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.
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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.