESY CHRIS NEIGHBOUR

This left about half of the block with two mature trees, though in poor condition having been extensively climbed, swung on and mauled about by us children; and hillocky grass mounds hardly suitable for a game of football!  In 1953 we had all gathered on this land where a bonfire had been prepared, and fireworks set off, to celebrate the late Queen Elizabeth's Coronation.  The city council later flattened the ground, brought a goalpost (just the one, I think) and fenced the newly sown grass from the street.  Children could now make more of their outdoor space.

Procession and street party in an unmade Central Drive.  Beechwood Avenue is in the
background, with the waste ground "Green" to the right.  Coronation year, 1953.
COURTESY THE CLEMENTS COLLECTION

Present day view of the scene and viewpoint shown in the previous image.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

At some point the Benskin signboard disappeared, probably in the late 1950s, and eventually Irene Stebbings house was built and a permanent cap installed on what had previously been the farm well.

Irene Stebbings House.  The space behind it part of the "Green" and site of the former

Farmhouse.

We have a photo or two from the post-war period, though not one which shows the empty and entire block between Hazelwood and Woodland Drives – and during the 1950s this would have included all of Central Drive homes and all of the corner plots including Beechwood Avenue (1), Woodland Drive and Hazelwood Drive, as they had not yet been built on.  So this was still quite an empty and open vista.  Does anyone's family collection include that Benskin's signboard?  Yes, I do wish I had taken photographs of these sites, but our perspectives were very different when we were children in the fifties.  The opportunities were there for our parents and our grandparents, however, but remember, they were using film.

So, pictures of the Iron House (Tin House) and pictures of the early "Green" – we will call it the waste ground – where the farmhouse had been.  Over to our readers, their families and friends.

1950s Child Centred

 What did the Herts Advertiser focus on at Christmas during the 1950s?  Of course far more than we can explore here, but below are half a dozen quirky items which involved children of the time; after all, what would Christmas time be without them?

Blizzard?

To start with there will have been just as much whoopy joy for the appearance of snow, far more frequent anyway in the fifties than today.  Two reasons, it brought children out of doors onto the streets, in the parks and/or back gardens to handle and mould the white stuff and throw it around quite a lot.  Some children were also lucky if their school was closed for the day, or even longer.  Caps, hats, gloves, scarves, warm coats, and boots and gloves – except for the hardy types who returned home with red hands to re-warm in front of the fire or the kitchen boiler hot pipe.  February 1958.

The School Play

Secondary (or in the early years, Senior Schools) school buildings began to be built with assembly halls with basic stages, tab curtains, beginner lighting rigs and nearby classrooms sometimes linked to a backstage area.  St Albans Grammar School for Boys (now Verulam) opened in 1938 and their first few "annual" drama performances were Shakespeare presentations.  By the end of the 1950s the period may have remained the same but the playwright had change as the school discovered Thomas Dekker.

The Shoemaker's Holiday, a light comedy of 16th century life with a moral interpretation.  The Herts Advertiser's review wasn't overwhelmingly positive; in fact, s/he found the positives quite limited.  But the end of term play, like fundraising "fayres", parties and film shows, were the traditional staple for the week before Christmas, and the timetable went light touch.  Our bringing up, wherever and whenever it was remained memorable, and most of us can recall those special events.  December 1959.

The works children's party

Many of our parents working at the larger firms in our east end during the 1950s, brought home from the directors one evening a "personal invitation" to attend the firm's children's party.  Occasionally, this may include a x2 in the form of your best friend whose parent did not work at the factory.  Ballito's Hatfield Road stocking factory (now replaced by Morrison's) was one of the larger events, employing so many hundred adults.  But the children's party   was the usual stuff of games involving plenty of running around, competitions which may have involved dressing up, film shows, Father Christmas (must have seen him at least twenty times during that Christmas period – and we shouldn't forget the magic show and lots of basic food.  As with parties hosted by the mums of our best friends they were always unpretentious affairs and certainly did not include paid-for visits to the local skating rink or "an experience" of the Disney kind. January 1954.

