Rats: the fuller story

 This summer many locals of Fleetville have been informed of the completion to the Rats' Castle public house upgrade, and an announcement made by the new owning company, of a renaming of the establishment to the Old Toll House.

One of many versions of the pictorial hanging sign outside the Rats Castle as artists 
attempted to imagine the story behind the title.

This has re-awakened people's interest in the story of this pub with such an unusual name – indeed it is believed to be unique as a public house monika in the UK.  Various re-tellings of the pub's history have been communicated over time, and those who have not been certain what that story really was have attempted to create their own versions.  The company awarded the contract for the new signage have contacted me to ensure they have an appropriately correct summary for a small interpretation panel which will be affixed to a wall inside the building.

So, what do we think we know?  A section of the Reading & Hatfield Turnpike, dating from the 18th and 19th centuries, included Hatfield Road.  Owners of a range of vehicles and animals were required to pay a fee at the Horseshoes, now Smallford, and in the reverse direction at the Peacock public house next to St Peter's Road.  However, no-one was required to pay in order to pass by the turnpike road at what is now Sutton Road.  During the 19th century this was a private track on the boundary of Beaumonts Farm owned by brewer and farmer Thomas Kinder. 

The former structure of the Peacock Public House at the town end of Hatfield Road, at which
point tolls became payable by traffic moving eastwards.  No tolls were due for traffic
moving around the centre of the town.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

There certainly was a toll house near the corner of the track and the Hatfield road; its purpose being to capture what we would understand today on buses and trains as fare evasion.  It was also of benefit to  farmer Thomas Kinder as he was a sometime trustee of the turnpike trust and gave permission for the toll collecting house to be erected on the the edge of Broad Field next to the track.  Not far from here  a small railway bridge was also built to cross his land en-route to Hatfield.  You'll be familiar with this route today as Alban Way.  We believe the toll house was already in place by c1870 – a small, probably single floor structure with a thatched roof.  We say "probably" because no image of the toll building has, to my knowledge, ever been found.

The 1879 OS map shows the turnpike road (Hatfield Road) between left and right, and a farm
track from there towards the bottom of the map.  Today this track is Sutton Road.  The
red circle identifies the location of the  toll house, described as a side road toll house.
COURTESY HALS

So, where would the fares have come from if not from travellers along the turnpike road?  After all, the track was a private one and only farm  vehicles and animals on the farm's own business had rights over it.  Principally, travellers leaving St Albans along the Hatfield road would have paid their first toll, as mentioned above, at the Peacock.  But what if you could take a different route eastwards and return to the turnpike further along the Hatfield road?  Such a route might not have been secure or well surfaced but it might save some money if you were not caught crossing private land.  An apparently popular evasion route began by leaving St Albans along Sweet Briar Lane (today's Victoria Street), Victoria Road, Grimston Road and Camp Road, and out of sight of the Camp Road toll. A track left Camp Lane on the edge of Beaumonts Farm, which today is Camp View Road and Sutton Road.  Kinder would have been aware of traffic using his track and turning onto the turnpike, and he would shared a trustee's concern in the Trust not receiving the tolls which should have been paid at the Peacock!

An equally modest side road toll house a short way along Colney Heath Lane, although
this once, named the Hut Toll House, appears to have clay tiles rather than thatch.

Well, that explains the need for a little toll house in Sutton Road.  So, where does the Rats' Castle come into the story?  The toll house roof of thatch appears to have been the cause; and an infestation of rodents did not wait for the building to be evacuated after closure of turnpike toll payments in 1881.  The name 'Rats' Castle' was being applied to the toll house even in the late 1870s, as indicated by a report of a delivery driver visiting the Rats' Castle with some fish.  So the building had been given a name almost as soon as it had opened.

As to the field in which it sat, the formerly named Broad Field had become informally renamed Rats Castle Field by the 1890s, possibly by individuals who rented its acreage following Kinder's death in 1881 and therefore under looser rental arrangements by his family trust.

On the fourth and fifth lines of the 1891 census enumerator's route summary is written
the only three buildings in the vicinity at the time: "Rats Castle, Cemetery dwelling house
and St Peters Farm House."

And as there were no other buildings in the vicinity until the late 1890s, the name Rats' Castle became a soubriquet by officials conducting the 1891 census!  After all, the name Fleetville had yet to be invented, there not yet being a completed print works until the turn of the century.

The Primrose Cottage and shop which replaced the toll house and almost became a beer seller
in its own right, but was limited to off sales of spirits.
COURTESY DIANA DEVEREUX

As the factories began to go up from 1897 an attractive detached house, named Primrose Cottage, also appeared on the corner, a shop being part of the structure.  We think the toll house was taken down at the same time. Eventually the shop received a licence to sell spirits and for many years a brewery attempted to get an on-licence, although was not successful until the mid 1920s.  Finally, the shop was demolished  and replaced by a public house designed by St Albans' architect Percival Cherry Blow.  The title The Rats' Castle was applied to this, and only this, building; a name which remained, apart from a very brief period in the 1980s when the owners tried out the rather more brief the Castle, which was booted out of touch by locals.

The full name, lasting for just about 98 years, until the entirely understandable replacement recently, in favour of the Old Toll House, for which purpose the original building served.  

But it definitely wasn't the current building; nor was it the previous Primrose Cottage shop; just the the original cheap structure put up to claw back some income from fare evaders!

And of course, when Castle Road was laid out in the 1890s it took its name, not directly from the toll house, but from the field which was carved up to build its houses.

That is probably as complete a telling of the Rats' Castle story as possible based on such evidence as is available.