Ninefields Nursery

We have nearly completed our exploration of Hatfield Road shops between The Crown and St Paul's Church.  There is one more to go, and the clue was probably spotted in the first photo of the previous post.  Today that shop is not there, and hasn't been there for sixty years.  If you walk along that part of Hatfield Road you will find instead St Paul's Place.

Frank Sear outside his shop, plants in pots above the fascia showing off his trade. The picket
fence and gate protecting the private house.  The houses in the background are those in
Clarence Road.

To start from the beginning, Frank and Elizabeth Sear moved to St Albans in 1899 and purchased a detached house in Hatfield Road. Because of his trade he did not simply need a house, but land on which he could continue as a nurseryman and florist.  The red outline in the map below (from 1924) indicated the extent of the site he acquired and that included the corner area on which St Paul's Church was later built, and the wedge shape between the rear gardens of Clarence and Blandford roads.  When the St Peter's Mission Church in Stanhope Road planned its next move it purchased its Blandford Road site from Frank Sear, not the developer Horace Slade.

The shop is circled; the red lines mark the boundary of the nursery.
MAP COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Until the new Hatfield Road buildings went up it wasn't easy to state where you were, but there was a commonly used named for a group of fields between Sandpit Lane and Hatfield Road: Ninefields.  Frank Sear therefore chose that name for his nursery.

Post WW1 photo; the fascia now displays Sear & Carter; the wooden picket fence has now
been replaced by railings.
COURTESY MARK CARTER

It is not clear whether Sear commissioned the house or whether he purchased the finished building.  If the latter, it was the only detached house along the road.  In recent posts mention has been made of the narrow front gardens, but so far this is the only example of such a building with its front picket fence separating the garden space from the public footpath.

By 1910 Frank Sear was deeply embedded in his business, and had teamed up with Gere, a Monumental Mason who had a section of the plot to the left of the house.  Useful because Sear's was opposite the cemetery, and special floral arrangements could be created for the chapel and for wreaths.

In 1911 or 1912 Thomas and Ada Carter moved from Lincolnshire to St Albans.  Thomas was a nursery foreman, and he and Frank Sear created a business partnership and the nursery trade expanded as Sear & Carter.  Thomas was instrumental in searching out spare plots of land nearby, including The Dell in Sandpit Lane, which was used as a trial ground.

Ada and Thomas in 1934, showing the severity of Thomas' injury (corrected date)
COURTESY MARK CARTER

The Carter passion for cars on show outside of the shop.
COURTESY MARK CARTER

Because of the nature of his work Thomas managed to avoid volunteering or conscription until early in 1918, and he was not sent to the front until a matter of weeks before the armistice – unfortunately just in time to sustain serious injuries.  Thereafter, the people of Fleetville would be used to seeing him around as shown in the photo.  Thomas and his family continued to run the shop and nursery with its greenhouses until 1960 when St Albans Council put a claim on the property and compulsorily purchased it for the construction of flats and elderly persons accommodation via a new access road called St Paul's Place.

A 2012 photo of the former Ninefields Nursery and shop, now the accommodation at
St Paul's Place.

The business transferred to Smallford and continued under the existing name before being acquired by Notcutts Garden Centres.

So, sixty years have passed without Sear & Carter's shop and the Ninefields Nursery, a real family business.  In fact a business of two families.

Idyllic Dell

The Sandpit Lane boundary of the former St Peter's Farm remained much as it had done for centuries until the sale of the farm in the 1890s.  One imagines a hedge beside the lane between what today is Clarence Road and Woodstock Road north.  There were fields for grazing cattle, but one little area was always fenced against cattle intrusion and as early as the 1841 tithe map this pocket-sized copse was named The Dell, an apt label given that it was a depression in the landscape.  Today it is a fully mature circular area of mixed woodland.

Might it have been a growing medieval pit for sand extraction?  Or – and this will surely be on your mind – the result of a sink hole?  Whatever its cause, once trees had begun to grow a distinct ecosystem thrived.  There are sporadic reports that access by the public might have been granted to appreciate what had clearly been acknowledged as a very special environment.