More school plays

By the 1950s all secondary schools were getting on the school play bandwagon, with special performances for the local elderly groups, and the top classes of nearby primary schools, in the expectation that parents would want their children to move up to that school later in the year.  Beaumont Boys' School's turn came round with Sweeney Todd.  A splendid performance which I can attest to, because I was in the audience!  Some of the pleasure must have been lost for my parents who wandered along to that evening's show, as I had spent most of the intervening period describing almost every little detail.  But isn't that just what is supposed to happen, between the cringing and the muted applause, and the head teacher's wondrous thanks for everyone turning out to support the pupils (as they were invariably called).  December 1955.

Presentations

Not sure whether this was specifically Christmas, but the Mayor turned up at Fleetville School one day to present a prize to Diane Farmer, and then scooted along the road to Garden Fields to make a further prize to Alan How.  Both best at something, naturally.  Like other memories of schooldays, on our frequent adult holiday sojourns to Jersey we acquainted ourselves with Alan; he owned and ran the Beach Barbecue venue at Gorey, and we got to know "Big Al" quite well over the years.  I wonder whether Diane and Alan hung onto their certificates and were able to use them as prompts with their own families,  October 1952.

Cribbing

Finally, how good were we all at making things at Christmas?  It seems that in the second half-term classrooms were veritable factories, turning out decorations, cards, cribs, advent calendars, play programmes, seasonal pictures and so on.  The boys of St Columba's College turned out their own personal crib scenes to be entered into a competition – rules deliberately vague – and of course judges to follow the rule: everyone's a winner, yet there is somehow only one prize!  How does that work then?  December 1956.

And the Herts Advertiser's own

Probably an agency pic but all the same, everyone would have joined in the spirit of Christmas with a photo such as this. December 1959.

All photos above courtesy the Herts Advertiser.

Street Plates 12

 And so we come to the final post in this series of monthly articles about the backgrounds of a number of east end street names and why they were so called – or were probably named.  For the most part I can be certain, but occasionally – as you will read in this post – there has been a certain amount of guess-work, and if readers have an alternative view do let me know.

Many decades passed in the twentieth century with estates and other development areas only partly complete.  Temporary usage was made of dormant land – temporary buildings, allotment gardens, stock-piling ground and, in the years before mains drainage, the dumping of the contents of cess pits  A business partnership trading in Fleetville for over fifty years, Frank Sear and Thomas Carter, ran a nursery and florist, from premises adjacent to St Paul's Church, now called St Paul's Place.  

Sear & Carter's florist shop; behind were several glasshouses.  Today the whole is the
location of St Paul's Place.

Houses today line the Salisbury Avenue junction with Garden Close.

Sear and Carter carried out extensive trials on temporarily acquired land in and around Fleetville, one of these sites being between Woodstock Road north and Beaumont Avenue & Salisbury Avenue. There, shrubs and other garden plants were grown on.  The company also undertook contract work on behalf of residents, businesses and the city council.  The site opened onto the road adjacent to where Gleave Close is today.  At the other end, access was gained from Salisbury Avenue.  The business transferred from Hatfield Road in 1960 to their country trial ground and nursery at Smallford, a site long since occupied by Notcutt's Garden Centre. The small trial sites had closed and were sold for development, including the Woodstock Road trial ground, where the Beaumont Avenue access road became Garden Close; a rather appropriate name considering the location's previous usage.

Take a walk along the short closes which make up much of today's Jersey Farm and you may come across Cromwell Close.  This is yet another road which had been named by its developer after a London link.  Many of the others took their references from squares in the Capital, but, apart from Cromwell Road there appears to be only one more, Cromwell Crescent – but not a Square.  Perhaps it is not a London connection we should be looking for, but a reference to the 1640's Civil War.  Oliver Cromwell was a Parliamentarian; St Albans was mainly Parliamentarian in approach, and the town was a major collecting centre for Parliamentary forces during this period.  Thomas Cromwell also had connections with nearby Beaumonts.

Above and top: junctions of Lincoln's Close and Cromwell Close and their connecting
roads.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREET VIEW

Nearby another road is named Lincoln's Close.  Lincoln was also a frontier town during the Civil War and also became a Parliamentary collection point at this turbulent time, and so could be considered to have an appropriate connection with St Albans.  However, an intriguing twist is the styling of the name, for it is called Lincoln's Close (inviting the comical riposte, "Is it? are you sure?)  So this is the first of today's uncertain explanations.  It is therefore left for readers to help clarify the road name's origin.

