Filling the Corners

 In the previous post I explored with you a Hatfield Road bungalow for which a planning application had recently been submitted for redevelopment as flats. The land on the south side of Hatfield Road had been released from agricultural use on part of Hill End Farm in 1920, and there was little delay before new houses lined the full distance from near Ashley Road, beyond Colney Heath Lane as far as the boundary of former Butterwick Farm where today's industrial landscape begins.

A reader recently identified a particular house near Colney Heath Lane he had been familiar with and therefore this corner will be the focus today.  Until the 1920s the nearest buildings were Oaklands Mansion and Winches farmhouse on the north side of Hatfield Road, the station building at the railway (shown at the foot of the map) and a small thatched building, called the Hut, just a short distance into Colney Heath Lane.  This building housed the toll keeper collecting payments from road users travelling along the lane towards the turnpike road, now Hatfield Road.  Otherwise, as the first map below shows a majority of this land was wooded.

Hatfield Road traverses the map from left to right; Colney Heath Lane branches southwards
to the right of Hut Wood – which referred to the former turnpike toll hut nearby.  The map is 
dated 1898.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Even as housing began in the early 1920s – this map is dated 1924 – woodland abounds. 
Houses can now be found in Hill End Lane at the bottom of the map, close to the little station
at Hill End where now is Alban Way.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Houses line the south side of Hatfield Road, as well as Colney Heath Lane in 1939.  The long
and irregular plots were later exploited for further infill housing.  The space in Colney Heath Lane
after the third house (green) was later used as the Gresford Close access.  Number 456
Hatfield Road, referred to in the text, is circled in red.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

When the building plots were divided up their lengths generally extended to the boundaries of other users in the hinterland, and between today's Longacres and Colney Heath Lane one large hinterland use was the clay pit which later grew to add kiln firing buildings taken over in the 1920s by the Owen Brickworks off Ashley Road.  By all accounts it was an untidy site and of irregular shape.  

The map which illustrates the plot lengths as they were in 1939 reveals an untidy arrangement with the occasional end wrapping around its neighbour, and a couple of landlocked plots with no apparent road access.  The first map to show completed houses on the approach towards Colney Heath Lane (the 1939 map) also shows one house, numbered 456, which does not line the road at all, but is set behind two pairs of semi-detached homes with much shorter rear gardens.  Number 456 therefore makes use of a particularly wide plot, but in order to give access to Hatfield Road a path was laid  between the front houses.  It is possible that one purchaser acquired and built all four front houses and the larger house set back (possibly for himself).  He may also have purchased rectangular plots with access to Colney Heath Lane for his later vehicular drive, but was unable to complete this project while one householder, of 470, refused to sell the bottom part of his garden.

Viewed looking southwards the Gresford Close estate utilises the space behind the earlier long
gardens on the south side of Hatfield Road.  Colney Heath Lane is on the extreme left.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

As we notice, the homes which were constructed at the same time round the corner in Colney Heath Lane also had rear gardens of various lengths, taking them as far as the brickworks site.  Both the Ashley Road and Hill End Brickworks had closed by 1939 since it was anticipated there would be little demand for the product during war time.  However, the irregularly shaped Hill End brickworks site was quickly identified for possible use by the fledgling Marconi Instruments Ltd, a spin-off company of Chelmsford's Marconi Wireless.  Thus the brickworks/Marconi site was preserved until the latter's closure by 1980, after which it was redeveloped as the Marconi estate within the same curtilage.

In the 1970s and 80s developers were earnestly searching for any small or medium sized blocks of potential building land, often using left-over corners from previous developments, lengths of housing with extended rear gardens (which enabled the houses in Pinewood Close) or where irregular boundaries had left pockets.  Existing individual houses were occasionally demolished where there was the opportunity to redevelop more densely – a process which continues to this day.

Gresford Close results from one of those opportunities in the 1970s, and it connects to the road network just where the owner of number 456 Hatfield Road had previously acquired his private driveway onto Colney Heath Lane (which had also been reserved for a future number 8). The name Gresford is derived from E Michael Gresford Jones, Bishop of St Albans between 1950 and 1970.

