Old Field Names

 Readers will have noted over the years in which this blog has been published that old names for specific locations have been labelled using the names of fields on which, in the end, development had taken place.  Of course, very few people will understand what these names are, or were, and there is only one database which is anything like a complete national reference.  If you are to consult a 19th or 20th century Ordnance Survey map you will discover that fields are given numbers, although the same fields in subsequent surveys are provided with different numbers, which is not always helpful!  The reason is, in part, because during the intervening period land owners or tenants may have separated existing large units into smaller fields, conversely amalgamated smaller fields into larger hedged or fenced areas, or whole farms amalgamated.

The next three map extracts illustrate the issue nicely.  

The above map shows Hatfield Road, coloured brown, at the top, and the Hatfield and
St Albans branch railway further down.  The Avenue (Beaumont Avenue) joins Hatfield Road
and then continues as a track towards the foot of the map.
25 inch OS map surveyed in 1872.
ALL THREE MAPS COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The second map show the same fields on the 25 inch OS 1897 map.

The above map again shows the same fields on the 25 inch OS 1922 map.

On each map the west-to-east road is Hatfield Road with the former Sutton Road turnpike toll house on the extreme left and the junction with the privately-owned Avenue (later Beaumont Avenue) halfway along.  The Hatfield & St Albans branch railway (now Alban Way) disappears off the bottom of each map.  The broken double lines in the top two maps mark the track formerly known as The Ashpath or The Cinder Track linking the Beaumont Avenue junction with the railway bridge and then leaving the bottom of the map.  This track had been made into a road by 1922 and was renamed about this time as Ashley Road.

By reference to the 1872 map the large field which the track intersects is numbered 480 (with an area of 27.538 acres).  By 1897 the same field is numbered 806 and with an almost exact acreage.  But by 1922 the field, by now renumbered 294 is significantly smaller as the western half was sold for development in 1899.  Its working area is down to 13 acres.

The second field to look at in 1872 is east of the first one. Again, each survey numbers them separately. Because, as one sheet of a fuller map we can only see the western part of the field, the area of the complete field number 496 is shown in the margin: 21.212 acres.  The field boundary between those two fields also separates two farms: field 480 belongs to Beaumont's Farm owned by Thomas Kinder, and field 496 is part of Hill End Farm owned by the Gaussen family.

An event in 1920 is recognised in the third map above.  The owner of Hill End Farm from the 1890s was Hertfordshire County Council as owners of Hill End Asylum.  However, the council did not require to use the whole farm, and it therefore chose to dispose of the fields on the Hatfield Road frontage for development.  This is illustrated on the 1922 map where plots are already pegged out and two houses are already complete, the one at the right margin being close to where Oakwood Drive was later laid out on the opposite side of the road.

The third field to pinpoint is on the north side of Hatfield Drive and entirely part of Beaumonts Farm: field 484 (in 1872), 367 (in 1897) and 4 (in 1922).  Although we can't see the northern boundary on these maps, we know that something has changed, as its acreage has reduced from nearly 20 to just under 12.  The northern boundary when the farm was sold in 1929 roughly followed the line of today's Elm Drive.

1840 tithe map covering the same area, although a little extended.  The later railway can be
traced through hedge lines on the west of the map.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

Finally, we'll look back to the map series before the 1872 edition.  Although remarkably well drawn it did not contain as much detail and shows evidence of more basis construction.  It was created in 1840 for this part of Hertfordshire and is widely known as the Tithe Map, considering the purpose for which it was created.  The Award (a written listing) names all of the fields, buildings and other enclosed areas of land, the owners and occupiers, size of enclosed areas from which to calculate value, and the purpose for it was used – payments due to support the church and its organisational structure.  The tithe map was created with east towards the top; when comparing with other maps therefore I have turned the map through 90 degrees – which is why the field numbers are shown printed on their sides!

Notice that the fields were named, not numbered.  But the names are likely to have retained their names over a long period of time, and the record of these was limited to the tenant and landowner accounts and working books.  In some case the names related to topographical features, sizes and nearby features, bearing in mind that not all tenants would be in a position to read or write their own records.  We might not always appreciate the relevance of the names today, but we will reveal more in the next post.

