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

Missed the Flicks

 Not only were there no houses on what later became the recreation ground, but there were few homes built on the T E Smith land  between Royal Road and Tess Road (now Woodstock Road south) either.  A row of  six small homes appeared in Royal Road, and one detached and two adjacent semi-detached houses on the west side of Tess Road.

1922 OS map showing the school and (circled in blue)
the police station and police houses.

1922 OS map showing the Hatfield Road block outlined in red.
MAPS ABOVE COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

This was the point, in 1906, when the County authority concluded it needed to take decisive action in providing services for this extensive series of private residential estates, and with more to come; open spaces, education facilities and the Police Constabulary were definitely not part of the brief of house builders.  The County moved its police station into the first house in Tess Road with the Sergeant and Constable living next door.   In the 1970s all three buildings were demolished to provide land for parking and a children's nursery.  The largest land acquisition came to provide – at last – land for an elementary school; this came following pressure from countless parents who had to send their children "over to the Camp School".

Royal Road to the left; Woodstock Road (Tess Road) to the right. The little car park and the
building beyond are the site of the former police station and police houses.

The 1922 OS maps (top images) show a broad band of vacant land adjacent to Hatfield Road, and it remained in that state until c1930 when another service lacking in Fleetville was finally provided: more adequate medical support.  While there was a doctor and a dentist at The Crown end, it was not until shortly after 1930 when Dr Smythe built a detached house and surgery at the corner of Royal Road.  It still sports the original name of Fleet House, and it was distinctive in possessing a corner front garden.  Although it sits snugly into the Hatfield Road streetscape it actually belongs to Royal Road. Fleet House was later converted into a pair of flats and the original rear garden plot was then used for a small detached house, 2B Royal Road.

Fleet House to the left and the parade beyond in 1964.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

Post-conversion view of Fleet House with added access to ground floor flat.

However, Dr Smythe was beaten into second place by the arrival of John Smith, stationer and draper who previously ran the third shop in Bycullah Terrace, which also had a corner devoted to a Post Office.   It had been a busy shop and Mr Smith sought more space for his trading. Purchasing the corner plot at Tess Road he engaged the building partnership of Goodwin & Hart to create what everyone still knows as the Fleetville Post Office.  The original garden plot faced Hatfield Road, but an extension to the Post Office and drapery was constructed on the garden c1960.  This is now the separate business of MediVet. 

The Post Office still with its rear garden and name fascia A Rankin Smith in 1964.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

The shops c1960.  The extension being constructed in the garden of The Post Office.
COURTESY JACKIE ALDRIDGE

The trend in the 1930s for a single building combining several shops, and also identified in a recent post, was continued here where three standard width units and a pair of half-sized units were built.  First to open was Percy Hall's hairdresser departments for both women and men.  Mr Hall had previously opened his first salon nearby in Bycullah Terrace and had others around Fleetville at different times.

Recent view of the shop which began as Harpers Motors and later St Albans' Scooters.

When Norman Harper first opened his Motor Sales showroom as late as 1939 the legal documents reveal this block of land had still been in the ownership of the estate of Thomas E Smith from the former printing works opposite.  Although now a phone repair shop the street elevation still has the original bracket arm for frontage lighting; street lighting in the 1930s was still quite poor.

The two half shops began as London Central Meats and a studio photographer.  After the Second War they were Baxter's Butchers and Garrard Fruiterers; and along the sideway to the right was a signwriter's business for S T Broad.

The Post Office with shops beyond.  This is where building activity took place in 1912 to create
Fleetville's cinema. This is the orange block outlined on the second map above, and occupied
a wider plot than had been paid for, according to the court report in the Herts Advertiser.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

A plan and front (Hatfield Road) elevation drawing of the cinema.  Not a single showing
took place, and no sooner was the building up than, by court order, it was taken down.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

So, where do the flicks come in?  Well, the building came – and went – so quickly that not a single performance took place. Russell Edwards living in Granville Road claimed to be a showman, and saw a business opportunity which wasn't entirely legal and put up a secondhand tin building as a picture house/cinema.  Without using his own funds this serial mischief maker assured an investor that the cinema was already open and operating profitably and attracting patrons in numbers which, in fact, could not possibly have been accommodated.  In fact it was just a pile of tin and iron lying on the ground and the men engaged to erect it were sometimes not paid.  Creditors caused Edwards to be taken to court – again, and the court ordered that the building, so close to opening, should be taken apart and sold to defray court costs.  When did this occur? In 1912, so becoming the first occupier of this block. And where was it?  It all happened on the plot which is still Fleetville Post Office today.  

Sorry you missed the show!

Next time we'll trace the story of the most well known Hatfield Road trading quarter, Bycullah Terrace, and discover the origin of its name.