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.

Living Near to Your Job

Residents of Marconi Way may have a reasonable idea of the economic activity which once occupied the land where they now live.  They might try digging their gardens and discover a lot of clay; they might also check the second line of their address.  The first lets them know that Hill End Brickworks thrived here between the First and Second wars.  The second informs of the highly successful business which moved in after the closure of the brickmakers. 

There was, of course, a close connection between Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company's requirement to set up a new offshoot, Marconi Instruments, and the national need for new technologies as the Second World War approached.  Two obvious problems presented themselves: the scrabble among hundreds of firms to relocate as war loomed; and the need to collect in one place a number of the best qualified staff, irrespective of their current home towns.

St Albans came to the rescue for a location.  Longacres came a little later; initially a small building would do – this was setting up time, or planning.  A building in Ridgmont Road sufficed, but the author admits to not knowing which building and would be grateful for further information on this matter.  It was the home of Marconi's formative Special Products section, before moving to Elmhurst, 29 Hatfield Road, which thousands of early students of the College of Further Education will recall in its early days.

Finding accommodation for all of MI's staff was also a headache.  As the company's Longacres premises, albeit initially in temporary buildings, ramped up, the temporary High Wycombe site was closed, and because there was so little appropriate housing in St Albans, many High Wycombe staff were brought to St Albans each day by coach from their High Wycombe homes 30 miles away.

Meanwhile, the company worked with government to supply metal bungalows – prefabs – for staff members at Lectern Lane, Holyrood Crescent and Creighton Avenue.

The first Marconi homes in Charmouth Road,
photographed in 1949 by Marconi Instruments Ltd.

By 1949 a site at the northern end of unfinished Charmouth Road, where new house-building had stopped in 1940.  St Albans Council allocated 19 licences (the method then used to control the supply of vital building materials and labour).  The first seven were for an arc of homes on the west side (one detached home was included as the number of licences was odd).  A start was then made on the remaining twelve on the east side, to the north of where Charmouth Court was later laid out.  

The same houses today.

The company expanded quickly into its new technological world and homes in other locations were also sought, including on the London Road estate.  The 1940s and 50s must have been an exciting, if frustrating, time for the company and its fledgling employees.