Crittall style

 Searching through historic copies of the Herts Advertiser a number of themes are revealed, such as the display advertisements in the 1930s for house builders, as we explored in the previous post. So this time we will extend the same theme by discovering the range of designs and styles which such businesses erected in the newly acquired fields which extended St Albans between the wars.  Many were plain fronted with few embellishments; occasionally a one-type model which limited variety along the streamline. There are many examples of homes constructed in what might be called  "tudorbethan" with external timber mock beams on projecting eaves – many variations on a similar theme. Brickwork, sometimes in more than one colour, may give way to rendering, to provide a more pleasing frontage.

Many features of a modernist (sometimes labelled Art Deco) are included in urban settings,
including stepped wall capping, metal windows emphasising horizontal lines, vertical
windows and slab roofed porches.

Occasionally architects produced designs from the, then fashionable modernist stylebook, often sporting flat roofs and distinctive front elevations which may include solid first floor balcony fronts, bay windows with wrap-around (Suntrap) profiles. Both horizontal and vertical features are empasised: vertical windows often set above the front doors; and an emphasis on horizontal lines in the glazing bars,  narrow window openings and line relief brickwork. Simple slab porch tops, stepped tops to the front elevation, all traditionally painted in white on top of rendered brickwork. For the most part architects would select from the palette of features and the first to go would be the flat roofs, preferring instead a traditional pitched roof.

Traditional roofs and open porches to blend with other styles in the road; nevertheless, tall vertical
windows, sun trap bay windows and white rendering combine to illustrate a form of modernist
style along Beechwood Avenue.

Black painted glazing bars, short first floor balconies over the front doors and rendered white or
cream in Charmouth Road.

Examples of Modernist design were not often employed in our East End examples are to be found on the east side of Beechwood Avenue (c1937), a single house in Rose Walk (early 1950s) and a number on the west side of Charmouth Road (c1938).  Fortunately, alterations and extensions which might have complicated or otherwise modified the structure or style are rarely evident, and while our appreciation of the architectural end result will always be subjective the proportions, if radically altered would stand out.

Horizontal lines in brick on the first floor, double sun trap bays, even on the later extension. Echoes
of the horizontal lines are also in the railed fence.

We can't proceed further without reference to one engineering company whose output contributed much to modernism, whether in  homes or commercial buildings, and that is the engineering company  begun by Francis B Crittall in the 1840s.  Its history had been the production of metal window frames which had a long, maintenance-light life compared with timber.  We may be more aware today of the coldness of steel, and of course all windows before recent decades were single glazed, but fashion was always prominent, and metal fames were narrower and allowed more light into the room. 

By the early 1920s W F Crittall (Crittall Windows) had become synonymous with the fashionable modernist style which the company embraced.  We would recognise the metal glazing bars, over the years redesigned to echo the requirements of emphasising the horizontal glazing bars, including curved panes and width/height ratios which, even today, are considered unusual – often referred to as slim frames.  By the 1950s the company's output had galvanised zinc finishes or were in lighter aluminium.

There was much fashion for coloured glazing in the 1930s, and Crittall's was no exception. While more traditional picture scenes and sunbursts were common elsewhere, Crittall's top glazing offered geometric designs as an alternative to plain.

Curved glass is still available for replacement, although where replacement uPVC frames have
replaced the originals the sun trap end section is usually replaced with a flat end at 45 degrees.

The company's manufacturing centre is at Witham, Essex.  Nearby at Silver End Crittall's constructed a small estate of modernist design homes for its employees, and although none feature the curved end bay windows which epitomise the hallmark of a modernist design, the homes here are unquestionably showing off the company's window products.

There may be other isolated examples in St Albans of this type of design – something to look out for in our leisure walks around our patch.

How Safe Was Hatfield Road?

 The main road through Fleetville was, until c1880, a toll road (the Reading and Hatfield Turnpike).  There were undoubtedly a number of accidents along its length westwards of Hatfield when its condition and visibility was poor, and width inadequate.  But at least there were few local users – who would want to live along a road where you had to have your friends pay to visit or to have deliveries made?  There were, as a result, no homes beyond St Peter's Road.

There were few rules of the road in the early 1900s and vehicles might be permitted to travel as fast as 10mph.  Signs might be placed anywhere (with plenty of time to read them) and councils could justify any number of pedestrian crossings.  But these freedoms and responsibilities did little to control the number and seriousness of accidents, and two notorious locations at the western and eastern limits of Fleetville were the scenes of many vehicle conflicts where speed was not the issue.

Ashley Road/Beechwood Avenue did not appear on accident stats until the 1930s as neither existed; today neither road would be permitted to join Hatfield Road unless the latter had been straightened first.  That might have been possible at the time, but no authority was given to the county to pay for the land acquisition and road improvements.  So, until the 1960s when traffic lights were installed, the exit from Ashley Road was blind to the right.

