Bycullah

 Let's begin with the name of the row of shops which is west of Arthur Road.  When the printing works arrived in 1897 we would have been looking towards the north of Hatfield Road and to a field extending from Andrews greengrocery to the access road, now the new Montague Close.  Print firm owner Thomas Smith had these properties built, and named the row Bycullah Terrace.  His home was a very large house called Bycullah House in Bycullah Road on the wealthy west side of Enfield.

The terrace c1908 with the grocer on the left corner of Tess Road, now Woodstock Road South.
In the distance only one house, now replaced by the blue flats, had so far been built on the south side, east of Sutton Road.

The same view c2000. The road has been moved slightly south to allow space for parking
outside the shops.

On weekdays the parade would be busy in the early morning and early evening with employee
arrivals and departures at the printing works; and workers or managers visiting the Dining Rooms
or the Institute (right) during the midday break.
COURTESY DAVID MILES

The terrace as built consisted of three houses, intended for managers of the print works, set in the centre of the terrace, and three shops on each side of these homes.  They were to serve the "Ville" of homes being built in the rest of the field.  As occurred elsewhere in the Ville many of Smith's houses were let to non-employees.

Only one impediment obstructed the buildings, a milestone for the toll road, but the buildings were arranged to sit immediately behind the object (see my blog "A Mile is Not a Mile" 1st February 2020, because the milestone is certainly not in front of any of the shops today).

In 1964 the area is busy enough to require a pedestrian crossing, which was set out for the
Ballito works and the Central and Fleetville Schools.  Today the area is crowded enough for a second crossing in Woodstock Road South.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

The three houses in the centre of the block remained residential until 1930, although there were short periods when unoccupied, the house which is now the optician began as Fleetville's first physician and surgeon, William Graves.  A year before the arrival of Dr Frederick Smythe at Fleet House (see last week's post), he  practiced at Bycullah Terrace.  Next door was Joseph Hassall, superintendent of the County police, responsible for the police station in Tess Road, also as referred to in last week's post, although the house remained unoccupied most of the time before 1911.  The third house remained completely domestic until  the mid 1950s, and the ground floor wasn't fitted out as a proper shop front until after 1960.  It was Kendall's Coal Merchant, and the author recalls entering through the street door and paying the family fuel bill in the front parlour.

This picture was taken a few years after the house was converted into a shop for Kendall's.
COURTESY STEVE KENDALL

Percy Hall's hair salon to the left of the first house, which would later be converted for Kendall's.
COURTSEY JACKIE ALDRIDGE

The first two houses had an earlier conversion shortly after 1930.  A H Smith opened a bakery; this later became A & E Spurrier, who was also a baker, then ABC Sandwiches, before the current optical services.  In the middle house Mr Dellar tried running a Wallpaper shop for a short time.  It was also Percy Hall's hairdressing salon before he moved along the road, but for the majority of its life it has been a grocer: Pollard's, Green's, Key, and Saar Convenience Store, today using a vinyl on the front window to replace an actual window display, as is the modern trend.

If the shops were intended for the Ville residents it will be interesting to discover the extent to which they were for everyday requirements, and whether the same applies today.  Of the western group of three, the corner establishment remained a grocer for a full century: Charles Philips, Frank Lovegrove, Leslie Bennington and Dixon's.  It is only in recent years that it has offered cultural foods.

Mrs Blakeley and her father outside her shop which generations of children identified as the "sweet shop"
COURTESY CHRIS WARD

Next door a general shop, which would be known as a confectioner – children would know it as a sweet shop and their parents would purchase their tobacco products.  P H Stone, who started at Primrose Cottage shop, where the Rats' Castle PH is today, moved there and then transferred to 157 Hatfield Road.  Mrs Blakeley arrived in the mid-1920s.  William Grace, a manager from de Havilland Aircraft Company, retired from that role in 1946 and took on a quieter role running the shop. Around 1970 it became a dry cleaners and now, with the internal walls removed it is Alban Locksmiths.  Retained is the step between the former front and rear rooms, as the the left shops were built on a small hill (as seen in Woodstock Road South).

