Workshops and Motors

 In the previous post we finished with a memory, for some, of the hardware shop known as The Handy Stores.  Although a few shops have never altered what their owners, or subsequent occupiers, traded through more than one hundred years of Fleetville retailing, there inevitably comes a point when change finally arrives

Numbers 222 (formerly a cafe), 220 ( one half of The Handy Stores) and 218 (the original
unit of The Handy Stores) in 2012.

Domestic servicing has given way to car servicing, one half of the current premises of Prestige
Experience.

We should remember that these units were treated much like houses in that they had back plots – gardens – though they did not survive long as such. Behind number 218 was a workshop called St Albans Plating, whose owner also had the frontage shop unit. As a child the Editor used to wonder what he might buy with his pocket money if he was to walk through the shop doorway? To my recollection I do not recall seeing anyone with business to transact here, and certainly not leave with any plates!

The first premises to be built on the front part of the field, as seen on a white winter's day.  This
name is Carter's Garage at number 212 in 1934
COURTESY CAROLYN HAYWARD

Charles Mears Carter with his wife Daisy, off on honeymoon on Charles' motor bike.
Daisy was a teacher, so she may have taught at the Central School, Fleetville or 
Camp.
COURTESY MARK CARTER

The next premises was quite another matter. In the 1950s this was Hobbs Garage. But until 1934 it was just another open space, land not yet developed. Then, engineer Charles M Carter arrived in the district. He was the brother of nurseryman Thomas W Carter from the partnership of Sear & Carter further along the road. While Charles, and wife Daisy, were living in a small house across the road. Charles set up his car servicing and repair business. Charles' business may have been one of the first in Fleetville to dispense petrol from the forecourt; although Charles Tuck may have beaten
him to it.

Number 214 was acquired by Alfred Hobbs.  Carter's garage business was also purchased by him
c1946 and the site modernised in the 1950s.  He continued to dispense petrol.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

In the 1950s Alfred Hobbs, from Colney Heath Lane and owner of agricultural machinery factory Tractor Shafts, acquired Charles Carter's business, rebadged the shop as Hobbs Tools and later still rebranded it HobbCo.  The frontage of the garage premises was modernised and rebuilt in red brick, with a glazed first floor.  The frontage extended over the access to the rear workshop, joining onto the tool shop building – most of us today have forgotten that arrangement.  Neon lighting for Hobbco Tool Company and Hobbs Garage was fitted to the side and front walls, bringing some colour to the street in the evenings. No doubt it was also intended to attract younger customers and their new post-war cars.

The site was cleared once more when Kwik Fit opened a service branch here.
COURESY GOOGLE STREET VIEW

In the 1980s the premises became a branch of Kwik Fit.  The Hobbs frontage, in fact the whole building, was replaced, presumably to enable shorter servicing periods to take place and therefore faster turnarounds.  So for almost a century number 212 has been home to car-owners in need of servicing, replacement tyres, motoring technical advice and inspections.  Charles Carter started that.

Meanwhile, the editor continues his quest to discover more about the St Albans Plating business, where it moved to, if anywhere, and who it served.

Kwik Fit completes the range of plots which sit in front of the Central School.  Next time we move across the school's vehicular entrance to a building no longer extant.

The Handy Stores

 Following a brief break we return this week to the south side of Hatfield Road where a new replacement building for the Girls' Central School was opened in 1931.  The County Council had no need of a road frontage in its day-to-day management of a school, and so from now on many of these sites would make use of passing trade and all would be developed in the same period as the school, around 1930.

The first property west of Morrison's car park, the timber yard of former times, is the Campaign for
Real Ale (CAMRA) building.  It was formerly West & Sellick, motor accessories and repairs. From above the plot is almost wedge-shaped and there is no back land the business can use.

Next door to the timber yard of W H Laver was the motor accessories and repair shop of West & Sellick.  Although today it is a headquarter building for the organisation Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) no changes have been made to the external structure, remaining as built.  Internally,  evidence of the original workshops and warehouse stores can still be detected, although today's use is administrative. The forecourt provided good space for parked cars and vans, but there was always room for stacks of tyres, presumably used ones which the company would not have minded disappearing overnight, so saving on disposal costs!

Businesses occupy the frontage plots while the school sits behind them.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

Next door was the entrance to the school.  It has come to be referred to as a pedestrian entrance, but when first opened it was the only entrance.  However, the number of vehicles would have been few in number and such routines as "the school run" non-existent   But a  separate vehicular entrance was created later in the decade.

This photo is from 1964.  The police pillar phone box is to the left of the school entrance, followed
by a pair of semi detached houses, in recent years replaced by a residential building in similar but more   modern style. Beyond is a group of three shops.  This is the period of Pat's Cafe and a year after Geoffrey Golding's business opened here. In this period the bus stop, minus lay-by, was still further along the road.  Today, it has moved to where the car is shown parked.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

From memory many of us imagine a small number of shops following on, but there has always been a residential building next to the school pedestrian entrance, a sizeable semi-detached pair, remarkably similar in design to the current building, although these are now apartments.  First identified in the 1928 street directory and soon named St George's and Moorshill by their respective owners, ex military camouflage officer Howard Edwards moved into St George's at the end of the war and launched his sign and screen painting business, which included substantial exhibition panels and murals. As the business grew – and included back screen cloths for major exhibitions at London exhibition centres –  lack of space forced him to move to former straw hat premises in Victoria Street as Falcon Displays.  The firm remains today though not in St Albans.

