Twenty-Five Minutes Missing

Green flag award open space, Hatfield Road cemetery.

 Among the most relaxing and peaceful periods of time in the bustle of Fleetville may be spent wandering the paths of Hatfield Road Cemetery.  A few years ago a group of us discovered some unusual stories among its residents laid to rest.  So I have brought together a small number in an occasional series.  Here is the first.

On the western side of the burial ground is the final resting place of a 40-year old Asian man who, in 1974, almost no-one could admit to knowing.  So intriguing was this man's unfortunate story that the investigating police officer was the only mourner at his burial, using his professional experience to track down the man's parents and brother in Singapore.

We know nothing of his private live, other than he lived alone in a bed-sit somewhere in the city; the Blacksmith's Arms overlooking St Peter's Street, was considered to be his "local"; and that he worked as a wireman at a firm in Welwyn Garden City; since there was no evidence of a car we assume he used the former 330 bus from St Peter's Street to the Garden City.

The man was known as Tan: Francis Tan Kim Choo.

From those people who did claim to know him and who frequented the Blacksmith's Arms, confirmed he was, I suppose like many of us, a creature of habit.  He would sit on his own each evening in one of the bars, acknowledging everyone who came in, but no-one seemed to talk to him.  After last orders and closure he would remain behind to assist with washing up before disappearing back to his bed-sit.

Blacksmiths Arms public house on the corner of Hatfield Road and St Peter's Street.
This was Tan's nightly visiting place.

But one night, his last, was different.

Tan, instead of remaining behind, left the pub promptly at 10.30, carrying with him a white plastic bag.  At the same time, and from another bar, a woman left.  They later met in St Peter's Street and agreed to go somewhere for a Chinese meal.  They were next seen near the junction of Chequer Street and London Road.  A large car drew up and the driver offered the pair a lift.

Today's London Road with Chequer Street out of shot on the left. The car would 
have faced along London Road to pick up Tan and the un-named woman; and Tan's  
lodgings were nearby along this road.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

The lift was accepted, but the woman changed her mind about the intended meal, and Tan then decided to leave the car – at this point he was close to his lodgings.  The time then was 11.20pm.  Twenty five minutes later Tan's body was discovered, covered in blood, in the driveway of a house opposite Great Cell Barnes former nurses quarters in Hill End Lane (now Emmaus).

Hill End Lane at the former nurses quarters, now Emmaus.  Opposite there are a number 
of houses.  This is where Tan was maimed, run over and lost his life.  How did he get 
from London Road to Hill End Lane as he had apparently left the pick-up car at or  
near the Peahen junction, London Road?
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

There are still several still-unanswered questions:

Since he had left the car, how did he reach Hill End in so short a time? He would have had to run all of the way, but then, why would he have needed to?

Why, on this night of all nights was his normal routine broken?

What was in the white bag and what happened to it?

Was the meeting of Tan and the woman anything other than co-incidental?

Who was the driver of the car and why was the lift offered? Possibly more to the point, why was it accepted, and was it accepted by the woman or by Tan?

Tan was buried in a public grave approximately where the light blue marker lies.
A police officer was the only attendant at his burial.

The police evidence stated that Tan had been struck by a red car, thrown several feet, and as he lay in the driveway with his skull fractured and legs partly in the roadway, a moped ran over him.  So there must have been at least one witness in Hill End Lane.  But the drivers of neither vehicle were ever traced.

But there was another intriguing element to Tan's story.  In writing home to his parents Tan had told of his wife and child.  The police officer had discovered this when he wrote to Singapore to inform them of their son's death.  His mother had wanted the insurance money to be spent on the child.  They had to be informed that there was no wife and there was no child.  Tan, it appears, had made for himself an invented family for the benefit of his parents.

A poorly photocopied copy of a published
photograph of Tam.  This may have been
the only surviving image of Tan.
COURTESY THE HERTS ADVERTISER

So, here is a trio of final questions: was there an intended rendevous that fateful evening?  Did Tan make that rendevous?   Did it have something to do with the white plastic bag?

There is a period of just twenty-five minutes missing in the life of the city and of this man's life: Thursday 4th July 1974, from 11.20 to 11.45pm.

First and Last House

Traditionally a house builder would lay out his street plan of proposed houses, select one of the plots and then start building on those around it.  The plot held back would then be used as the firm's store yard.  This would become a busy hub for deliveries of materials, meeting point for building employees and base for the site manager/foreman.  Near the end of the contract the builders' years would be cleared and the final house built.  