Bus and van crash outside the general store at the Crown Junction in 1935.
HERTS ADVERTISER

At The Crown end the traffic movements were even more complicated.  Camp Road drivers might turn into Stanhope Road or proceed to Hatfield Road, but had to watch for users of an early roundabout outside The Crown itself.  From Clarence Road drivers had to look left, ahead and right.  In the latter direction, as with Ashley Road, there was no visibility down Hatfield Road at all until the Council decided to move the park fencing back to remove the triangle at this point. Early double-deck buses sometimes lacked the stability of our more modern counterparts, and the varied cambers and gradients at the junction occasionally resulted in an overturning. When Stanhope Road was tree-lined – yes, there was a time – overhanging branches sometimes made contact with bus tops.  Round the corner in Camp Road those same buses also made contact with the railway bridge (not the present blue one but an earlier version with a brick arch). Of course, only single deckers should have been on the route, but injuries did occur.

After a collision in 1931 a bus is shunted into Camp Road beside the shops in 1931.
HERTS ADVERTISER

A car on its side in Hatfield Road above the Crown junction in 1929, and attracting much interest.
HERTS ADVERTISER

Oversized trucks, either by height or width, also blocked passage at the former Sutton Road railway bridge.  Many side scrapes have occurred along the narrow section of Hatfield Road between Laurel Road and The Crown, even in recent times.

The reason for widening next to the recreation ground in the 1960s was the number of accidents when visibility was poor around the  bend opposite West & Sellick (now CAMRA) and street lighting was still the pre-war installation.  Thick fogs were also quite common before the Clean Air Acts.  Heavy road rollers and steam carriers were known to be hazardous, especially those hauling trailers, or  those which unexpectedly off-loaded loose barrels, and especially vehicles which were attractive to small children nearby.  Sudden noises might frighten horses pulling carts or wagons and cause them to run away with their tow.

A delivery van made it too literal at the Co-op grocery in Blandford Road in 1933.
HERTS ADVERTISER

Although Camp Road was somewhat quieter, accidents were just as prevalent.  The early road was poor in condition in places, and in at least two places tree banks blocked part of the road near the school and at the former Oakley's dairy farm.

Today's traffic flows may be substantially busier and kerbside parking potentially more dangerous, but perhaps most of us are  better trained for driving and negotiating other road users.  That must count for something.

Getting Noticed

Our enforced change in routines recently has been encouraging us to take more notice of our surroundings while we take our daily exercise walks.  Observations and inquiries have been received on matters such as the lettering on boundary posts, how buildings sit on their plots, the age of trees, houses which stand out, typefaces on street plates, and so on.  

One walker observed a house of post-war red-brick design among a pre-war pebbledash row in Hazelwood Drive.  To be clear, Hazelwood Drive south.  As with many homes in Beechwood Avenue south and all of Woodland Drive south this 1930s development was the preserve of builder A A Welch.  He had completed Woodland Drive south, both sides, and the odds of Hazelwood Drive south, temporarily reserving plots in each road for a work site which today would be called a compound.  A wedge shape at 1 and 3 Woodland Drive and a larger rectangle between 1 and 11 Hazelwood Drive.

Hazelwood Drive south - a post-war house nestles among the Welch-built
1930s homes; a former builders' compound.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

Having completed all of the odds – but just four pairs on the opposite side – Welch began filling his compound with numbers 1, 3, 5 and 7.  That is as far as was possible before all work stopped for the war.  The sideways between the homes were shared, but the owners of 7 and 13 took an early opportunity to negotiate an extra few feet, biting into the remains of the compound intended to be 9 and 11 when they were eventually built.

Aerial phone taken in March 1939.  Hazelwood Drive is extreme right.
Rectangular builders' compound near bottom end with historic oak tree
in top left corner.
COURTESY HISTORIC ENGLAND

In the 1950s both the former compounds were finally sold for building, two houses in Woodland, but only one in Hazelwood, thanks to the narrower site resulting from the earlier land transfers.  So we have a post-war red brick home here as well as almost a complete set of evens which were more modern.  And it also answers the other question which has been posed more than once: why is there no number 11 Hazelwood Drive?

A similar query was raised a while back about house numbering in Beechwood Avenue, for which a certain answer is not clear; and for a development which progressed along the road in sequence, is rather puzzling.  From Beaumont Avenue we have numbers 1 and 3, then 3a and 5, 7 and 9 and so on.  Why was 3a necessary?  The most logical answer might come from the way the first pair face towards the junction instead of parallel with Beechwood Avenue.  It is possible the developer initially intended the first plot to be for a detached house.  The Post Office seems to have been prompt in allocating numbers, perhaps too prompt for a builder whose change of mind resulted in a pair of semis instead.  It would certainly be the reason for the resulting awkward plot boundaries and the need for a 3a in the sequence.  Of course, if there is a different account ...

Junction of Beechwood and Beaumont avenues.  Two former builders'
compounds are in this photo.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

While referring earlier to builders' compounds, H C Janes, which constructed homes on the opposite side of Beechwood and in Elm Drive in the early 1930s, had a compound where number 267 Hatfield Road appeared in the 1960s.  A similar compound had been left in Beaumont Avenue which is today the location of number 2.

All that from a pair of queries resulting from everyday walks!

What About Those 50 Houses?