The space left for a number 8 Colney Heath Lane is now the access road for Gresford Close.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW.

Although I cannot verify the next statement I am certain that two existing Hatfield Road houses, 472 and 474, were demolished, possibly with the intention of enabling a Hatfield Road access in addition or instead, but the fact that such an access does not today exist it is presumed that planning consent for it was refused.  Instead four new homes, in pairs, were built instead (464, 464a, 462 and 462a).  The existing path leading to 456, the house which had been set back, can still be seen when walking along the road.

By shortening existing gardens and utilising corners it was possible to accommodate around 28 new homes as well as the access route and garage accommodation.   Of course, gardens are these days minuscule compared with those in pre-war dwellings.  

A similar approach to increasing the housing stock was adopted at Cedarwood Court and Pinewood Close; and together with the Marconi estates and infill space between Colney Heath Lane and the Butterwick industry a considerable amount of extra housing has been brought to the south side of Hatfield Road.

A Way Through

Most of us have come to terms with – or not as the case may be – St Albans being a nightmare to drive in or through.  But for us on the eastern side there was, in the early days of motoring, an indirect benefit brought to us courtesy of the government's post-WW1 roads programme.  The St Albans Bypass, which was also in part a Fleetville Bypass, was a present to the district in the 1920s.  So, we might ponder where we might be today without it.  Would Hatfield Road instead be a dualled carriageway?  Possibly, or maybe not.

In 1965 the County Council's St Albans Transportation Study (SATS) was published, the result of detailed analysis of traffic movements, congestion and other factors, such as parking, which acted as influences on everyone's journeys by road at the time.

The City Council had spent the best part of thirty years developing the ring road, finally completed the project just as the SATS was published.  As we realised fairly quickly the early parts of the road were developed, not as a single infrastructure project, but in conjunction with housing developers; the result being that the ring road was just another residential road, and as direction signs moved traffic on to it and away from the city centre, there were many objections from residents' groups, mainly because of the heavy vehicles using it.  Eventually the signs disappeared, and so did the ring road name.

Two new traffic schemes were discussed in the SATS.  One will form the subject of the next post; the other became possible because British Rail offered for sale the branch railway land it owned, now Alban Way.

Looking towards the former Northwestern Hotel, Holywell Hill.

SATS therefore proposed – another – Fleetville Bypass using railway land between London Road and Colney Heath Lane, although the maps produced showed an extension to link with the then newly dualled carriageway at the former Northwestern Hotel, Holywell Hill (or is it St Stephen's Hill at that point?).  

The link with London Road is shown as a curved road which was "thoughtfully" constructed as the later Orient Way.  A roundabout was proposed at Ashley Road, although the difference in elevation would have required some infrastructure works at a location which had only just received a new bridge.  Presumably, the connection at Hatfield Road/Colney Heath Road would have similarly been in the form of a roundabout – how today's drivers would welcome a roundabout here.

This road leaves London Road and connects with Alban Way at the former
London Road Station.

The press made the assumption that the new road would be a dualled carriageway, presumably because that is what most bypasses were.  However, SATS states that the road would be a two lane single carriageway; just as well, as the railway land would not allow for a wider road.  While raising this option as a viable option, the report also recognised a serious concern that air quality and traffic noise would be brought close to people's homes over the majority of the new road's length, and that would count against that option in any decisions the county council would have to make.

Colney Heath Lane/Hatfield Road junction.  Considering the subject
matter, in these three photos there is barely a vehicle to be seen!

Since the railway route did not materialise – nor any other option put forward – we are left to speculate on the benefits it might have had.  What difference would it have actually made to Hatfield Road?  Would it have made any difference to driving (or riding on a bus for that matter) into and through the centre of the city?

So, from the point of view of the railway route, fifty-five years on and we are still using the same road network, and goodness knows how many road possibilities have been drawn on council maps since.  Meanwhile, the original bypass (North Orbital) has since been dualled – it was initially laid as a single carriageway – and still has the land for widening to three lanes each way.  Its actual capacity is limited by its surface roundabouts, and still lacks the overbridge at the Smallford Lane/Colney Heath intersection.  But that's another story.