Beechwood Avenue Junction

 I was recently asked whether the junction which Links Hatfield Road, Beechwood Avenue, Beaumont Avenue and Ashley Road has always looked as it does today.  But of course almost everywhere used to look different!   And with this junction it is a mater how far back we should go.  So we will begin with the 1920s. That's far enough.

The roadway is Beaumont Avenue in the 1920s.  The stile leads to a
footpath across the field towards the farm, approximately on a line
matching Beechwood Avenue, though not at the time even a line of
a map. 
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

On the left was a plot-sized field used as a builder's yard.  Where the grass verge is had been
a brick street shelter c1940 – 1955.  This is Beechwood Avenue towards Hatfield Road.

On this corner had been a posting box, a telephone kiosk, and before that a brick-built
police reporting cabin with public phone accessible externally.

Recently a pair of redundant barred gates were brought from Smallford and erected at each end of the Avenue (now Beaumont Avenue) because it was a private road belonging to Beaumonts Farm. There was then no Beechwood Avenue.  There was no Ashley Road either; it was, instead, a trackway –  a trackway forming an extension of The Avenue from the farm homestead.  Beaumont Avenue didn't then stop at Hatfield Road but continued to join up with Hill End Lane and was also well known as the Ashpath or the Cinder Track .  So the junction was much simpler in the 1920s.  Carts were still around and from the higher driving position the sightline from the Ashpath junction with the righthand blind bend of  Hatfield Road was not materially difficult until houses had been built in the 1930s.

The former builder's yard; the later 267 Hatfield Road has not yet arrived.  The phone box
has not yet arrived.  The posting box is just to the left.  T&B Builders are selling
houses in Sandpit Lane.
COURTESY PHILIP ORDE

When the Beaumonts Estate was sold for housing in 1929 a new roadway, replacing a stile across the field towards Hatfield Road was replaced by a new residential road called Beechwood Avenue, punching its way through the hedge line at Hatfield Road. Previously the right-of-way was the only connection with Sandpit Lane.

North end of the then private The Avenue (Beaumont Avenue).

The lower end of The Avenue.

For the next few years homes were not only constructed along Hatfield Road but along the majority of Beechwood Avenue, drivers having to negotiate the cross roads junction.  Meanwhile the right of drivers to use the junction to and from Beaumont Avenue was still not  considered a right of way as the Avenue was still considered private, and those who took the risk to drive across the junction did so at their own risk – until a left-turn-only was made mandatory in the 1960s.

Much occurred during the 1930s.  House building firms created plot-sized compounds for storage, included one on the corner occupied now by 267 Hatfield Road.  Only vacated in 1939, the little field was a children's play space through the war and well into the 1950s, but this little corner of Beechwood and Hatfield Road had much going for it.  A letter box was installed at the corner and a brick-built police building (replacing a wooden version at Sutton Road), arrived at the start of the war, standing where today the bow-shaped flower bed is located.

A substantial rectangular street shelter was constructed c1940 beside the footpath adjacent to the police box and post box.  This was only demolished in the mid-fifties at the same time when the police box disappeared and in its place came a coin operated telephone box.

This remained for a few years until plans were mooted for 267 Hatfield Road, and the phone box was moved to behind the pavement at the entrance of Beaumont Avenue.  A single public telephone with three different locations!

At the time, 1960s, when the city's ring road was being completed the traffic at some of the ring road junctions became busier, and this was one of those risky junctions. So traffic lights were installed.  In line with the King Harry junction – also on the ring road – it was later considered more sensible to replace lights with double roundabouts, which remain in use today.  Before the lights Beaumont Avenue had received a HALT AT MAJOR ROAD AHEAD traffic sign, and when the traffic lights arrived an experiment which provided for a left phase-only for Beaumont Avenue was was short-lived and was replaced by the permanent left- only traffic sign supported by a GIVE WAY instruction.

So far there has been no mention of the alleyway, a footpath from the junction towards Fleetville School but went much further and had finished at St Peter's Parish Church.  Many children from the new Beaumonts Estate walked between Beaumont Avenue and Fleetville School via the alleyway.  Once very popular, many residents find it less attractive today.  Which is a shame.

The alleyway from its eastern end at Beaumont Avenue towards
Fleetville Infants School at Woodstock Road South.

School Uniforms

 RESCUE MISSION

School Uniforms

The history of badges and associated uniforms around St Albans East End extends back to the beginnings of Fleetville and its environs, even if the schools themselves were located in other districts of the city.

Logo from Francis Bacon School, now Samuel Ryder Academy.