In the late 19th century an apparently rather unattractive and damp  track linked the foot of Camp Hill and the boundary track of Beaumonts Farm, now known as Sutton Road. It traversed two fields traditionally managed for dairying.  A builder who had developed a number of homes in St Albans was Ernest Stevens, acquired what was known as the Twelve Acre Estate, essentially these two fields, in the early 1930s.  Several building companies were beginning to assemble packets of land for selling plots and arranging for purchasers to build their own homes, or acquiring houses which the developing companies had constructed in a limited number of designs.  Ernest Stevens was aware that this would leave out aspiring residents who were unable to afford this method of obtaining their own home.  Stevens therefore, laid out his houses, retaining the ownership and making them available for rent at the lowest practical level.  The main through road took its name from the Camp Hill end, then named The Camp Fields, and so became Campfield Road.  A cul-de-sac he named Valerie Close and a road linking Camp Road he named Roland Street.

Above and top: Valerie Close at its junction with Campfield Road, and Roland Street
at its junction with Camp Road.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

Thus far all was straight-forward, and we assume that the names Valerie and Roland, having been selected by Stevens himself, were two family members.  So here is my second assumption of the day, because I cannot be sure.  If a blog reader can assist we will, I am sure, be delighted.

In most cases a street name consists of a root and a suffix, the latter being the name, Road, Drive, Crescent, Green, Square and so on. So, in this case we have a road named Dymoke Green, but searching for a suffix is quite unnecessary.  Charles Green, or to give him his full name, Charles Dymoke Green, had been the owner of Oaklands Mansion, but on marriage into the Marten family became a constituent and final generation member living in Marshalswick House.  We'll leave aside his early occupation as a distiller; for us in Hertfordshire it was his role in establishing the methodology for a new youth organisation, the brainwave of Baden Powell, and brought to life in 1908.  The Scouts, as the organisation came to be known, came alive first in Hertfordshire, one of the first adopting counties, thanks to Green's ideas, working with his own sons and with Powell.  Indeed some of the earliest outdoor activities were trialled within the grounds – his own "back garden", as it were – of Marshals Wick House.

An early outdoor activity in the grounds of Marshals Wick House.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE SCOUTS

When St Albans City Council developed a residential estate adjacent to Marshalswick Lane in the 1950s, it decided to recognise the spirit, experience and creativity of Charles Dymoke Green and his family.  Rather than labelling it Dymoke Green Close or Dymoke Green Drive, the name was left to stand on its own as Dymoke Green.

The name Thomas Edison, the international inventor of electrical, well, electrical anything, is not expected to be closely associated with St Albans.  After all, he spent all of his life in his birth country, the United States.  But his reputation and inventiveness could be claimed universally,

At the turn of the twentieth century the young local authorities possessed equally proud young ambitions, especially in health and welfare, and so there was a steady growth in the development of  civic buildings including hospitals. Many authorities sought to work with specialist architects of the day and to become or employ the inventors of ideas to run successfully these new institutions.

A surviving ward block of the former Hill End Hospital.

As a result, land was acquired at Hill End and farms were purchased.  Aspiring architects sought to bring ambitious electric lighting to Hill End  They ensured that the new complex installation would be built into the hospital buildings as they came out of the ground.  Not only would this be the most efficient methodology, it would be cheaper and less time-consuming.  Hill End was proud of its new installation and was even more proud to announce it was fully supported by Thomas Edison whose name and reputation was already internationally known.

Highfield today therefore has two roads who side-by-side have earned recognition in this corner of our district.  Thomas Edison is one; the other being Alexander Graham Bell (Bell View).  Not coincidentally, both men and their roads are within a stone's throw of a post World War Two company, Marconi Instruments, who would, as well, have honoured them.

One Hundred On

 We are now one hundred years on from the year 1925, and an additional six years forward from the end of World War One. At that time the government had determined that, in addition to the need for substantial numbers of additional new and higher quality houses, the cornerstone of this promise was to provide sufficient homes for returning veterans – the policy known as "Homes for Heroes".  The City Council launched its first programme at Townsend, although many would have been disappointed by the lack of pace, no doubt cause by a lack of understanding by the complexity of logistics, legals and the need to follow government procedure.  

A group of the first completed and occupied Springfield homes as photographed for
the Herts Advertiser.
COURTESY THE HERTS ADVERTISER,

A street view of part of the Springfield development one hundred years on.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREET VIEW.

