Fleetville is ...

 Yes, Fleetville is busy; the district is crowded and expensive.  If you have children and you would like to enrol your child to one of the schools here you will find buying a home nearby will cost you high prices.  If your home is without a private driveway parking on a nearby roadside can be nigh-on impossible.  For these and other issues Fleetville can also be attractive for all sorts of businesses.  And businesses also need land; they also search for opportunities to land-share in inventive ways.

The style of Hanley's grocery store between Albion Road and The Crown Hotel
in 1904!

When Fleetville was young – the first half of the 20th century – shops were small and, in the main, lined almost a mile-length of Hatfield Road's north side.  Then retail changed; motor trades moved out, the Co-op lead the way in the supermarket stakes – the same site becoming Safeway and later Morrison's – but there seemed no further opportunity for others to move in; supermarkets are land-hungry.  As it was, Morrison's arrived on the site of by far the largest former factory in the form of a printing works followed by a hosiery mill.

The Co-op was first, followed on the same site by Safeway. The yellow egg of
Morrison's grew even larger.

Eyes have firmly centred on what used to be known as factory estates.  Three of them were identified in the late 1930s to help de-factory the inner streets of St Albans.  Porters Wood, previously intended as a cemetery; a roadside strip left from gravel working on Butterwick Farm and renamed Butterwick Wood; and the brick-works site in Ashley Road and now known as Brick Knoll Park.  Notice how all three gained "green" descriptors for what were intended to be industrial processes, or at least businesses for employment on an extensive scale.

Bricks were first made at Brick Knoll Park in 1899 (at least that is when the land exchange
took place); the site was vacated around 1948.

Business have been coming and going ever since; the latest to disappear was the 
Vauxhall car sales; all part of the gradual change.

At Brick Knoll Park access had previously been poor: unmade roads, low and narrow railway bridges and pot-holed by a generation of clay abstraction. Completion of what was then identified as the "ring road" helped to improve access, yet even before that was in place the brickworks site became the corporation's domestic waste depository of the day, the day being the 1940s and 1950s.

The urgent post-war requirement was to locate heavy plant businesses to focus on road building and similar infrastructure schemes for London and site preparations for factories elsewhere.  So this St Albans factory estate played its part.  Remember, there was then no made up Ashley Road south of the branch railway, no Drakes Drive and only minor Hill End Lane (Station Road), Cambridge Road and Hedley Road for heavy vehicles to negotiate.

Leisure has arrived at the site in the form of Battlekart – and a stage school.
COURTESY BATTLEKART

The mature years of Brick Knoll Park developed from the 1960s with a mixture of vehicle-hungry sites such as letter sorting, car repairs and sales, and light engineering.  More recently any business which could be accommodated within an easily erected warehouse became attracted to the location.  So we now seem to have added two leisure addresses: Top Hat Stage School and BattleKart, the latter open for business away-days and weekends for the leisure market.  Howdens, who might have previously been a street side location, have a kitchen and furniture display warehouse at Brick Knoll Park. 

A typical Lidl store.

Now, preparations are proceeding to bring food retailing just inside the gates.  Lidl are to open a supermarket with over 120 car-parking spaces, most being for fast-turnaround occupation, the downside is likely to be increased occupation of the public road space and local junctions which are not possessed with high capacity anyway.  Although there are bus stops along Ashley Road the route 305 buses which use them cannot be defined as frequent and certainly not adequate.

Many churches have put down their roots on factory estates and business parks.

A further opportunity grabbed in the modern era is for church organisations – Christian and others – to acquire existing warehouses for use, especially on Sundays but also weekday evenings, for their meetings and services.  The benefit, of course, is lower land costs and plentiful parking released from daytime business use.  Central locations used to be sought but for the majority of members who have family cars centrality can be a turn-off as non-chargeable parking is rarely available.  To finish on a personal note, a mile long walk from home to church twice each Sunday was a given, our insurance being there was a bus for seriously wet weather!  

Let us hope that Lidl will succeed along Ashley Road.

Barriers ahead

Cover images on Volume one.

 I have often been asked whether I had specific reasons for the choice of photographs displayed on the front covers of both volumes of St Albans' Own East End (published in 2012 and 2013). Almost as frequently has been surprise when I have admitted each image was part of a carefully planned listing rather than a random collection; indeed, almost as much time was taken on the covers as any one of chapters inside.  Each of the two volumes contain 13 or 14 small images on the front and one larger photograph on the back cover – not forgetting three which comprise the logo.

