Behind the Barrier

 It is always of interest walking or driving along Hatfield Road from Smallford towards and beyond Oaklands.  We have become used to the wide range of house types which have gradually appeared, most of them dating from before World War 2, and several infills in the post-war years.  Most have been good sized houses, and there have also been a fair sprinkling of bungalows – fewer today in the new century as redevelopments have taken place to maximise the floor area available.

Passing field-edge trees as we approach Colney Heath Lane from Smallford there are 
already a number of replaced modern homes – often two or three replacing a former single
property.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREET VIEW

Hatfield Road at the top, Colney Heath Lane to the left and St Yon Court offering access to
new housing on the shortened main road properties.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

This lengthy extension to Hatfield Road had come about when Hill End Farm was acquired for the building of what was then known as Hill End Asylum 125 years ago.  Some of the farm's northern acres were surplus to the hospital's requirements and in 1920 a strip was made available from the then eastern boundary of Beaumonts Farm all the way to Butterwick Farm.  And the latter also became available post war when that Farm was torn down for St Albans Sand & Gravel Company – St Albans Council taking the opportunity to expand the space for factories and warehouses nearer to Hatfield Road.

Although the pre-war house plots differed in their widths eventually some 90 varied properties were added to the street between near Ashley Road all the way to Ryecroft Court, named after the field on which those properties were built.

Small homes in St Yon Court occupying the edge of former Hill End Farm

For the past fifty years there have been several attempts at redevelopment by some of the earlier occupiers, especially of old-style bungalows, and by external developers attempting to make economic use of backlands which included portions of the extremely long rear gardens which are generally not required for private use today.  Pinewood Close, Cedarwood Close, Gresham Close and St Yeo Court are among the newer residential "conversion" layouts.  

The latest "look what we're building for you" panels to fence off the Hatfield Road frontage are at 480 and 482 where proposed building has received planning consent in the box enclosed by Hathaway Court, Hatfield Road, Colney Heath Lane and St Yon Court.

Of course much of this land has already been used up, but by modernising one existing property and demolishing another, four new houses will be added to the street scene; and improvements to the quieter street scene within St Yon Court are promised for its residents.

Since the late 1930s housing developments have also gobbled up the backlands, starting with Goodwin & Hart's Firwood estate which  removed much of the remaining Hut Wood to the east of Colney Heath Lane.  Most of the long rear Hatfield Road gardens nearby have been shortened to provide new housing opportunities from various access points, including Sewell Close, Rowan Close, Merryfields and St Yon Court. This block, which initially extended down to the former branch railway (now Alban Way) offers only increasingly limited new land for more residences.

Remember the impressive five-bar white gate?

More recently the gate becomes enveloped by its surrounding greenery.

The yet-to-be refreshed garden space from St Yon Court.
ABOVE THREE IMAGES COURTESY GOOGLE STREET VIEW

Hence owners and developers looking at numbers 480 and 482 had two detached properties to shape into their new plans.  You will identify the location because as you approach Colney Heath Lane from  the industrial buildings and stores there has long been a white five-bar gate, now virtually permanently in an open position.  At this point you will have reached and passed Hathaway Court, not itself a route to backland development, merely a driveway to the rear parking for the flats at Hathaway Court itself.  

Number 480 Hatfield Road, the house with the white gate, lost most of its rear garden when St Yon Court homes came along, although the house itself is interesting in not simply being a square box.  And its neighbour at 482 is an equally interesting brick structure with architectural detailing.  

The temporary street scene showing the retained 482 and the now demolished 480.
COURTESY VIC FOSTER

The lower illustration shows the existing view, with the working site centred on the two
middle properties.  In the upper illustration number 482 is retained and three new 5-bedroomed
detached homes are now in build.  The extreme left property is next to Hathaway Court
and is not part of the development.
COURTESY WESTFIELDS DEVELOPMENTS

During the past few years the two houses together with their drives and side gardens have gradually disappeared behind the frontage greenery of trees and shrubs.  So much so that we were beginning to forget what remained behind.  Until, that is, the colourful panelling announced something was going on behind.  In time these few metres of narrow footpath and the bus stop nearby, will suddenly be revealed as a clean and more striking frontage.  Perhaps by the end of next year.

Goodbye 63 Oak

 I first became aware of the 63 Oak when I was about three years old.  It had been growing in a nearby garden and occupying the same spot in the landscape for, perhaps, four hundred years – maybe longer.

The oak tree taught all who came to know it just how large a variety of insects, birds and mammals were supported within its branches and it is because the tree is there we came to understand the relationship between species and this tree in particular, or at least this species of tree rather than a whole variety of other trees and shrubs in the landscape.

Readers can consult the 63 Oak in Kate Bretherton's second book The Remarkable Trees of St Albans where this and a nearby cousin are still  growing.