The second programme focused on Camp Road and Springfield Road, though, once again there were funding issues between the council and the government, resulting in late delivery of the Springfield programme which only broke ground during 1925.  The Hatfield Road/Beaumonts programme, slated for a section of the dormant farm, remained just an idea. While a few of the original Springfield homes were later demolished,  the remainder in their lifetimes have been upgraded to ensure improved heating, glazing and insulation.  Springfield is now reaching its centenary.

Our east end was dynamically growing and a mere twenty-five years old. As such its residents had to contend discovering routes through and around the developing districts of Camp and Fleetville; after all, no-one had thought of planning the layout of streets, homes and factories which gradually became added to what was already present  in a random and haphazard spread.  At times travellers needed to take risks, especially in negotiating  the barrier which was the Hatfield & St Albans Railway line.  

The former Hatfield & St Albans branch railway divided the eastern district in two, and even
today the sub-optimal road network between Camp and Fleetville reflects the early
difficulties of connecting the two districts.

On a summer evening in 1925 four men were apprehended and later appeared in court for trespassing on the railway as they had attempted to take a short cut from Campfields to the allotment field east of the Hatfield Road Cemetery (today the site of Fleetville Junior School).  To be clear, these were four Fleetville men and were walking from Camp to Fleetville, so it is likely this was their second act of trespass on the branch line, the first being their walk from their home patch in Fleetville to their destination somewhere in Camp – was it a social evening at the Camp public house, now long gone?  It had never been easy walking between these two communities: the Cinder Track (Ashley Road), Sutton Road or Camp Road.  A further road between Roland Street and Sandfield Road was much talked about but never materialised.

Homes at the Sandpit Lane end of Gurney Court Road ninety years after they were
laid out on part of the former Marshalswick House grounds.

Readers of the Herts Advertiser in 1925 took note of advertisements in the early Autumn of a new development at Marshals Wick.  Stimpson Lock & Vince had opened a sales branch in the centre of St Albans for the express purpose of marketing the homes then being built for sale  along new streets north of Sandpit Lane, in the expansive grounds of the newly demolished Marshalswick House, formerly the home of the Marten family.  The rather grand formal parkland was being converted into streets of upwards of five hundred detached and semi-detached homes for sale.  While Charmouth and Gurney Court roads proceeded  as intended, the original plan was modified further east.  In particular The Wick wooded area was not cut down as originally intended for yet more dwellings, other roads were fore-shortened and Hazel Grove was removed from the plan altogether.  In addition, the east-west spine road, Harptree Way, was left as today's stripling with no houses fronting either side.

No photograph has been found of the 1913 picture house at Fleetville.  It was a typical "tin
church" style and was already second hand when brought to Hatfield Road.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

1925's residents of Fleetville would have recalled the prospect of a cinema appearing remarkably quickly in 1913; they were even able to stand on the corner of Hatfield Road and Tess Road (later renamed Woodstock Road South) and see the structure for themselves. Admittedly it was modest in size, as were many similar moving picture halls at the time.  But the locals never had the opportunity to venture inside; a legal case brought to court forced the builder to take the structure down, having contravened the Cinematograph Act, and to pay court costs against the builder.

A proper cinema at last!  The Grand Palace post-war became The Gaumont, then became
Chequers when they stopped showing films and converted to bingo.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

However, a decade later Fleetville residents finally got their cinema – well, it was built as near to Fleetville as was possible!  Named The Grand Palace Cinema and fronting Stanhope Road this sizeable entertainment building with its own orchestra, live shows, and a mix of silent and sound films, brought the most modern of entertainments within reach of east end residents.  Such was the size of its audiences  one of the district's early marked pedestrian crossings was installed across Stanhope Road right outside the stylish portico doors.         

Four notable events of the time in 1925.  How distant they now feel; beyond personal memory and only known handed down by our grandparents – and through the pages of the archived local newspapers.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Oaklands Blossom

 1919, and there were only occasional signs of activity between the former little triangular  entrance to Winches Farm via its track and its cherry trees, and the corner exit from Colney Heath Lane.  At the latter until recently the sounds of clattering booted soldiers walking to and from the little Hill End station as men came to or from long periods of leave.  Their training ground had been at the expansive grounds of Oaklands House.  Owner Sarah Fish and her daughters, having removed themselves to St Albans at the beginning of the war and were the last of Oaklands' domestic occupants.  Oaklands had been requisitioned for war purposes.