So, I guess I should reveal how each picture earned its place.  Here, then, begins a new series of short blogs, and it would be interesting to discover the proportion of my readers who have not noticed these little collections!

This bridge adjacent to the former Smallford Station, enables road traffic to link Smallford and
Oaklands Lane with Sleapshyde and Colney Heath.

Buses can lose their tops but in this case it is the top – the deck of St Albans' 
Road bridge – which was decapitated in the 1950s to enable tall vehicles,
including double deck buses on the 341  (St Albans and 
Hatfield Town Centre) to take a more direct route.

Many changes might be needed in new town developments, including reconnecting a
link along the former railway track at Wellfield Road.

What single development or project made the greatest impact on the eastern districts at the beginning of the time period covered by the books' chronology.  By the 1870s the new transport of the age – railways – arrived at the eastern districts. The Hatfield and St Albans Railway was sparkly new and connected the full length of St Peter's rural parish from Hatfield Station, already well established as a route to the Capital, and St. Albans Station at the foot of Holywell Hill, now known as Abbey Station.  The latter would enable passengers to travel onwards to Watford and then into central London; and all before St Albans had its own main line station.  Although the railway's impact in terms of the number of passengers carried was modest, the impact on the local landscape was considerable.

This bridge at Sutton Road was removed after closure of the railway and the road levelled – with consequent improvement to drainage along Sutton Road.  A station was proposed for the
site on the right, but never materialised.

The original bridge in Ashley Road was replaced after the railway closure, to offer a
wider roadway on a ring way around St Albans and at the location of a future industrial
estate.

Detailing on one of the huge arches which takes the Midland Railway over the Hatfield-
St Albans' Railways bridge over one of St Albans' major road arteries: London Road.

Along the 6.5 mile routed were five stations or halts, which was considered well-served at the time.  But the overall impact was affected by an infrastructure of fourteen bridges and three surface railway crossings, the former either to carry conflicting roads or lanes over the newly laid railway track, or to enable roadways to pass under the line.  Three examples of level crossings were created; although it would have been possible for the railway to be bridged at a significantly increased cost, such cost would have been largely impracticable. The locations were at Ellenbrook, Hill End and Cottonmill.

Of the thirteen bridges only one takes the railway (now Alban Way) over a river and only one allows pedestrians under the railway. Two bridges, Sutton Road and St Albans Road, were demolished and not replaced after the railway's closure after the 1950s.  Seven structures were replaced, all of them in the years following closure.  In all cases this was to improve the navigation for road vehicles.  Among these were Cottonmill, Camp Road and Ground Lane.

The replaced pedestrian bridge at Ground Lane when new housing developments
enveloped the railway route.
COURTESY KEN WRIGHT

The former Camp Road bridge was eventually replaced by the Blue Bridge nearby the
old Sander Orchid Nursery, when it was intended to open the old railway track bed
as a leisure walk and cycle route.

During the lifetime of the railway it would have been the company's responsibility for ongoing maintenance.  Following closure, responsibility was passed in most cases to the highway authority. For example the Camp Road bridge near Dellfield was willingly torn down to counter the risk to road traffic and little time was lost in carrying out that task.  Once the conversion of the track bed to  a leisure path became a reality special funding was allocated to the bridge replacement. Today's bridge is known as the Blue Bridge.

There had not previously been a bridge over the railway from the de Havilland side
to the new town housing side, until one was included in the new town road plan.  It
lasted around thirty years before being demolished in favour of the Hatfield Tunnel
and the creation of the Galleria shopping centre.  A second attempt at creating a link resulted
 in the present connection to Queensway.

By far the most complex obstructions to be managed were the Midland bridge/viaduct over London Road (the former a Midland structure and the latter a local project; the A1 bridge during the period of the 1930s road-building programme; and the Cavendish Road bridge in a location where no bridge existed while the railway was open but swept over the track and was paid for by the New Town project in the 1950s.  This bridge had the shortest lifespan of all, having been demolished thirty years later when the Hatfield Tunnel was created.