The names of our three fields in 1840 were:

Field 480 in 1872 - Hither Bridge Field (field 738 and 737)

Field 496 in 1872 - Hatfield Road Field (field 718)

Field 484 in 1872 - Three Corner Stewards (field 207)

It is these names I tend to use as they are more meaningful than frequently changing field numbers, and they are more likely to linger in the agricultural vocabulary.  In fact, many current street names are derived from former field names.

In the next two posts I'll explore each of these three fields and how they have changed in more detail.  For a start, we might discover how each of these fields was used when they were part of a farm, and  the nature of the change which occurred to made them a complete  part of modern Fleetville.

From Bungalow to Flats?

 We have previously observed, sometimes with concern, how housing densities within our district have gradually increased through time.  Extensions to homes do not, of course, inevitably mean additional members of a household, but they sometimes do, and as a result lower the square footage of garden space.  An additional car may be introduced and these vehicles end up on the roadside.  Small houses can therefore end up as large houses, long rear gardens may on occasions sprout an additional dwelling with a  narrow and sometimes awkward vehicular access; and older bungalows are replaced by a semi-detached home, two detached properties, or even a trio of connected town houses on three levels.

Not a particularly stunning map; but this is Hatfield Road in c1922.  The land to the south of
the road was part of Hill End Farm; on the north it was Beaumonts Farm.  The first plots to
be pegged out fall between two adjacent maps, but by 1922 there were already three houses
in build.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Focus now on Hatfield Road east of Beechwood Avenue.  We should tell the story of this road from the beginning.   North of the main road was Beaumonts Farm, not developed until c1930. Historically the south side was largely the boundary of Hill End Farm.  The farm was partially absorbed into the curtilage of Hill End Asylum in 1899 and the remainder of the farm acquired in 1915? even though all of the additional land would not be required for hospital purposes.  The residue was therefore sold for development in 1920, and this included land bordering Hatfield Road, westwards to the top of the rise before reaching Beaumont Avenue – at this point Beaumonts Farm crossed Hatfield Road towards Camp.

Plots were laid out and the first twelve to be released were westwards of the present Longacres, formerly a track leading to the Hill End Brickworks.  The plots varied in width, but all were very long – so long, in fact, that it was possible for a developer to acquire a significant portion of these back gardens in the 1960s in order to lay a new road, Pinewood Close, to access houses it built on its south side.

Originally the plots extended from Hatfield Road at the bottom of the picture to the extreme
top edge. Pinewood Close and a line of homes on the far side swallowed up nearly 50% of
the rear gardens.  The bungalow which is the subject of the planning applications has a
blue parasol in the back garden.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

Purchasers had the choice of home size and design, and all were detached or semi-detached two storey houses, or bungalows.  This typical mix was reflected in the initial tranche completed c1923.

Six homes subsequently replaced three 1920s properties. The bungalow which is the subject
of the planning application is to the right beyond the edge of the photo.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW.

Numbers 384, 386 and 388 were replaced by six new two storey homes.  The previous, number 382, is one of the original 1920s bungalows, partly hidden behind a substantial front boundary tree screen.  Readers might recall this property was the subject of previous planning applications. In 2018 there were to be one 4-bed flat and three 2-bed flats. A year later this was replaced by an application for eight 2-bed flats. The latter was refused but subsequently granted on appeal.  Of course, if granted this would not be the first flats along this part of Hatfield Road.  On the eastern side of Longacres is an extensive development between Cedarwood Drive and Hatfield Road, mainly on the former site of Hardy House.

The bungalow, first erected in 1923, had only two occupiers between then and 1975.  Note the
bus shelter and lamp post in front of the boundary wall.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW.

Having now gained appeal permission to build at 382, instead, the developer recently chose instead to submit a fresh application in which the number of floors increased to three, plus the dormer roof level and the previous semi-basement floor.  If the authority saw fit to refuse permission last time, presumably they would do so again, but who knows; the bill for appeals is born by the council!  

All of the comments submitted by nearby residents recently focus on the issue of parking and the consequent additional traffic flows.  Some of them relate to school traffic, but other respondents  wondered where cars would be parked on the site.  In the first application a total of six places would be provided.  No update was submitted for the current application, but noting the development would contain a total of eighteen bedrooms it would not be unreasonable to expect at least that number of vehicles, whether or not there were on-site marked-out spaces for them. 