The Hatfield Road face of the Beaumonts estate today.  Among the house builders of the estate
were G N Burgess, A A Welch, H C Janes and Harvey & Webster.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

Although I am not certain of the name of the house builder in the case of Hatfield Road, between Beechwood Avenue and Oakwood Drive on the north side, the sale of Beaumonts Farm did not take place until 1929, and the new edition of Kelly's Street Directory was dated 1930.  By then all but six of the forty-two new homes had been completed and occupied, which seems to be a remarkable pace, especially considering that it is known there was usually a delay in the publication of changes in addresses.

The plot held back for use as the builders' pound had been numbered 267 but left blank in Kelly's for many years.  The plot lay barren with no attempt to build on it, and becoming overgrown; the boundary hedge line grew taller and the open space – still growing the kind of weeds and grasses which had previously grown as a source for grazing on the farm.  Thus it remained until it was tidied after the Second World War, when  occasionally occupied by an arriving vagrant who slept beneath the hedgerow.

The future 267 plot as seen in the mid 1950s with the former police box.  The poster frame 
pointing to Tacchi & Burgess's site in Sandpit Lane and Chestnut Drive, their poster having
been stuck over the earlier 1929 board for Watford Land which purchased the farm. The word 
WATFORD is just visible at the base of the original poster and underneath the red arrow.
COURTESY PHILIP ORDE 

A recent Aerial photo of 267 at the junction of Beechwood Avenue
and Hatfield Road.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

There was change too along the footpaths of Beechwood Avenue and Hatfield Road from the late 1930s.  The City Police had sited timbered cabins for their officers to use (and the public in emergency situations), the nearest being on the corner of Hatfield Road and Sutton Road.  Just before the start of the war the cabins were replaced by brick structures and the Sutton Road building transferred to the Beechwood Avenue corner where today is the floral bedding on the corner.  When the police box was eventually demolished a red phone box arrived on the boundary between the 267 plot and house number 269, before it was relocated to a safer position at the entrance to Beaumont Avenue – it's no longer there either!  A letter posting box was also an early arrival in a convenient position near the Beechwood Avenue junction, and in 1939 a large and substantial brick walled structure with thick concrete roof became a bomb shelter for pedestrians caught in the open during  an air raid.  Although sealed up when Peace arrived that did not stop vagrants – and occasional children – to make an entrance, before its final removal in the mid fifties.

On the road itself the junction became increasingly worrisome as sightlines were poor, Ashley Road was still unmade and history chose this part of Hatfield Road to be formed into a bend.  As Beechwood and Ashley became part of the ring road, traffic signals were installed, although these did not include Beaumont Avenue.  Finally a double roundabout was devised.

T&B's c1960 house taken c2000.  The public flower bed replaces the former police box
location as shown in the second photograph above.

Plan from the planning application to St Albans District Council.

267 in the process of demolition
COURTESY DAVID GAYLARD

In the mid-1950s the well-known building firm of Tacche & Burgess began erecting homes in Sandpit Lane, opposite Rose Walk.  To advertise these inviting homes T&B erected a large poster board on the 267 plot – so perhaps it was this firm who purchased the plot afterward finally built number 267, a detached property.  A vehicle driveway was laid at the boundary with 269, and a separate pedestrian gate appeared halfway along the public flower bed, although we are hard-pressed to discover the gate today because of encroaching undergrowth and trees.

The Beechwood Avenue boundary was originally timbered and then became a brick wall, at times becoming an attractive surface for informal paintwork!  Vehicles moved to the Beechwood end of the property.

The house in its present form is now being torn down and replaced with a semi-detached pair, having reached the grand old age of 65 years.  Work is currently underway and the pedestrian gate will be revealed once more; one garden will become two, and we presume 267 will have a partner in 267a.  Each house will have parking space for two cars, although the drive-in for 267a appears, from the plan, to cross part of the public flower bedding.  We will discover in time, no doubt, how that will be managed.

And so, an increasing number of residential plots, sufficiently sized to form a spacious setting, are having additional and smaller homes being squeezed between the party walls or fences.

For those who have no memory of a public air raid shelter below is a photo of one from a different location.

Street shelter with the entrance unseen at the far end.  There would also have been an
emergency "window", here hidden on the left side.

Street Plates 3

 I expect a number of blog readers are beginning to pay closer attention to street plates they pass regularly in their home area, and/or those signs which are not where you expected them to be located, or appear to be missing altogether.  This week I began to wonder how unusual various addresses are, or alternatively, how frequently they are to be found, and why that might be.

