Finding A Way

As a prelude to a new monthly series of posts on the rough-and-ready process of creating a community in our East End it might help to explore the circumstances individuals, builders and others began to occupy the "empty areas" beyond the established town, the boundaries of which had barely reached the foot of the town hill in Victoria Street in 1879.   In the nineteenth century town our forebears would have been able to perambulate along the streets, thoroughfares and cut-throughs past and between the buildings of the built-up areas.  Beyond these there were only the roadways leading to distant towns, more immediate villages and narrow lanes which passed farms, and reinforced by an informal network of footpaths and trackways, many of which had been in existence for as long as the land had been worked.

But in that mix not all paths were freely available, perhaps including what we might call today permissive routes, across fields or through farmyards.  Let's walk along 1880s road towards Hatfield.  We might have begun our journey from one of the cottages (no longer extant) close to Camp Hill hamlet.  

On our invented journey on foot we reach the privately owned track, now named Sutton Road, at Hatfield Road; our aim being to reach Dead Woman's Hill, now St Albans Hill, Sandridge. As many readers will already know the little building on the corner, recently closed in 1880, the rat-infested toll house. We walk eastwards along the toll road itself until reaching a junction of two footpaths and a private road. 

The toll road (until 1880) between the toll house on the left to junction to the far, top
right.  The footpath to St Peter's is the double broken line at the top.  Today this section is 
The Alley between Beaumont Avenue and Woodstock Road South.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The first footpath would take us in the wrong direction; it crosses a field and leads travellers towards St Peter's Church. The road (today called Beaumont Avenue) is gated and is the official access to Beaumonts Farm; at the far end are the farm's labourers' cottages and just beyond the northern gate is Sandpit Lane which would be convenient for our purpose.  However, we have no key to either of the locked gates, the wide cart ones or the narrow pedestrian one.  You would have to request permission from the land owner, Thomas Kinder.

Close-up of the first map's junction.  The brown road is Hatfield Road; the track to St Peter's is 
on the left while the beginning of the path crossing the farm is the righthand arm of
a V shape at the top.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The remaining option would be a footpath to the right of the road gate, accessible via a stile at a gap in the hedge line. The footpath would lead you past the farm towards Sandpit Lane along the edges of fields. Today we might think of our route as being Beechwood Avenue but is was a little further east and close to where a phone box was one sited close to the first house in Beaumont Avenue.  

The remains of the Avenue's South Gate after it had become disused.

The stile giving access to the to the farm footpath, to the right, out of
view, of the gate in the previous photograph.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

As the path led closer to the farm we would have passed, on the right, the remains of the former Manor House and almost immediately reach the private road to the farm homestead itself – today's extension of Farm Road – which we would cross and almost immediately reach the farmyard wall.  The path would continue northwards, passing a narrow pedestrian gate into the yard. We would next encounter the junction of three fields where our path forces us to turn left and then right a few yards further on.  

The farm complex is on the right; the farm road crosses the
map L to R; the broken line of the footpath passes the farm
between top and bottom.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The farm homestead protects by the stone wall in the below photograph.
COURTESY RACHEL TRAVERS

The footpath as it passes the farm (out of view to the right). The young men are walking
southwards towards Hatfield Road.
COURTESY RACHEL TRAVERS

At the turn of the century a small temporary corrugate iron cottage would be perched at this junction for a farm labourer's family.  However, for now, we continue until we reach a lane, Sandpit Lane.  Ahead we would have limited permission permitted to continue until  today's Jersey Lane. To continue in earlier times we would have possibly taken a risk by walking along the private drive belonging to the Marten family who owned the land.  However,  Marten, who had been irritated by commoners passing the frontage drive of his house,  obtained permission to have a lane built – he named it New Road, which became Marshalswick Lane – which enabled commoners to travel with or without animals or carts, until they reached the St Albans Road between the town and Deadwoman's Hill leading down to Sandridge.

Our journey complete we had been seriously limited in preparing our route by the permissions required by successive land owners and their relative benevolences.  Needless to say, many travellers took their own risks! 

Although improvements were gradually made as the new century dawned, this was the route taken by children living at Newgates Farm and its surrounding cottages in walking to and from their school in Camp Lane, once the new St Peter's Rural Elementary School was opened in 1898. Now called simply Camp School, this was a huge step forward for children living in the rural east end where formal education had previously been sporadic. Soon after the school's  opening parents from Newgates were taken to court for failing to send their child to the school even after extensive falls of snow made the journeys impractical.

Life on Beaumont's Farm gradually changed following the death of landowner Thomas Kinder, and a few years later sections of Beaumonts were sold, the farm homestead and remaining fields were rented out, and eventually, instead of growing crops the land grew houses.