A side elevation of the current application for alteration of the previous proposal. 
It extends from a sub-basement (lower ground floor), three further floors and a roof
floor.
COURTESY ST ALBANS DISTRICT COUNCIL

The site sits behind a lamp post and a bus shelter; would this make it the third occasion this bus shelter would be moved?  Or would vehicular access be restricted to Pinewood Close only?

Taken together, the three applications already the example suggests   that progressive attempts are made quite widely to shoehorn more development from existing plots and as a result lessen the open spaces available on them to keep the street scene buildings and their respective open spaces in proportion.  We would probably wish to protect this benefit, although what might we think if we were one of those residents who wish themselves to expand?

But then, we should acknowledge everyone need a home in which to live.

Wanted to Be On His Own

Today, Hutton Street is still a narrow street near Fleet Street, but comprise modern office buildings
instead of tightly grouped trading factories next to the Whitefriars Glass Works.

Hutton Street is tucked away behind the lower end of Fleet Street, near Ludgate in the City of London.  Its association with the printing industry was long established and many nearby firms developed as jobbing printers for the hundreds of City firms.  Thomas E Smith & Co was just one of them. Its footprint, like almost all back-street businesses, was typically small to reduce cost, but instead it grew upwards.

Fleet Street is just beyond the top margin of this map.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

In 1896 Smith's really wanted to expand into other ranges of work than churning out endless quantities of invoice blanks, letterheads and forms.  Colour work was attracting attention but the new colour machines were considerably larger and more complex, and were difficult to accommodate on the existing floor spaces, quite apart from the weight restrictions on upper floors.

Smith's inserted a promotional supplement into the 1907 St Albans Pageant book which it printed.
The Hutton Street premises is on the right and the expansive Fleet Works in Hatfield Road has
replaced the field sold to it by St Albans Grammar School.

Smith set up a separate arm of his business which he named the Smith Colour Printing Agency; and given that colour work would be in the form of catalogues, brochures, advertising and booklets, with the likelihood of large national distributions, a location away from London but with convenient transport connections was sought.

1896 was also the year in which the Trustees of St Albans Grammar School gave serious consideration to the inadequacy of its existing accommodation and to the future of the School. The tithe map reveals that with Earl Verulam the body owned three fields along Hatfield Road.  It was intended that the fields would be offered for development and the income used to create new buildings for the school.

The Grubb periscope and telescope works occupied the building c1916 and left in 1925. One or
two of the largest instruments were constructed in the open air at the back of the works.

A 1950s view of the factory in the second phase of the Ballito era. The side road on the left
is Sutton Road and in the foreground was the toll house nicknamed the Rats' Castle.

Mr Smith required a large site but nowhere near where others lived, so there would be no distractions for his employees.  He would build homes for them, provide shops and an institute for their downtime needs.  He would not need public houses or other risqué entertainments, nor provide them himself.  So he purchased two of the three fields, one on each side of Hatfield Road and in an area he thought of as "remote".  The factory, called Fleet Works after his London printing centre of the company's origin, went up on the south side of the road.  Houses, shops and an institute were planned for the north side in a development he established as Fleet Ville.

So we now know exactly where it was because locals have been calling it Fleetville ever since.  And once you give a place a name people have reasons to be attracted to it.  No sooner had Smith's walls gone up than Earl Spencer sold his St Peter's Farm to add to the earlier housing at Granville and Cavendish; and the trustees of Beaumonts Farm disposed of the first tranche of its land.  Smith did not want his printing agency to be anywhere close to others; regrettably for him, that was not in his gift, and within a few years his factory and ville were surrounded by homes and workshops belonging to others.  But it did give him plenty of employees living close by, and a hugely successful business.

The field on which the factory was built, bounded by the branch railway, Sutton Road and Hatfield Road, gave the district its life blood.  T E Smith Printing Agency lasted until 1918 (although no work was likely to have been undertaken after 1916, the firm having lost almost all of its skilled employees during the war.  Sir Howard Grubb & Sons Ltd were clandestinely moved in by the Government to continue its submarine periscope research before developing some of the world's major optical telescopes.

An aerial of the expanded works with a multi-storey building.  The bus is passing in Hatfield
Road.  The greyed-out section top right includes the adjacent timber yard run by W H Laver.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

In 1925 the buildings were acquired by the Ballington Hosiery Mills (brand name Ballito), another successful business both before and after the Second World War.  During the war the factory turned out millions of shell casings. 

