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. COURTESY THE CLEMENTS COLLECTION |
 |
| 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.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment