The Co-op Arrives

An early St Albans Co-operative Society grocery shop soon after the Society's formation in 1902.

 This week the focus for a photograph and building has only one problem: we don't know where it was, or rather, I have little idea of its whereabouts.  All I know is the obvious, because it says so on the fascia.  St Albans Co-operative Society. We see a fine establishment, apparently intending to go places; four assistants plus the manager, and much money spent on the shop frontage so clearly not for a location in the suburbs.  The style is in the typical design of the opening decade of the 20th century.

We know that the St Albans Co-operative Society expanded into other nearby towns, such as Hatfield, Harpenden and Hemel Hempstead, but of these only Hatfield had opened in the very early years.  Perhaps in St Albans Road and possibly near Tingeys.  But when did shops at Harpenden and Hemel launch?

But we should begin, as they say, at the beginning.  The Co-operative movement arrived in St Albans in 1902.  It is from the St Albans Society's Golden Jubilee booklet that we learn of the early shops that were open to its members.

The first grocery shop opened in London Road, in the same year of its formation.  Unfortunately I was unable to identify the premises, and critically for SACS a serious fire destroyed the building within a year.  So if that was the premises above, what an early end to this story!

The Society quickly obtained a short lease on 13 Verulam Road, which today is the location of Pizza Express.  Kelly's directories suggest the shop opened in c1906 and remained open until around 1914.  However, although the shop is shown attached (to number 11 on the left) there is no attachment where the fence is to the right, but we know that an attached building (number 15) was present at the time.  Which means the photograph is not 13 Verulam Road.

The Co-op bakery was build in Castle Road in 1914, its Hatfield grocery opened in the same year, and a bakery shop traded at 89 London Road.  The latter probably opened after the Fleetville bakery and therefore possibly not until the end of the war.  By which time shop front design had changed somewhat and would probably have been plainer at the lower end of London Road.  The bakery shop may have had a short life here as there is no mention of it in Kelly's directories. Today it exists just upstream of Gabriel Square.

A push to Fleetville took place in 1922 and Cambridge Road c1940. Warrior House and the Society's Central Hall was also opened in 1921/2.

We have therefore excluded any further possibilities for the shop in the top photograph, and from the evidence and possibilities above we can conclude that the location could have been

1.  The unknown numbered London Road premises in its opening year – an appropriate year for the Society to engage a professional photographer, but not to suffer a catastrophic fire; or

2. The Hatfield Shop which opened c1914. Much may depend on its exact location; or

3.  A location known by one of our readers.  Remember, key clues might be the building to the left, the space to the right, and what can be seen in the reflections from the display window.

Over to you!

Absent Photo: Original Rats' Castle

 The first in our series of absent buildings which have left no known visual trace occupied a well-known plot in Fleetville.  Mention the Rats' Castle to anyone who has ever lived in our around Fleetville and they will identify with the corner of Hatfield Road and Sutton Road.  The Rats' Castle (inevitably printed without the apostrophe) public house has been a landmark here since 1927; and there is a reason why the building sits at this spot.

The latest of three buildings which have occupied this corner of Hatfield Road and Sutton Road.
The Rats' Castle PH opened in 1927.

When we pull out photographs of this corner we are inevitably shown a view of the current structure designed for Benskin's by architect Percival Cherry Blow and opened in 1927.  Many versions have been taken: with or without floral displays, and with one or another of several hanging signs interpreting the name of the pub using the artist's imagination.  We'll return to the name shortly.

Primrose Cottage was first a dwelling but was subsequently partly converted into a shop.  It seems
that the windowless rear extension was added at this time, with a boundary wall against the
recently converted track into Sutton Road.  Part of either 1 or 3 Castle Road can just be seen on
the extreme right.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

Alternatively, a fine monochrome print of the building which the public house replaced, Primrose Cottage, completed c1895.  The title suggests it was constructed as a detached dwelling, but within two years construction work began on a large printing factory, the Fleet Works, and nearby workers' homes which were given the collective title Fleet Ville.  Until that moment Primrose Cottage was alone in the countryside, the nearest dwelling over a quarter mile away.  No time was therefore lost in converting part of the ground floor into a general store, and, as far as we know was first photographed c1903 after shop conversion under the management of Percy H Stone.

If you compare Primrose Cottage and its shop with the later public house it is possible to spot similarities in some of the design elements. There is just one known image of Primrose Cottage and shop, but I wonder whether, during its thirty year life span other views existed – still exist.

A section of the 1879 Ordnance Survey map shows the Hatfield Road (in brown) and the turnpike toll house (in red).  At the bottom of the extract is the low embankment of the Hatfield & St Albans
branch railway.  The former track, later renamed Sutton Road, then tree-lined, is between.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

Before either of the above buildings had existed a far more basic structure had been erected on the same footprint.  Although there is no proof of the wall materials – probably brick – we do know from recorded recollections that the roof was thatched and that it was a "little square" in floor area.  Its function was to house a turnpike toll collector (the road between Hatfield and St Albans was part of the Reading & Hatfield Turnpike Trust).  The track beside the little building later became Sutton Road and was on the edge of Beaumonts Farm owned by Thomas Kinder who also happened to be a trustee of the Turnpike Trust.  He gave the land on which the toll house was to be built and which enabled tolls to be collected before travellers set foot, wheel or hoof on the turnpike.  The track belonged to Mr Kinder and so he had a double interest in benefiting financially.  We know the toll house was erected before 1879 as the Ordnance Survey map of that year informs us, but the only known earlier record is the 1840 tithe map which is absent on the matter.

The rest of Broad Field was sold for development in 1899.  By then it was known locally as
Rats' Castle Field.  This photograph shows the upper end of Castle Road.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

Formally called the Hatfield Road toll house it was given up by the Turnpike Trust and continued to be occupied for a time before being abandoned by 1890.  It became rat infested, the rodents making their  homes in the straw roof.  Passers by had already given it a nickname by the time of the 1891 census: "the rats' castle". The building was identified as such in the 1891 census, and the field in which it stood, previously known as Broad Field, was known as Rats' Castle Field.  When in c1899 houses were built on part of the field the road was named Castle Road.

While we have been able to build a story based on those facts available to us no-one has brought forward a photographic image or a reasonably accurate pencil drawing or water colour painting.  We know where it was located from map evidence but we are badly in need of a photograph or drawing.  Let's get searching.

For further details of the above buildings on this site:

http://stalbansowneastend.org.uk/topic-selection/rats-castle/

The Bakery and More

The development land between Sutton Road and the Ashpath became available from 1899, as we discovered in the last blog.  To be specific, until then it had been arable, bordering the south side of Hatfield Road.  According to the 1841 tithe survey its traditional name was Broad Field, but by the last decade the space was locally referred to as Rats' Castle Field and was named so on the 1891 census.  More of that in the next post.

This map was surveyed in 1922.  The blue shape is the former Primrose Cottage.  Orange marks

the land occupied by the Co-operative Bakery, and the green circle shows the approximate position of the tree in the photo below.

COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The righthand most house is Charles Tuck's house, though it is in deep shadow in this picture.  The tree further along the road is shown as a green circle in the above map.

COURTESY HALS

     So how come the first two plots to be built on were at the Far Eastern end (Symons Laundry and house, and Tuck's house right in the middle?  If I chose from a box of chocolates that were all the same, it wouldn't make any difference whether I selected from a corner, the bottom row or in the middle.  So if the plots were the same size would it be any different? 

A late 1930s picture taken outside Tuck's workshop and house looking towards Ballito Hosiery Mill. 
The laundry building is opposite.
COURTESY THE JANET STALEY-HAINES COLLECTION

Nevertheless, Charles Tuck chose his plot and while not dead centre, there was plenty of empty ground on either side. He wasted no time in having his family house put up, with space for his workshop to the left of the house.  And because neither is there today we should mark its former location; there is a block of flats with the exterior walls painted cream (to the right of the flats painted blue). Tuck's house is the left half of the cream flats.

Charles and Louisa were settled in their new home with a bicycle and motor vehicle repair workshop up and running as Fleetville itself grew, and we was able to dispense fuel for motor cars via a pump which went over the pavement.  Charles was a keen footballer and took responsibility for managing at least two community teams in the district, one based on young men living in groups of Fleetville streets; the other members of the Adult Schools in Stanhope Road.  The family were members of the Hatfield Road Methodist congregation.

The Co-operative Bakery, followed by Tuck's, in a photo taken in 1964.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

Before moving on, I mentioned the blue flats above.  Until around 1914 the land to the left of Charles Tuck was vacant but the St Albans Co-operative Society purchased the block between Hatfield and Castle roads and built itself a bakery, retailing the bread in all of its stores.  Following an overnight fire in 1954 the bakery was closed but the site retained and subsequently used as a petrol filling station.  Therein lies the story of today's blue flats!

Today's view of the previous photograph.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREET VIEW

Five years after the Tuck family moved into their new home builder William Bastin moved into his three plots.  Let's be clear, because he was a builder, he built a house to live in and run his business.  This has now been replaced by the right half of the cream flats.  

You will note a driveway leading to what was Bastin's work yard, and which connected directly to plots in Castle Road; Mr Bastin also built those – 29 to 41.  To the right of the driveway in Hatfield Road is a semi-detached pair; Mr Bastin built that too, but in 1938 both were converted to shops with flats upstairs.  Number 258 was a baker's and caterer's, although it succumbed to the post-war betting craze as a Ladbroke's.  Number 256 became the Woolpack Boot Repairs, renamed Fleetville Shoe Repairs after World War Two.  There will be a few residents who recall the animatronic model of a traditional cobbler endlessly banging hobnails into a little boot. Today the premises is an Indian Takeaway named Shaad.

The four shops between Bastin's driveway and the semi-detached pair just before the Rats' Castle. 
Photograph taken c2012

Two more shops were added to this little row, one filling in a gap, having been acquired in the name of Mrs Bastin. But that did not arrive on the scene until just before World War Two; until then the weeds continued to grow. Long before then Mr and Mrs Hill chose a plot with unoccupied ground on both sides.  Perhaps the Hills felt by 1938 this part of the street was becoming a little crowded, so they moved; the result being the downstairs was converted into a shop.  Early residents of Fleetville will have remembered the Needlecraft and Wool Shop (Mrs Bastin's); the other called Spendwise.  The latter began as a greengrocer, although there were eventually plenty of greengrocers in Fleetville.  So Spendwise then specialised in floristry.  Today 254 and 252 are an Indian restaurant and The Lantern House Chinese Takeaway.

The righthand most shop when it was Spendwise florist in 1964, followed by a semi-detached pair.
Finally is the Rats' Castle public house.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

Perhaps it was the arrival of the next properties which had finally encouraged the Hills to move, for Emily Lindley, from Salisbury Avenue, purchased the remaining double plot just as the Primrose Cottage next door was to be rebuilt as a public house.  250 and 248 have remained as built, as a low-height semi-detached pair.

The City Council, now greatly more empowered by planning regulations, drew a line, both here and on the north side; this is where retail in Fleetville should stop.

For readers who feel the Rats' Castle has been rather casually omitted, the public house is far too significant and receives its own post next time.