Aerial view today but it includes the former timber yard. No part of the original factory complex
survives.  Although the supermarket is substantial in size it is still smaller than the factory it
replaced.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

Ballito moved out in 1967 and the site became home to Marconi Instruments for a few years before the site was cleared for supermarket use: first the Cooperative Society, then Safeway and currently Morrison's.  We will return to this retailer next time as land has been added in recent times.

A Look at the South Side

 During the latter part of 2020 our posts explored the north side of Hatfield Road, and during that time we covered the distance from Clarence Road to Beaumont Avenue.  Now it is time to turn our attention to the south side of the road, beginning from Ashley Road, thus returning to where we began.

Tree-lined Hatfield Road looking westwards towards The Avenue (Beaumont Avenue).  
This is when we were "out in the country" and we were able to launder in the middle of the road.
COURTESY ST ALBANS LIBRARIES (HALS)

The countryside continued, along the tree-line Avenue towards Beaumonts Farm.

While building was taking place for the printing factory and the Fleet Ville, we would have crossed the boundary into Beaumonts Farm.  If we had ventured further east along the road towards Hatfield our way would have taken us through the quiet of the countryside, for in 1898 there was no building after passing the Rats' Castle toll house which was being prepared for an enterprising build called Primrose Cottage.  We would have passed those Beaumonts Farm fields on both sides, probably not in the best of cropping condition as in the following year they would also be prepared for development.  Individual field and hedgerow trees were being sold as standing timber, as evidenced by little adverts in the Herts Advertiser.  Beyond The Avenue a continuous line of boundary trees stretched all the way to Harpsfield with few breaks along the way.  We were well into the rural tranche for which Primrose Cottage became appropriately named.

A board was erected at the end of The Avenue indicated an amount of land for sale.  One block to the west of The Avenue as far as the foot of the hill; another block bounded by the Ashpath track, Camp Lane, the track later known as Sutton Road, and the branch railway; and finally, a narrower rectangular block between the railway and the road to Hatfield.

This last block was purchased by the development business of T R Marriott of North Walsham, Norfolk – who also acquired a large tranche of the Salisbury Avenue block, along with Alfred Nicholson. A number of single plots were sold for building by Marriott's, but small groups of plots were also transferred to Charles Blow, David Massey and William Bastin.

Unfortunately I have not seen any photos of the Ash Path, its junction with Hatfield Road or its approach towards the railway bridge shortly below the bottom edge of this map.  This is the 1924
OS map shortly before a number of houses which will occupy the two square sections of the field
above.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The aerial photo above  shows Hatfield Road across the lower half of the view, with Castle Road
across the top half.  Ashley Road is on the extreme left.  When the Ashley Church later arrived it
was able to tidy the angled corner on the left; it made use of the former Handalone Laundry
which Mrs Symons' business used before she and her family  migrated to 
Australia c1930.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

The private road and farm track which would shortly be known as The Avenue (then Beaumont Avenue) was continued on the south side of the road to Hatfield.  This was effectively a crossroads within a farm.  On all four quadrants was Kinder-owned farm land, and the track on the south side leading to Hill End, which the newly opened Owen brickworks had gradually given a new name from the patches of ash and cinders used to improve its surface – the Ash Path or Cinder Track.  This was a permissive path used to enable public access to Hill End and it was inevitable it would become a future road.

For the first few years of the 20th century nothing much happened; there was no rush to build.  In fact just one property went up immediately, which will be described in more detail in the next post.

Ryegate, 282, the first house to be erected c1906, although the OS map appears to show the
house as a semi-detached pair.

The second property, a house given the name Ryegate (today's 282), was first occupied by Arthur Nightingale in 1906.  A further two years passed before a further house near the Ashpath corner quickly became Mrs Symons Handalone Laundry.  

The field remained quiet again until c1912 when a group of houses next to Mr Nightingale was put up, and gradually the rest of the spare plots were occupied between the end of World War One and 1926.  We should also bear in mind that the gardens behind these homes met gardens which fronted onto Castle Road.

We discover from the 1911 census and 1939 registration something of the occupations of the people living in the homes between 268 and 314 Hatfield Road.  Many were employees of railway companies or local printing works; and inevitably, given buildings were springing up widely, there were occupations related to the building sector.

For the most part this row of varied houses has remained unremarkable during the past century, not because they have not deserved to be otherwise, but because until we reach nearer the Rats' Castle PH, there has been less variety in the land use; and the Editor has to admit he knew no-one who lived in any of those houses during the period in which he was growing up!