Adjacent premises went up at the same time, c1928, and became a group of three retail premises, 222, 220 and 218.  The first spent the majority of its time pre-millennium as a cafe.  As The Rendezvous it was a popular weekend meeting spot for cycling groups, and was later taken on by Jack Hart who also ran a cafe in Verulam Road. There were other owners in succession, including the Timms family who also used the premises as an aquatics shop – restful ambiance while sipping a cup of tea!  Today it is Claims Solutions.

The parade as it was in 2012 ...

... and recently.  In pulling the camera lens back a little the symmetry of this block is revealed,
with the soaring roofline of the two ends. An added point of interest is the inclusion of boundary
railings which was a feature of the next door cafe for many decades.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

The 1950s during the period of the twin units.

Looking eastwards in the era when ironmongers' shop windows often spilled onto the footpath,
although in this case it would have been the front garden!
COURTESY ANDREW FREEMAN

The Royal Warrant above Mr Golding's business.

Although G D Golding comes next today, the first three decades at 220 and 218 belong to a different trade.  Percy Sharp opened as the first retailer at number 218, calling it Household Stores.  Within three years Cyril Etches, who had successfully run bus services in the district with partner W Flowers, were bought out by London Transport in 1933.  They had a small bus garage at the eastern end of Wychlands Crescent.  Using his share of the buyout Etches purchased the household business from Sharp.  Within a short time he also moved in next door.  It took him a few years before his next move, renaming the business The Handy Stores.  However, he encountered strong competition, especially from Leon Reed a short distance away, who had eventually spread into three shop units, and so The Handy Stores returned to a single unit. In 1963 began the business opportunity taken on by Geoffrey D Golding.  Golding's bespoke tailoring business has remained at number 220 ever since and there can be few people unaware of the accolade of Geoffrey being awarded a Royal Warrant which he displays proudly above the shop front.  In 2021 Mr Golding announced his retirement, although he has ensured his business continues.

The closure of The Handy Stores also begins the consolidation of services to car owners, which will be detailed in the next post.

Useful Retail Trade

Near the junction with Sandfield Road this Hatfield Road premises was built c1905 and occupied by builder and joiner James Andrew.  You may recognise the familiar features of the frontage, which, apart from colours, has changed little.  Today it is part of SK Carpets, and for more than half a century was P H Stone, newsagent. There is no evidence for this but it is likely that Mrs Andrew and daughter looked after the shop and are shown in the photo.

James Andrew's first shop at 157 Hatfield Road.

The same premises (on the right) in 2012.

Mr Andrew, having arrived in Hatfield Road, lost little time in acquiring a plot opposite for use as a yard for his building work.  I can't be certain he may also have built what was originally a semi-detached pair, named Surrey House and Troon House.  They were early enough which, together with the yard, was numbered in the initial Post Office  sequence.  As with most of the early homes along Hatfield Road they remained purely residences for a very short time before the benefits of retail trade became irresistible.  The facts appear to show the closure of the shop on the north side at about the same time as the righthand premises were opened as a shop on the south side.  James Andrew himself may have converted it so that all of his business was on one site.

Although keeping the building yard until about 1930, he gave up the shop around 1925.  Harry Tuckett, whose father had been a manager at Hallam's ironmongery shop on the corner of Chequer Street and High Street, took over the shop.  His older brother Bertie had been running the New Camp General Stores since 1910; this is the shop which itself became an ironmongers under John Dearman, and latterly Dearman-Gomm's, now closed.

Meanwhile Surrey House next door to the Hatfield Road ironmongery was also quickly turned into a shop for drapery; at first by Deekin & Watson.  But as soon as Harry Tuckett secured Mr Andrew's former premises, Harry's sister, Edith ran the drapery business next door.

When Harry died in 1952, Leonard Reed purchased the ironmongery and Gladys Cox turned the drapery into an outfitter's.  In competition with the nearby Handy Stores, Leon Reed not only added timber sales in the former outfitter's shop, but also added  extensions to the left and right to further expand his product ranges. However, the arrival of DIY warehouses made small ironmongery shops untenable and by the 1990s both Reeds, Handy Stores, and another useful shop, Blackstaffe's, had gone.

The original houses, Surrey House and Troon House: the drapery on the left and Tuckett's on the
right.  Mr Reed's two extensions on a day following final closure.
COURTESY DIANA DEVEREUX

Access to Mr Andrew's builder's yard was to the right of the extension.  Behind the red car is the 1960s block Grimsdyke Lodge, built by Grimsdyke Developments Ltd, and formerly a detached house and lock-up garage plot.  COURTESY DIANA DEVEREUX.

While we have the opportunity of investigating the 1990s photo with the red car we can take a peep beyond to the Grimsdyke Lodge flats, a late 1960s development.  At the far end was a 1930s detached house lived in for most of its time by Mrs Bell.  A large area to the right and presumably intended as a garden, was used as a rather untidy group of car lock-up garages.

Scrutiny of the Valuation Office records indicates the owner of the lock-up garages was C H Lavers, 12 Alma Road.  The record is dated 1953, but Lavers may well have acquired the site at the same time as it had purchased its timber yard (now Morrison's petrol station and car park) in c1925.  This date coincides with the withdrawal of James Andrew from trading in Hatfield Road.  Which neatly returns us to our starting point.

Except that we've not discovered what was built more recently.  Well, this: the Richmond House development and its bike shop!