Their origins can be found in the establishment of private schools, so as the number of children of school age expanded it became necessary to reflect in the number or location of schools at which they were educated.

Verulam Academy, based on elements from the former St Albans County
Grammar School for Boys.

This is a challenging post as many private schools, full of hope and expectation, had disappointingly short lives.  Nevertheless there will be photographs around of proud children (or at least proud parents) with their offspring – usually before their first school day and before their clothing, including ties or sleeves have shown signs of deterioration, whether sudden or gradual.

Unknown school blazer and badge snapped c1950s along Sandpit Lane.

Unknown school uniform worn at a day out near St Albans
City Station.

Unknown school uniform worn at a day out near St Albans
City Station.

We can still see children with a rough idea of what the uniform should have looked like, though a majority of pictures were monochrome (black-and-white).  The one feature of the uniform which would usually stand out is a badge, often attached a blazer breast pocket or hat.  Yet it is the badge which has photographically survived the least well, partly because of its size and detail and is often hidden by bags, arms and scarves.

Rather obviously, Skyswood Primary School in monotone.

I have scanned many such photographs as I have and realise how few visuals of school uniform I have.  Please have a hunt in your own collections, even if you are unable to identify a school or local college.  Even recent elements of apparel would be excellent; uniforms and badges are ephemeral pieces with which we lose touch quite quickly.

Caption reminds us of an early Fleetville team badge for Fleetville Junior
School c1920.

A small private establishment, Durnford School; obviously school uniform, but three
elements which are shown are not very obvious from a mix of monotone, two hidden
blazer badges and a furled flag!

Cunningham Hill

A well worn Beaumont Boys; School badge from the 1950s.

Cover Picture 10

Cunningham Hill Farm

Watercolour painting by John Buckingham showing Guernsey cattle grazing in one of the
home fields at Cunningham Farm.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS.

The story of the farm is an ancient one; and probably not unusually it also is short in the supply of available photographs and paintings, prints and  drawings from periods before the late 19th century.  In this post we will focus on the farm's story, for that is the reason it features as a cover image on Volume 1 of St Albans' Own East End. The painting featured here was painted in water colour by mid 19th century local artist John Cunningham.

Surviving home buildings now converted into residential accommodation.

The farm lost its acres shortly after the Second World War for residential development, but its history is long and impressive.  While many of the medieval manors can be fairly accurately placed, that of Thanccton (various spellings) may have been associated with extensive areas of woodland with a more modern translation of Fawn Wood.  No-one can be certain where either name was located.  Where other fairly well distributed manors have been identified around St Albans, that part known as Cunningham Hill, or Cunnynehame, has not been previously identified as an ancient manor site, its link with Thanccton is no more than suggestive, and the name Cunnynehame was still in modest use well into the twentieth century.

Following the Dissolution, the land, along with Sopwell along with land surrounding with the earlier monastery, named into the hands of Sir Richard Lee and then the Grimston family with lane extending north towards Hatfield Road and southwards into Sopwell.  On the western boundary had flowed from the St Albans Hill and joining the River Ver.

It was only at the end of the eighteenth century that a new boundary arrived in the form of Thomas Telford's New London Road, which was not based on any previous boundary.

Part of Springfield, now public open space for the wider Camp district.

A corner of the Springfield Allotment Gardens.

The Cunningham farm homestead lay on the upper slopes close to the Camp track towards Hill End and Cell Barnes, with most of its fields lying on sloping ground between the track and the New London Road; and lying on chalk was well suited to grazing.

From the eighteenth century some of lower slopes were periodically used for military training, the most recent period being during the First World War.  These encampments gave the later residential occupations at the top end of the farm the name The Camp.

World War One training camp in 1915 on part of Cunningham's lower slopes adjacent to
London Road.

On the steeper slopes were developed allotment garden.  Photograph taken in 1917
and showing a group of children having been prizewinners for their tending of a group of 
allotment gardens; probably connected with a senior school in St Albans.
COURTESY THE HERTS ADVERTISER

During the twentieth century, the lower slopes were occupied as community allotments, and in the early twentieth century the Bath Agricultural Society, held more local and highly successful versions of its agricultural shows, including at Cunnynehame.  Both animals, farmers and spectators accessed the showground direct via the former London Road Station, crossing the New London Road and climbing the lower entrance of the farmer where now is Cunningham Hill Road.

While the above particular events are recorded at and near the farm, there is a considerable shortage of drawings and photographs of the same events, and pictures which provide a general overview of some of its boundaries, fields, barns and entrance ways.