James Halsey Sawmills

 Last month I began a new series of posts under the name Rescue Mission, where frequent searching over a period of time has failed to locate buildings, sites or events, where photographic evidence appeared to have been lost, if indeed it was present in the first place.  In March I began with the nurseries of Sear & Carter at Smallford, today seen only in a 1946 aerial photograph.  Today Notcutts occupies  the site.  On the site now known as Morrison's, the first supermarket following the closure of Ballito Hosiery Mill was the Co-operative in a smaller and quite different building from the more expansive Safeway retail building that Morrison's now uses.

James Halsey Sawmills

Today, I wish to explore an early building on the Butterwick land  between Oaklands and Smallford.  Today the location it is variously termed an industrial estate although its occupants also include retail and services, including churches.  You will find it called Butterwick Wood, Lyon Way, Acrewood Way, Pearce's; Alban Point, even the Ballito Sports Ground and the "Banana place/meat store!" – though that was sixty and eighty years ago!

Butterwick Wood as is was represented on the Ordnance Survey map of 1939.  The limit of
Hatfield Road houses is to the left, and Smallford Brook is a thin line on the right edge.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The extent of Butterwick Trading Estate in 2016.
COURTESY HISTORIC ENGLAND

One of the earliest occupiers of what had still been part of Butterwick Farm was a saw mill – possibly a convenient location since the majority of land between Hatfield Road and the branch railway (now Alban Way) was woodland, much of which would eventually be replaced by industrial buildings displaced from the central parts of St Albans; and, as it turns out, locations in Hatfield, which is where the timber firm of James Halsey comes into the account.

Butterwick was one of four zones identified by St Albans for future use as industrial zones – the others being Porters Wood, Ashley Road and Napsbury Lane.  The earliest occupants of Butterwick were Frankipile, Lacre, Pearce Waste, followed by Smallford Planters, but James Halsey was undoubtedly the first being established there in the 1930s, possibly even earlier.  The second largest structure was a government building completed c 1939 for the storage of chilled meats and later converted for the ripening of bananas.

Butterwick Wood from 1939. Industrial usage had already begun to east away at some of the
woodland by the early post-war period.
COURTESY HISTORIC ENGLAND

A number of meat cold stores were constructed in the 1930s, all virtually identical.  This one was from Goldsborough, but the one in St Albans was connected to the branch railway (now Alban Way).
Now the site is replaced by Alban Point, at the western end of Butterwick, and close to the
original track to the former Butterwick Farm
COURTESY NICK CATFORD

As far as I can tell its location was where today's Tool Station and Halfords are, together with the Stevenson's clothing site.  It would be great to raise the name of James Halsey once more and show where it used to be among the trees of Butterwick Wood, then significantly larger than the woodland remaining beside Hatfield Road today.