No-one could deny the significance of a small railway in the 1850s in dividing the parish of St Peter so dramatically.  But, as we have seen above the Midland Railway, which finally built its route through St Albans to the Capital, required bridges on a larger scale for its multiple tracks.  In addition to its London Road structure road bridges were required at Victoria Street, Hatfield Road, Sandpit Lane and Sandridge Road; and occupation bridges at York Road and Jennings Road.  All of these, plus their associated stations, made a huge contractural impact on the growing township as well as the rural landscape beyond.  They have also left a permanent impression on the map, the industrial functions of the town, and ensured that the eastern districts grew as industrial communities as much as residential support networks.

We can now tick off the top left image of Volume One's St Albans' Own East End.

Note: Not all bridges are illustrated in this article.

Slimmon, Boyes and Muskett

 Continuing our occasional ambles around the calm and picturesque Hatfield Road Cemetery I have enjoined three farmers whose lives paused in the East End of St Albans.  In fact we could argue we owe much to the men who occupy plots in this quiet place along Hatfield Road.  In close proximity are the graves of three farming families.  We are so used to hearing of food surpluses and the proportion of purchased food which is thrown away, it is difficult to comprehend the on-the-edge existence of 19th century families who relied on their hard labour.  As to the farms themselves there is a world of difference between the farm or landowner, and family the family who worked the farmer – the tenant family.

A slump in the price of grain in the second half of the 19th century meant that landowners were anxious to protect their rents.  They began to engage tenants experienced in dairying.  This attracted a number of farmers from Scotland where dairying was already a significant speciality.

The two drawings in this series were by Jane Marten in the 1820s.  This is of Marshals Wick Farm homestead, also recorded as Wheeler's Farm, but there was no connection with the murderer of tenant farmer Edward Anstee.  Anstee's replacement was James Slimmon.
COURTESY HISTORIC ENGLAND

Improvements in rail transport and nearness to the capital meant there would be a ready market for milk.  But an event occurred in 1880 which forced the hand of landowner George Marten.  In that year a murder was committed at the Marshals Wick farmhouse, when tenant farmer Edward Anstee was brutally murdered by having several dozen bullets fired into his body by an intruder while he was resting in his bedroom,  A man called Thomas Wheeler was arrested, tried and found guilty; a trial in which the details filled even the national papers at the time.

The boldest headstone, in the form of an obelisk, to the life of James Slimmon
close to the Hatfield Road boundary of the Cemetery.

Within a short space of time James Slimmon, his wife Jane and son William arrived at the farm from Dumfries.  Not only was he an experienced dairy farmer but he brought with him new farming practices.  Although he died a few years later, son William, brought up in the same mould as his father, looked for new farming methods and new marketing skills; pioneering new door-to-door milk deliveries twice each day.  He also led the way in getting machinery demonstrations arranged by manufacturers.  William was the last tenant before the land sale to T F Nash for house building from the 1930s

With the demolition of the former Beaumonts Manor House a new tenant homestead took its
place in 1831 and the second farmer to the new building was John Boyes.

Next door arrived John Boyes, also from Scotland, to the tenancy of Beaumonts Farm, only the second to do so since owner Thomas Kinder decided to move out of the Manor House in 1831.  Under Boyes' management the farm remained a mixed unit instead of changing to dairying.  But the skill came in judging the balance between the specialisms in order to keep the farm profitable.  Like Slimmon, Boyes became the last farmer on this land before housing arrived in the form of Camp estate and eventually Beaumonts estate.

Jane Marten pencilled this splendid drawing of Newgates set back from Sandpit Lane nd occupied by the Musket family.
COURTESY HISTORIC ENGLAND

All three farmers are laid to rest in this quarter of Hatfield Road Cemetery.

Of the three farmers celebrated William Muskett was the only man not from Scotland; he was a St Albans man, managing Newgates Farm for over forty years.  Newgates was a tiny unit of less than thirty acres on the north side of Sandpit Lane.  About the size of a school playing field he managed to make a modest living on whatever mix of produce his acreage would allow.  Being more of a subsistence farm rather than a commercial enterprise William's was probably as typical as it is possible to be of many tiny farms and smallholdings in the UK.  He was the penultimate tenant on his little holding for this and other nearby farms were sold for post-war housing needs, and have therefore been lost as a valuable local food resource.  It is our good fortune that other farms have been able to compensate by their greater efficiencies.  And that the rest of us have progressively been able to choose from an increasingly wide range of occupations than agricultural labourers, cowmen and farm hand casuals which would have been inevitable for many of us up to the late 19th century.

So we will raise a glass to the constant battle fought by these tenant farmers and their families.