Let's begin with the first of this week's bunch: Stanhope Road. A relatively short street in Victorian St Albans and part of the housing expansion which came about through the opening of the Midland Railway in the 1860s; the filling in of a field on the eastern boundary of St Albans Midland Station (Midland because there were already two other stations named St Albans, and it was added to the Midland Railway).  Today it is renamed St Albans City.  But back to the street which attracted commuters – no doubt a novel name in the 1880s.  St Albans was fond of recognising important or notable figures associated with the town. Flash the title Duchess of Marlborough about (and you've no doubt already made an connection with Marlborough Road) and the name St Albans' people associate with that title is Sarah Churchill, who we will return to on another occasion.

The Duchess made many bequests in favour of government minister Philip Henry Stanhope, the fourth Earl of Chesterfield.  The fourth Earl (1781 to 1855) just happened to to be president of the Medico Botanical Society of London from 1829 and was honoured by having a genus of orchid, Stanhopea in his name.  And of course Sander's Orchid Nursery was just at the foot of the hill joining the newly named Stanhope Road.  How many Stanhope Roads may be nationally found?  The National Gazetteer identifies 53 others, and only one other, Waltham Cross, in our county.

Next, we feature two roads which are unique.  The first is Puddingstone Drive.  Not even any other Puddingstone, whether Drive, Avenue or any other suffix.  Puddingstone Drive came into being resulting from the proximity of a rare geological feature nearby.  The drive is one of those road layouts found in a number of late twentieth century residential developments which begins logically enough at a T junction, in this case Highfield Lane, but then is given free rein to wander.  The road circumvents a collection of mature trees which were previously part of Cell Barnes Hospital estate and now a pleasant green space between the houses; and then includes a diversion to take in a small group of homes which would otherwise have to be called something else!

If you have never come across the geological feature previously think of it an irregularly shaped boulder of conglomerate rock which looks rather like rough concrete and found mainly in Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire; rare enough to match the rarity of the street plate of the same name!

The other rare name in this month's collection is Milvus Road.  The National Gazetteer identifies no other with this name in the UK.  And if you have not come across the name before most of us will recognise red or black kites in the skies around us, and especially in the Chilterns.  These are raptors or, if you like, birds of prey.  Check their details in a specialist bird book or view stunning video clips online.  Milvus Road does not stand alone; there is a little collection of raptors in the newly completed Oaklands Grange located along Sandpit Lane.  Unique as befits the glory of red kites in the skies across the Herts and Bucks countryside.

Someone thought to select a small group of men who had come to prominence at or shortly before the twentieth century dawned. They stood apart for their command skills within the British Army.  A small group of roads in the Cell Barnes (formerly known as London Road estate) were selected for such an honour.  Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig led the Expeditionary Force throughout most of the First World War.  His was also the name behind the unique and continuing fund raising charity supporting ex-servicemen and women.  It was called  the Haig Fund and is what the red poppies represent.  Through most of the period since 1921, when the fund began, Haig's name appeared on each poppy; it now reads Poppy Appeal.  I wonder whether a poppy appears on one of the street plates in Haig Close each November.

There are countless examples of Haig (rather than Haigh) in the country's roads.  Of the eight versions of Haig Close, plus one Earl Haig Close, this is the only example in Hertfordshire.

Finally, an example of a road which sported one name and then a need to change that name was realised.  Of course there could have been many reasons for that action, but in this case it was confusion caused to the postal service and a certain amount of carelessness during the addressing of envelopes.  The Marshalswick road which linked woodland surrounding Marshalswick Farm and nearby Skyswood led to the rather obvious name of Woodlands Avenue being applied in 1938 to the formative estate.  No-one appeared to make the connection with a road of almost the same name on a nearby estate just a few years earlier: Woodland Drive. The similarity resulted in frequent confusion, with post intended for one road being sent to the other, and even the spellings were transposed, So, choose any combination of Woodland and Woodlands, Avenue and Drive!

In selecting an alternative and coming up with Sherwood Avenue, there were locals who mused over the continuing connection with woodlands and a legend popular in our culture.  Instead, the connection was on residents' doorsteps.  With the formation of the parish of St Mary, daughter of St Leonards, Sandridge, in 1948, the driving force behind much of the groundwork in creating the new parish and its new church of St Mary had come from the Reverend Michael Sherwood. For the residents of the parish the renaming would have been a personal and community honour, and they certainly would not have been aware that throughout the UK there would have been 54 other Sherwood Avenues. 

 Surprisingly, perhaps, for the most famous of all forests, only six of the 54 known Sherwood Avenue examples are located in the county of Nottingham!  Time to remind ourselves that other labels are also available; there are six Sherwood Avenues in Notts, but there would be Sherwood Roads (7), Closes (0), Drives (1) et al.