Cell Barnes Farms

 This week we are returning to small groups of 19th century farms to make some sense of the present topography.  As usual I have begun with an extract of the 1840 tithe map of St Peter's and picked up part of the route of Hill End Lane.  We need to remind ourselves that the orientation of the tithe drawings was not N–S as are the majority of other maps, but approximately E–W.  For comparison with the Ordnance Survey maps therefore. the tithe extract has been rotated a quarter turn.

The farms are printed in orange.  Great Cell Barnes was a large residential property, 
but it possessed a large tract of land which was farmed.
COURTESY HALS

The route of Hill End Lane has been labelled and we discover that three places lie along it.  At the top is Beastney's Farm, no longer extant, but its site is near the corner of Camp Road and Hill End Lane. Beastneys is marked as a locator for the other two places described below, but we will return to Beastneys in a later post.

Further along the lane is Little Cell Barnes Farm, which in 1840 was being farmed by James Bunn, its owner being Earl Verulam.  The homestead and agricultural buildings of the farm are still in use, most recently as Rodell's Scaffolding business and the community building of London Road Residents' Association.

Cell Barnes Lane is to the left on the 1872 surveyed map.  Hill End Lane is routed top to bottom
and Nightingale Lane drops off the bottom of the map.  No fewer than six ponds can be
identified.

By the 1922 survey agricultural cottages have been built.

The 1937 survey shows the extent of the Cell Barnes Hospital and the extension made to
Great Cell Barnes for transformation to the nurses home.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Immediately opposite Hill End Lane is another Verulam structure, the residential dwelling known as Great Cell Barnes.  This was transferred to Cell Barnes Hospital for use as as a nurses home, but much extended during its lifetime.  Today is is used by Emmaus for its community businesses and community homes for a number of people who have experienced homelessness.

The same features shown as part of the eastern London Road estate on a modern aerial photo.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

One building which we might have seen is an attached pair of agricultural cottages along the eastern bend of Cell Barnes Lane which were not built until the 1860s; and a further pair in Hill End Lane where Ashbourne Court now stands.  These cottages were built on a small triangular field called Little Orchard.  Although not labelled on the annotated tithe map it is field 818, and the access road beside the current building continues as a pathway to Drakes Drive and forms the northern side of the former triangular field.

Homestead and associated buildings of Little Cell Barnes c2010.

View of Great Cell Barnes c2010.

The houses which today are between Ashbourne Court and Frobisher Road were built in the field named Aldwick (a place where alder trees grew).  Alders tend to favour streams or damp places, and as nearby residents are aware surface water is still an issue in periods of high rainfall!  On the western side of this former field and on the other side of Drakes Drive is a short residential road which has been named Aldwick.

On the eastern side of Hill End Lane is the boundary of the former Cell Barnes Hospital which is shrub and tree lined. Most evidence of the former hospital has now disappeared and the new 1990s  residential community of Highfield has grown up in its place, of which this is the southern part.

Former agricultural cottages in lower Cell Barnes Lane.

Ashbourne Court looking through to Drakes Drive at the far end of the pathway.
A pair of agricultural cottages were located where the modern building is today, on
the site of a small triangular shaped orchard.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREET VIEW

Aldwick, taking its name from a field between Drakes Drive and Hill End
Lane, is a short residential road.

Most of the fields annotated on the tithe map are self-explanatory, with Wood Field adjacent to Aldwick, and Brick Kiln close to Great Claypits – so we assume the older buildings hereabouts were built using bricks made here.

Less clear are the fields Dull Winch and Middle Winch.  Nearby is also Further Winch, so the naming is clearly related and is assumed to describe some kind of lifting or winding activity.  Their origin may therefore be related to the movement of clay for the brick making, already a former practice by the mid 19th century.

Along Nightingale Lane is Walnut Tree Meadow.  A number of other former farms are known to have had walnut trees close to their homesteads which provided a contribution to local seasonal nutritional food supply.

As we walk along the roads, lanes and pathways along or near Hill End Lane it is easy to observe evidence of the former landscape, and realise that the ground is rarely level, even where we know it has been moulded to its present shape by machinery when modern developments grew out of the ground.

Right of Way

A few followers of St Albans' Own East End may recall reading of an application to St Albans Council around 1900 to divert part of  the footpath between Princes Road (Woodstock Road South) and Brampton Road so that homes could be built in Burnham Road.  This was agreed to since walkers would have a network of paths they could use on the new road network.

