COVER PICTURES 8

 Newgates Farm Homestead

As we have come to realise the heart of farm businesses often survived in some form or other for centuries, but in recent times the closure of many farms on the edge of towns resulted in their inevitable transfer to residential districts.  There is a resulting  scarcity of photographic images now remaining for us to scrutinise.  We seem to hold on to the notion that photography has been around for more than a century and a half, and that there must inevitably be a good number of images covering every building there ever was!  But in the public domain there are few photographs, none more than  a rare former small farm at the lower end of Sandpit Lane – Newgates.  You will also find its title named in the singular: Newgate.  The drawing of Newgates at the very left of the third row of cover pictures of St Albans' Own East End Volume 1.

A heavily clad farm homestead behind Sandpit Lane.  This photo shows a corner of the pond,
a feature of so many farm yards.  The pond remains as a part of the pocket park, now within
the bounds of the new housing development.
COURTESY MARARAGET GOWER COLLECTION

It  lay at the eastern end of the higher ground along Sandpit Lane; the road rises in elevation as it passes The Dell and crosses Hall Heath, thought to have been a name associated with the architectural  style of manorial house at nearby Beaumonts.  Sandpit Lane drops again in elevation at  the eastern end of the heath, where the diminutive farm known as Newgates was located.

A pair of pencilled drawings of Newgates drawn in the 1820s by Jane Edgell, formerly Jane
Marten.
COURTESY HISTORIC ENGLAND

So, we are fortunate in having the presence and artistic skills of a member of the Marten family who lived in the former Marshalswick House – another house which no longer exists and is replaced by more modern housing.  Jane Marten was the daughter of George and Jane Sullivan Marten.  Whether it was her passion for rural farm buildings of the time, or whether an interest in historical documentation we cannot say.  But her signature appears on several local farm homesteads which Jane drew a short time before she left Marshalswick to marry Richard Edgell.

A mid-19th century watercolour by John H Buckingham from the eastern slope
of Sandpit Lane descending from Hall Heath.  Newgates is shown on the
left.  The Lane is distinctly narrow as it wanders towards House Lane.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

Jane's signature style was soft pencil drawing in which she was able to capture the detailed idiosyncratics of weathered structures as their individual materials have worn and moved with time.  Her illustrations of homesteads at Beaumonts and Marshals Wick also appear in St Albans' Own East End.

Today's scene, now a residential development, here named Damson Way.