The third shop began as William Helmsley's stationer, drapery and the little district's post office, before being taken over by John Smith, of the same family who moved to new premises as Rankin Smith c1930, since when the Warwick family ran the shop as Fleetville Fisheries, with an open front and roll-down shutter.  Today the shop is one of the many shops owned by Simmons, the bakers.

A 1964 photo showing Kendall's as a fully converted shop, and the Fleetville Cafe, tables in the windows and a corner counter on the left. Many residents would have recalled the clock above the
shop which often only showed the correct time twice each day!
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

The first of the three eastern shops has always been the local cafe (in earlier times known as Dining Rooms).  It is only from c2016 that it became Fleetville Fish Bar and then Nonna's Pizza.  The middle shop of this group (217) spent the first five years or so as an ironmongery, and was then the parade's butcher, in the care of two families: James Finch and then Horace Presence. Now it is a barber's.

On the Arthur Road corner during the occupancy of the
chemist run by H Bowman.

Finally, on the Arthur Road corner, this shop had three separate lives; first as a greengrocer, then a bookmaker and repairer, and finally H Bowman, the chemist, in roughly equal measure.  Intended for part of the leisure trade in modern times anglers are now served.

Most residents today consider Fleetville to be a significantly larger area than when the Smith Ville was developed.  But it is generally accepted that Bycullah Terrace and its environ is the true heart of Fleetville, partly because it was Thomas Smith who named it so, and this is where the first bricks were laid.

Although there are nine roof elements, one for each property,  two of the three houses share a single wide canopy, with a smaller decorated brick elevation fitted with triple casements each.  This is best viewed from the opposite side of the road.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

A Mile is Not a Mile

There are many puzzles about the Hatfield Road cast iron mileposts and what they tell us.  These posts are reminders of the Turnpike road between Hatfield and Reading, and in this district the only posts left are at Ellenbrook, Popefield, Oaklands, Fleetville, The Peacock PH and St Stephens Hill.  All of the others have disappeared.

Turnpike mile marker at Fleetville
Recreation Ground.

The Fleetville marker may still be present, but it has moved.  It is currently on the corner of Hatfield Road and Royal Road, but there are people who seem to recall it has not always been there.  But if it is a mile marker it should be exactly one mile from the previous mile post at Oaklands; in its current location it is further than that.  Ordnance Survey maps up to and including 1924 locate the post outside a shop on Bycullah Terrace.  The marker is not shown on the 1937 map, either in its original location nor any other.

Of course, the post, when first installed, was at the roadside in front of a field in the countryside – Fleetville was still to be invented!  When Bycullah Terrace was built c1900 the property doorways were arranged around the location of the post, although it can't be ruled out that the post was moved along the road by a yard or two!  

Numbers 207 and 209 Hatfield Road

Photographic evidence is also absent.  Two fine postcard photos of Bycullah Terrace dating from approximately 1914 show the shops both from the west and the east, but obstructions and shadows on both views hide a potential post.  The map suggests it should be present outside number 209, presently an optician's premises, but in 1930 was a house occupied by Dr Frederick Smythe.  Dr Smythe then had a house built on the corner of Royal Road – Fleet House – which gave the new owner of 209 the opportunity of opening up the front,  first built as a manager's house for the Fleet Print Works, for use as a shop.

Bastin's plan showing the mile marker position.

But absence of the post from its measured location is intriguing, and until recently we still couldn't be conclusive about where it was being stored.  Now, as a result of a recent find we can be more specific about its removal.

William Bastin was a Fleetville-based builder and had his yard, now occupied by Chapman's Auto Centre, just east of the Rats' Castle.  Albert Smith acquired Dr Smythe's premises at 209, with the intention of opening it as a bakery.  He therefore engaged William Bastin to draw up plans, which he did before realising there was an obstruction: the Turnpike milepost!  We know this because the post was drawn onto the plan by hand afterwards.