A current footpath through what remains of Chandlers
Grove wood

T F Nash, the company which developed Marshalswick Estate, encountered a similar problem, imposing a new road network on an existing network of public footpaths and tracks, which is why gaps between homes have produced St Mary's Walk and an un-named path between Pondfield Crescent and Queen's Crescent, which had previously been part of the edge of Chandlers Grove.  The narrow band of woodland accommodating a right of way footpath is also preserved parallel to Chiltern Road before it forms the boundary between Malvern Close and Sandringham School.

Path between homes from Pondfield Crescent
and Queen's Crescent

So, it is unsurprising that a public right of way issue has arisen once more on the site of Sandringham School.  For the roots of the story we must wind the clock back to the days before the school existed and a network of paths linked the farms and other rural habitations on the substantial Marten estate focusing on the former  Marshals Wick House.  One such path linked St Albans Road, Sandridge at St Helier Road and Jersey Farm; another branched southwards towards the House from Sirdane, a dwelling seemingly in the middle of nowhere but which came to be at the T junction of these two paths.

When the County Council purchased land for the Marshalswick Boys' School it clearly understood the problem as the north-south footpath, which had been allowed for by Nash on the south side of The Ridgeway, becoming St Mary's Walk, intersected the new school site.  The path was therefore diverted west-east along the northern boundary of the school before joining the path mentioned above near Malvern Close.  Walkers could then use The Ridgeway and pick up the  St Mary's Walk path.  

Later, when Sandringham Crescent was driven through, the County acquired more land for the school (only half of the school had been constructed in 1959 due to a restriction of cost availability), it had neglected to adjust the footpath to the new boundary further north.  Hence today's problem as the school plans for new facilities on the north side of its site.

Marshalswick Boys' School when new, fronting The Ridgeway.  The newly-posted fence forms the northern boundary of the school and the diverted footpath.  Previously the path had followed a
route from the house known as Sirdane (background left) towards The Ridgeway (foreground left).
The future Chiltern Road is the neck of woodland to the right of the playgrounds.  Sandringham Crescent, also in the future, will cross the light coloured field northof the original
school boundary.
 PHOTO COURTESY ANDY LAWRENCE.

But it does pose an interesting question.  What does the current path through the school grounds provide which the alternative – the original west-east extension of Helier Road towards Chiltern Road – does not?  One seems to be a duplication of the other for a few hundred metres.  If you were going to choose which path to follow, surely you would walk the path on the north side of Sandringham Crescent, where there are alternatives within Jersey Farm Woodland Park.  What would be the benefit of using the straight-line path along an educational establishment's boundary – or rather inside it – other than because the law allows us to.  Which is not a very strong argument on its own for so short a distance.

Of course, a precedent had already been set at the site of Samuel Ryder Academy, formerly Francis Bacon School, where extensions to the original boundary enveloped the lower end of Hill End Lane on its way to London Road.  At one time it had been a traffic route, but the lane had been allowed to "re-wild" along its edges and became a footpath, but as this passed inside the boundary of the school a risk was perceived to exist.  The authority therefore stopped up the path and authorised a diversion via Drakes Drive.  Drakes Drive had, after all, been constructed to replace Hill End Lane.

Welcome to our new pad

Voluntary organisations of all kinds are used to working their lives out in sub-standard accommodation.  Buildings originally designed – or at least intended – for quite a different purpose; shared spaces; former living rooms or even kitchens; rooms with no storage; buildings in the wrong place; those which are uninviting.

We continue to use them often because there is no alternative option, funds are short, donated by well-meaning folk who have our interests at heart but who recognise that most major projects will be difficult to achieve.  

Difficult maybe, but not impossible.  Two organisations in the same vicinity were searching for similar solutions, and the result is the delightful little building opened on Sunday 22nd July at Highfield Park, with a green ribbon obligingly cut by Mayor Rosemary Farmer.

Highfield Park Trust had headquartered in the nearby West Lodge, Hill End Lane, from the start of its tenure two decades ago.  OK, so you could run a typical small office from the front living room, and they have, but it wasn't laid out to satisfy the wish of the Trust to invite visitors, show off what was being achieved in the park or hosting functions.

Thanks to the new visitor centre, the Trust can now do all of those things, and probably more.  Today was also a red letter day for Colney Heath Parish Council, because it too was moving into a new home, in the same building.

There is reason enough at any time to visit the delightful Highfield, on the twin sites of the former Hill End and Cell Barnes hospitals. It possesses acres of beautiful and expansive parkland, woods, orchards and ponds.  From today one more attraction can be added to that list – a new visitor centre.