This map was published in 1610 and the name Beamondes (Beaumonts) is shown near the top left.
Was 63 Oak already a sapling or had it yet to appear?
COURTESY HALS

A century later the second Manor House (where Central Drive/Woodland Drive junction now is)
had been completed.  How large had 63 Oak grown by the early eighteenth century?
COURTESY HISTORIC ENGLAND

Shortly before the final farmhouse was put up at the start of the 19th century 63 Oak was one of
the field edge trees on the northern field boundary in field 105.
COURTESY HALS

In 1929 a group of friends walked the path against the farm yard wall which would shortly
be replaced ( a little to the left) by Beechwood Avenue.  They have passed the 63 Oak in
the background, and one of the group aspired to own a house in this new
development – specifically the house with this specific oak tree in the garden! ...
COURTESY RACHEL TRAVERS

... which he later did.

COURTESY RACHEL TRAVERS

We shall shortly be able to discover when the 63 Oak first emerged from the soil – more of that later – but in terms of age the tree's present setting is very young; the Beaumonts housing estate began to be laid out from 1930 and will therefore celebrate its centenary in five years time.  A group of young friends were walking along a path parallel to the developing Beechwood Avenue when one of them aspired to one day live in the as-yet-unbuilt house in which the giant oak would continue to flourish within its garden.  This young man later made his dream come true!

At the time Beaumonts Farm had only recently been closed down from farming use; the fields with names going back centuries had quickly become somewhat weed infested, and one or two, probably one with the 63 Oak in it, remained suitable grazing for horses kept by the final tenant of the farm, although horses had traditionally been reared and maintained at Beaumonts.  Where the junction of Central Drive and Woodland Drive are now laid out, had previously been at least two manor houses, one surrounded by a medieval moat; and finally the 19th century tenant farm homestead.  The earliest found reference to Beaumonts (or Beamonds) extends back to the fifteenth century, but probably a lot earlier if only hare had been surviving records.  63 Oak possibly saw all or most of this history.

To the young author in 1948 63 Oak was an ever-present source of fascination, and
thus far no-one had tampered with its structure.

If the Beaumonts estate had been submitted for planning consent today 63 Oak would probably have been a protected tree and the development company would have been required to set out the estate with a park as public open space centred around the oak.  It is indeed fortunate that pre-war gardens were often on plots of 150 x 30 feet.  Even so few people today would take on the responsibility for accommodating mature trees such as giant oaks on their flower and vegetable patches.

Fifteen years after being heavily pollarded this was its winter dressing after a being heavily frosted.
COURTESY CHRIS NEIGHBOUR

This is undoubtedly the reason why the first attempt at "pruning" took place in the early 1960s, as major limbs began to extend over the roof the the host house, and other limbs over several neighbouring gardens.

By 2012 a decision had been made to bring in the chain saws once more
to shape the crown...
COURTESY VIC FOSTER

... but this was a summer picture and the left half had suffered badly. 
A much lower leaf density remains on the right but the future of the tree
looked close to its end.

The final picture is also a summer one; 2025 in fact.  There is no sign of life and there will be an increasing risk to its safety from now on.
COURTESY VIC FOSTER

Nevertheless only one further prune had taken place in more recent years.  This trim had been surgically efficient and had proved to be beyond recovery.  Recent springs had seen few leaves and in 2025 the crown was completely barren.  So the rather expensive task of safely felling the giant was planned and will be executed before the end of July, together with a wholesale clearance of the rest of the back garden.

Only then will it be possible to count the growth rings and discover its true age.

Many memories have been recovered from the period when we were children and as young adults we grew our vegetables, cultivated our flowers and tended our fruit trees.  Observer books of birds, mammals and insects were always at hand as 63 Oak was our focus in all weathers.  When at the end of this month the destructive work is completed only a space of memories will be left shared mainly by a dozen or so families who lived in this and neighbouring gardens between 1940 and 2025.  The old tortoise of a tree will not be there to hug – in fact a group hug would still have been required.  Goodbye old friend.

Street Plates 7

 Here is July's little collection of St Albans' street plates, each with a story to tell, together with a brief explanation which might be added to the plate at the end of the street – at least in our imagination. The streets are, of course, very real. but their designs are created especially for this blog. Before we launch into this month's group we should remind ourselves that most of us have experienced attempts at locating  a road but failed to locate any plate which identifies its name.  Perhaps the authority never got round to it, or the walls or fences to which one might have been affixed were removed at a point in time – the plate disappearing with it.  Councils now seem to treat such replacements as an avoidable cost in these dire financial times.  Perhaps we should collectively record this data on missing plates ourselves so that our own council can take action when appropriate.