Nineteenth century Oaklands Mansion and its grounds when in private residential hands, and 
beyond the eastern limits of St Albans.

Two major events occurred in 1920, and one a decade later, which would forever alter the streetscape between Oakwood Drive and Colney Heath Lane.  Hertfordshire County Council made the decision to acquire the Oaklands Mansion, together with its grounds and the surrounding farm for the purpose of opening an agricultural institute; it is this event we will return to shortly.

This is the understated entrance view of Oaklands at the South Lodge and opposite to the
junction with Colney Heath Lane. Busy in the First War by soldiers, and busy today from 
the comings and goings of the College's students.

In the mid 1890s a land holding had been acquired for creating a mental asylum.  Part of this holding included Hill End Farm, but the Asylum authority prepared to dispose those parts of the farm they had no further use for.  The intention was to sell for development the land in the main  bordering Hatfield Road from near Ashley Road and Colney Heath Lane.  A small number of new homes appeared in the formative new district called Oaklands before the next event occurred c1925 with the sale of two fields belonging to Winches diminutive farm unit.

Since the thirties the Wynchlands shops have served an increasingly busy community.

The result became the homes of Wynchlands Crescent and, along the main road's northern frontage, a terrace of  shops and a range of semi-detached homes. By the end of the decade the number of incoming residents had created a busy little residential area which also crept along Colney Heath Lane, and in the 1930s, the beginnings of Longacres close to a recently gutted brickworks.

The third event was the sale of the remainder of Beaumonts Farm in 1929, leading to housing from Oaklands down to Beaumont Avenue and back along a number of residential roads creeping towards Sandpit Lane.  But even as these roads were being laid out the County Education Department was negotiating with developer Watford Land for the creation of two new senior schools which opened in 1938.

Meanwhile, the Agricultural Institute padded on, developing its courses with comparatively little external funding, adding as much as they could in the way of student accommodation, lecture rooms and labs, animal housing and agricultural buildings as could be afforded during a period of forty years or so.

From the beginning the former Agricultural Institute made what they could of the old farm's
buildings and facilities.
COURTESY OAKLANDS COLLEGE

And so we reach the next milestone to affect this corner of the eastern districts, when a fresh approach to tertiary education was introduced to the colleges of further education (CFE) and the agricultural college in St Albans, and further CFEs in Welwyn-Hatfield and Dacorum.  An unlikely new hub was proposed and accepted for the grouping of the existing satellites under a new brand called Oaklands, located at – well, Oaklands!

So begun further new and upgraded building work, and gradual closing over a number of years of the campus at 29 Hatfield Road; an adventurous new development programme had begun.  However, the planned national funding failed to fully materialise, and to compensate the College was left to find a way by using one of its fields for the building of the Raptors estate (Oaklands Grange) which opened onto Sandpit Lane.

News just released jointly by Oaklands College and Taylor Wimpey – which seems to give away which will be building the next tranche of houses on another of Oaklands' fields, formerly part of the Institute's orchards and fruit gardens.  The development will have the overarching title Oaklands Blossom; who could imagine a more delightful location to live!  However, I suspect the new homes will be named after Richard Blossom, the College's fourth Principal (1979 to 1992). Consultations having taken place over the past twelve months, planning consents have now been submitted to St Albans District Council.

A new leaflet shows the focus for proposed new works; Oaklands Blossom housing (top
left) and new college accommodations (centre).

The benefits to Oaklands College include the much needed heritage restoration and upgrade of the Mansion, supportive facilities for animal care, sports facilities upgrades, a new High Needs Centre for SEND provision, new recreation facilities for students and the wider community, and new facilities to support the county's film and television industry.  It will probably amount to the largest single programme of expansion and development in the history of the site since 1920.

But there is much more to this 2025 + future which promises as much for the community as for the college.  In addition to a mix of types totalling over four hundred homes, of which 40% are expected to be affordable.  Eighty additional houses will be for older and supported living and a local centre and community hub of shops and services "for existing and new residents" by which we assume this means residents living in any of the existing Oaklands roads would be included.  Open spaces and play areas are included, with new habitats and landscaping, and "a net biodiversity gain of 10%".  Finally, a site close to the new housing has been reserved for a future primary school.

Once the planning documents have gone live on the Council's website  we all have the opportunity to comment on one or more segments of the proposed programme.  There appears to be something for everyone in and around Oaklands.