Proposed new shop front showing where the milestone
would obstruct the shop door.

This is therefore the first visual proof of its exact location.  While it was satisfactory for the building before modification – it stood in front of a piece of blank wall – the planned shop required the entrance to the shop to be located on the left, while the existing door on the right would give access to the first floor flat.  It seems that some negotiation must have taken place with St Albans Council, which then agreed for its removal and storage.  It is thought that the post re-appeared when Hatfield Road was widened slightly at the recreation ground.

The answer to the question, where was the post in Bycullah Terrace?  Between numbers 207 and 209.

The answer to the question, when was the post moved?  The plan is dated 1933 and Mr Smith was trading by 1934.

Sweets and planes

While many of us are vague about where Fleetville's boundaries lie – because there never has been a defined place called Fleetville – the wider East End of St Albans IS more accurately delineated, as the author has taken it to refer to the boundary of the parish of St Peter east of the Midland railway.  St Peter, that is, before the daughter churches of St Luke and St Mark were created.  So, in the two books and on this website we are interested in parts of Hatfield too, because they were also part of St Peter's parish.

Correspondence from people having a direct family connection with the East End, or who once lived here, regularly flows in; although not all of it results in entries to the website or blog.  But one email, and then another, has created a connection between a small Fleetville sweet shop, a major wartime factory and the city of Seattle.

William and Clarice Grace at a local event.
COURTESY IAN GRACE

Let's begin with the sweet shop.  Generations of children down to the 1970s will remember their top-up point in Bycullah Terrace next to the grocer on the corner of Woodstock Road South and Hatfield Road.  These shops had various owners, and so we may have known them by different names.  Before and during World War Two the grocer was Bennington's (Leslie Bennington) and the sweet shop Blakeley's (Mrs Blakely).  When Peace returned Mr Dixon took over the grocery and William Grace became custodian of the confectionery – which also sold ice cream, tobacco products and toys.

In an earlier or later occupation we might image Mr Grace to have been a wholesaler; the local wholesaler for the trade was J B Rollings, and William Grace used this firm to supply his shop.  Or perhaps a travelling salesman.  Several of these plied a regular trade around the shops; one, whose name I now forget, lodged with us for a few days at a time in the 1950s, and could well have been the same trader who visited William Grace's shop and who delighted his children with new toys whenever he walked through the front door.

Mrs Blakeley outside the shop before Mr Grace took over.
COURTESY CHRIS WARD

William Grace and his wife Clarice had, instead, probably considered their new chosen way of life to be far more relaxed than they had experienced in the previous decade or two.  William's connection with a major wartime factory was, of course, de Havilland's.  For our younger viewers of this blog DH's was located on the present business park and university campus adjacent to Mosquito Way (a clue there!)

The junction of Woodstock Road South and Hatfield Road
in 1964. Mr Grace's shop is the second in line.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

He had begun his career with the company when it was at Stag Lane, Hendon, and moved with them to Hatfield when the firm expanded.  William advanced to be a senior production manager when manufacture of the Mosquito aircraft stepped up in the early war years.  

1940 bomb damage at the de Havilland factory.
COURTESY IAN GRACE

Of course, the Hatfield buildings were a target and part of the site was bombed in 1940; William being one of many employees injured.  He continued with the Mosquito project until the extensive layoffs as Peace returned, at which point he spotted an opportunity and chose to sell sweets in Fleetville.



Aircraft, however, was in the family blood.  The youngest of William and Clarice's children, Ian, also had an aeronautical career in the RAF and in the United States and has acquired a small collection of DH Moth small aircraft.  In memory of his father Ian has created a webpage which can be seen from
www.n5490.org/Pilots/Bill%20Grace/Bill%20Grace.html

William Grace's story will be featured on the website in the early Spring.