Meanwhile ...

The 1930s housing developments at Marshalswick were, as often occurred, interrupted by the war emergency, during which changes of approach were not unusual.  The developer T F Nash resumed the house building in the 1950s; meanwhile St Albans' City Council took responsibility for a swiftly increasing waiting list for council houses, and pressed ahead with developing land which Nash would have taken forward under pre-war plans.  It was therefore responsible for the naming of roads at the higher end of Marshalswick Lane. Chalkdell Farm.

Second generation street plate while a surviving first generation plate giving direction to different
groups of house lay hidden and out of shot under a hedge nearby.

Mindful of its civic and community responsibilities the authority wished to recognise Robert Runcie in his St Albans' role as Bishop of St Albans.  Runcie (1921-2000) would, of course, later be appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.  

You are fortunate if you are selected to have your name attached to one road in your home patch, but in this case the Runcie family were accorded the honour of "owning" three roads in the vicinity.  In addition to Runcie Close you will find Dean's Close and Bishop's Close.  Of his three posts Robert began as Dean of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

While formal connections have frequently been forged between towns and cities in the UK and counterparts in other regions of Europe; less often in America, Africa or Asia, the novelty became more common in the post-war period.  A town's twinning is often found on signs marking the entry to the city, town or village.

Walk along Colney Heath Lane and you might discover this!

Along an Avenue approach to Bossy sous St Yon you will come across it twin community 
at Colney Heath.

Colney Heath Parish Council developed such a connection in the early 1980s.  Its relationship was both formal and inclusive, with the district of Bossy sous St Yon, south of Paris.  In recognition of this bond of friendship two small developments, one on each side of Colney Heath Lane, were named after their twin community.  There is an unusual story to be told among Colney Heath citizens about friends and acquaintances while pausing at one or other of the street plates!

Only three roads extend eastwards from the centre of St Albans and can historically trace their routes well beyond the city boundaries.  There's London Road, of course; and Hatfield Road, even though the latter changes its name as it crosses the boundary towards Hatfield.  Finally there is Sandpit Lane, which begins its activity at Stone Cross just beyond the historical boundary of the city.  Along this ancient route – thought to be a roadway linking other Roman settlements, including Welwyn. Archaeology confirms small settlements en route, as at Hall Heath.  Although the route continues under a different name towards Coopers Green, the original named road turned southwards towards Smallford, now renamed Oaklands Lane.

Sandpit Lane provides occasional clues to former quarries, either for sand or chalk.  Here
is the cottage close to the Midland Railway known as Dell Cottage.  On higher ground at Hall
Heath is a more modern development called The Dell.  The reason for it naming can be
discovered at the rear of the site.

The historical connection will be found in the name of the road, whether it is named Sand Pit Lane or Sandpit Lane.  Evidence exists of old quarries from which sand, or sand and gravel, was dug and carried for building, other structural purposes, or for filtering.  Activity which may have existed for many centuries.  No doubt negotiations with a number of land owners were periodically confirmed when specific projects were required.  Today's quarrying of gravel is, of course, of a significantly larger scale.

Part of the story of Camp Hill and the historical connection with the Camp refers to former military training.  However, the field on the south side of Camp Road and historically part of Cunningham Hill Farm, was relinquished around 1912 when a rubber factory, on land at London Road and also owned by the Verulam family, was seriously damaged by fire.  A replacement factory was established opposite the cottages at Camp Hill.  Rubber processing was later moved to the factory estate at Porters Wood and the Camp Hill site became available for residential development under town planning rules.

On the site of the former Rubber Works is Dexter Close.

Perhaps references to previous occupation might have been transferred to the homes now on the site, but this being a private project the overall name comes to be known as Dexter Court.  There is no local connection here however; Dexter appears because Dexterfield Limited is the name of a North London development company responsible for the project.  The three blocks are separately named Gatcombe Court, Cheltenham Court and Dorchester Court.  So, once more, no local connections that are obvious.

 

A private road off Sutton Road spent decades without a name plate and, if appears, without a name.  On a large plot of ground between Hedley Road and Cambridge Road the land was acquired in the early 1930s for possible development for entertainment use as a skating rink.  At the same time a similar centre was created at the former Ver Hotel site at the bottom of Holywell Hill.  The council felt one skating rink was sufficient and the land was for a time used for commercial vehicle parking, including for Pickfords Removals vehicles. (Note: this fact has yet to be verified).  Later, factories were attracted, and are still there, but since the access road is on private land a post war decision to name the road was made, presumably for postal and delivery reasons.

The former Co-operative Dairy vehicle maintenance works fronting onto Sutton Road.
The road emerging in named Pickford Road serving other works buildings on the site of
a proposed skating rink but then used for the storage of commercial vehicle.