At the top of the website's front page is this banner:
1919: Council proposed 50 houses on the corner Hatfield Road/Beaumont Avenue.  Did it happen?

It would have been so easy to provide a single word answer; job done; but so much more satisfactory to explore the question a little further.

An early drawing for one of the four-home blocks at Townsend, Waverley Road area. HERTS ADVERTISER

Townsend HFH in Margaret Avenue GOOGLE STREETVIEW

St Albans Council in 1919, shortly after the end of the First World War, didn't fully respond quickly to the call for local authorities to build huge numbers of new homes under the banner Homes for Heroes.  By April, however, it had agreed to explore three sites. First, 65 homes in Camp Lane opposite Sander's nursery (presumably where Vanda Crescent is now); this did not go ahead but was later replaced by the Springfield site at the top of Cell Barnes Lane.  Second, 50 homes at Townsend, which was the first development to go ahead; the scheme was formally announced in 1920.

Newly completed Springfield home in 1928. HERTS ADVERTISER

The third location was, perhaps a surprise: 50 homes on the corner of Hatfield Road and Beaumont Avenue.  This was fairly quickly crossed off the list as the city's drainage network did not extend that far at the time.  However, was the choice of location just a curiosity or was there some logic at work?

We have to forget what was actually built, but later, and focus on the farmscape in 1919.  Beaumonts Farm had been acquired by Oaklands in 1899 and the land on the west of Beaumont Avenue had been sold for development.  That left the east side of the Avenue and the fields lining Hatfield Road to be managed as a mixed farm.  Today, Beechwood Avenue and Elm Drive sets the scene.  We even know how this field had been used during the war. Checks had been made to ensure farmers were making effective use of their land for cropping and one field in particular caused concern as it gave the appearance of not being cropped at all.  Mr Moores, the farm manager, implied that he had more-or-less given up with that field as the local residents – meaning Fleetville at the time – regularly used it for recreational purposes, there being a gate near the junction.

Beechwood Avenue from the old pre-development field gate entrance, Hatfield Road.

So, in 1919 there was a field alongside Hatfield Road which gave the impression of being neglected and would probably prove easy to acquire by the Council.  We should also remember that the Council boundaries had been extended from The Crown to Oaklands (Winches) only six years previously.  This field would have been eminently suitable for a Homes for Heroes development, and if the authority had been able to muster sufficient funds there would have been space for considerably more than fifty new homes.

The field remained until sold, along with others, in 1929 and the Beaumont estate came about.  The short answer is therefore no!

Avoiding Hatfield Road

At times it can seem like a conundrum with no easy solution, but the question of avoiding driving along Hatfield Road, can be countered by the equally exasperating how to avoid Sandpit Lane, and even how to avoid the bypass.

When traffic flows smoothly on all three roads between Hatfield and St Albans there is no issue, and at least on two of the roads the resulting extended travelling times are, hopefully, temporary.

In Hatfield Road, readers may recall, a few months ago gas pipe replacement work was undertaken in St Albans Road West, between Smallford and Ellenbrook.  For the next two months similar work is to start between Smallford and Oaklands with the inevitable one-way working using temporary traffic signals.  This is a busy section at the best of times and two new permanent signal sets have been installed at Oaklands College (pedestrian controlled) and at Kingsbury Gardens.  The former is near the uncontrolled  junctions of  Colney Heath Lane and South Drive, but so far the interruption to flow has been minimal.  But in a foretaste of what is to come temporary signals in three phases arrived recently near Oakwood Drive and Longacres.  Standing traffic queued back as far as Smallford roundabout.

Junction improvements in Sandpit Lane.

So, if that is not to your liking you could try driving westwards via Sandpit Lane, but you are likely to be queuing soon after the House Lane roundabout.  The reason here is road surfacing, new junction, footpaths and roundabout at Oaklands Grange, near Barnfield Road.  Work has been ongoing for several months, and the recent difficulties have probably resulted from some drivers trying to avoid the Hatfield Road works – which are about to get even worse.

Of course, once clear of Newgates the next queue is at the Beechwood Avenue lights, where there seem to be more vehicles than usual turning left to return to Hatfield or Ashley roads, but no doubt a proportion of drivers continue west to find alternative routes nearer the city.  And I have noticed a small increase in cars and vans turning north into House Lane, no doubt heading for Marshalswick and the fiveways junction at the King William IV.

So, let's try the bypass.  You might join it at the Roe Green interchange and westwards you may have a fairly easy journey as far as London Colney's congested roundabout – though continuing further west to avoid the city you could join a long queue on the approach to Park Street.  

Normally, travelling eastwards takes time on approaching Roe Green, although we might be applying the brakes anywhere back to Sleapshyde Lane, but once this junction has been negotiated, on the green as it were, you are buoyed at the prospect of a swift journey through the tunnel, except that recently eastbound traffic has sometimes been stationary underneath the Galleria and very slow moving as it leaves the A1(M) on the approach to the former Jack Olding's junction.

I can find no obvious cause except for the usual "weight of traffic", but travelling between Hatfield and St Albans is presently fraught with problems and therefore expensive on fuel and time.  Best to leave a generous amount of time for your journey and stock up with some extra patience!