In the next post we will pass bread, tyres, flowers and a drink or two.

Villas Past and Present

 You can imagine that, as soon as the western part of Beaumonts Farm was offered for sale in 1899, development plans emerged along the Hatfield Road's north side frontage.  To begin with it was probably limited to a few marker posts in the ground at the eastern end where land narrowed towards Beaumont Avenue.  Almost immediately a six roomed villa was erected (number 385 before the 1930 re-numbering, and named Innerleithen).  From new until a few years ago it has only been occupied by two households,  William Cowley, an elementary school teacher until around 1919; and then George Butlin followed by his daughter, Doris.  

The five villas erected prior to 1910.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

Two further villas, 387 and 389, followed quickly, 389 being occupied by Alexander South, a tailor's cutter at the Nicholson coat factory in Sutton Road.  There was space for two more properties, the second having a triangular plot, both of which were finished c1910. Villa number 385 is clearly identifiable today as it is adjacent to the eastern boundary of Queen's Court flats, although these won't reappear in our story until much later.

In our previous post we noted the growth of the former Currell's garage and the widening of its plot to accommodate, initially an exit drive for the British Road Services trucks, and later a further property for parking up a number of cars – still used for this function today.  The two properties absorbed in this way had been occupied by George A Curgenven, a railway engine driver, and next door in a bungalow, his son Arthur George Curgenven, who was a postman. The properties are visible on the extreme right of the middle  image in the previous post, but both had been demolished in the 1950s and 1970s respectively.

The initials FP locate the Alley (originally known as Crosspath). The five villas shown in the top photo are bounded in yellow; the two villas sited on the remaining land (bounded in red) are near the
Hatfield Road boundary and marked in blue.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

View of the five villas from the Ashley Road corner.  Behind the man and dog are the two villas
marked in blue on the map above.  In the distance is the chimney of T E Smith's printing works.
COURTESY ST ALBANS LIBRARIES (HALS)

We are therefore left with a sizeable site bounded in red on the map above and on it arrived two villas (framed in blue) somewhat larger than the earlier five to the east: 383 named Balgowan as early as 1903 and 381, named Waratah a couple of years later. It seems inevitable that both, with their expansive gardens, orchard and tennis court, would eventually be ripe for further development.  A development company known as Parkfield Developments acquired the legal and financial interests in both properties and submitted proposals in 1935 for a number of shops fronting Hatfield Road, an access road and blocks of flats between the shops and the Alley.

The Council,  empowered by a number of town planning acts in the 1920s and 30s, considered the applications and refused them in 1935, and again in 1937; making it clear it thought Fleetville already had enough shops and adding more would contravene the Ribbon Development Act.  Quite apart from the safety issues around the proposed access road, and close to the busy lorry access road.

Parkfield, in an apparent attempt to force the issue, began the process of demolishing the existing houses, although site clearance was not complete by the declaration of war in 1939.  The Council acquired the site as a base for the emergency National Fire Service and a building was quickly put up on the west side of the site.

Aerial view of Queens Court (centre) with the new flats replacing the 1959 library to the left
and the five original villas approaching the double roundabout on the right.  The straight line of the Alley from the double roundabout disappears in the group of trees towards the left edge of the
photograph.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH 

The eastern block of the award-winning Queen's Court.

The land remained unused, and the NFS building vandalised, for a further seven years after the war finished, and the Council then gave itself planning consent for three blocks of flats with an access road (but no shops!), work beginning in 1952.  The imminent Coronation prompted its naming Queen's Court; and the design received a national architectural award.  The original build had open passage entrances and staircases and the only subsequent alteration had been  the addition of front entrance doors to each block.

Both the Fleetville branch library (shown here) and Cell Barnes Lane branch library are now
closed.

The former library site, at the western edge of the site acquired by the city council. New flats built c2012.

One small part of the site was reserved for a branch library when the city's libraries were under its control. This opened in 1959, having been lobbied for by ward councillors since the 1920s, but is now replaced by a small block of flats.

The whole of the north side of Hatfield Road has now been explored, from The Crown to Beaumont Avenue, which the author hopes readers have enjoyed.  After a suitable interval we will turn our attention to the south side of the road from The Crown itself, along a similar distance to Ashley Road.