Following the sale of the farm it did not take long before Thomas Grimwood purchased a substantial plot of land between the road and The Dell to build himself a house, appropriately named The Dell.  Whether or not Mr Grimwood realised at the time this was the one location along Sandpit Lane where the Wastes were absent with no additional permissions required to gain access to his plot of land.  The plot was in a commanding position right on the edge of the heath.

Before the 1930s Sear & Carter used the lower part of the plot beyond the house and gardens as one of their trial grounds supporting the Ninefields Nursery, now St Paul's Place.

Before and after the First World War others constructed their homes along this part of the lane.  Mr Grimwood sold The Dell  to Mr Fletcher, and he in turn passed it onto Mr Sykes.

Housing had crept closer to The Dell in the 1930s, but not from the lane.  Jennings Road and Churchill Road had been laid out, and eventually the rear gardens of a few of the resulting homes touched the edge of The Dell from the south and west.

But something different occurred in 1965.  The Dell and The Dell became a development opportunity.  Michael Meacher & Partners, architects, and Watford's Kebbell Developments produced plans for groups of flats and houses on the site.  There was never any intention to develop The Dell itself or its approaches.  This may have been for the laudable reason of open space protection in an environmentally special part of the site, but it was also convenient that The Dell was somewhat below the level of the district's sewer and drainage network, with the practicalities of making homes work in those part of the site difficult, if not impossible.


A later phase consisted of two ranges of two-storey homes, although three storey houses had been originally planned.  So the three-bed flats fronting the lane are the only three storey accommodations.

The two open areas are the treescape which can be seen along Sandpit Lane, and The Dell itself, although buildings press hard against its boundary.

Naturally, many nearby residents formally objected to the development scheme.  Perhaps they imagined something hideous, noisy, unsightly or unsuitable for the location.  Certainly the site, as with almost everywhere else in this part of the city, is far more intensively used than when Mr Grimwood was in residence, The Dell is in tact, and therefore the habitat enjoyed. by birds and mammals.  Just as in the centuries when it was part of a farm.

Meet Me at the Drill Hall

In our, sometimes traumatic, re-living of the First World War and the churning over of the ethics and morals, inhumanity and desperation, we have reached, with much relief, close to the end. Not that anyone was in a position to confirm that at the time.  Nor was The End anything other than the the Armistice and the laying down of weapons.  There are always consequences, and for countless families it was barely the beginning of new struggles in the lives to be lived in the future.

There used to be a building in Hatfield Road, almost opposite the Marlborough Almshouses, called the Drill Hall.  Drill halls were part of town life all over the country and became the headquarters of the local defence corps, now known as the Territorial Army.

As we observe from an advertisement which appeared in the Herts Advertiser in April 1918, Captain Charles Dunning of the 23rd Herts Volunteers implored every able and willing man up to the age of 60 to meet him at the Drill Hall.  This was one of many such calls even at this late hour for men to fill a variety of duties, for fighting and for support.  The battle was not yet won.

For those who came to meet Dunning or other officers, and signed up for active duty at or behind the Front, there would then be, perhaps two or three months of training undertaken locally and then in centralised camps in other parts of the UK.  By August recruits, whether volunteers or conscripts, and both from a steadily depleted pool of available men, were fully on duty.

One such man extracted from that pool in April and sent to the lines in early autumn was Thomas W Carter, who was living with his wife and children in Hatfield Road.  Since 1916 he had successfully appealed against conscription on several occasions.  He ran a successful business.  In his defence he continued to stress his work as agricultural, a key term given the extreme shortage of some foodstuffs.  In peacetime it had been a nursery and garden contracts business – and would be again – but in wartime the emphasis had changed.

Ada and Thomas on holiday after the war.
PHOTO COURTESY MARK CARTER

Thomas' luck ran out in April 1918.  At his final appearance at the Tribunal the latest appeal was turn down. By autumn he was in France, and the active part of his duty lasted barely a fortnight.  Within days of November 11th, Thomas' wife received news of  injuries to her husband's thigh, neck and arm.  His right leg was amputated below the hip.

Following treatment he was returned home; the business of Sear & Carter continued and was later taken on by his children.

The Drill Hall focused people's attention on their collective duty as they perceived it, and the decisions they made on the day they signed up.  But the consequences were far-reaching for all.

Recollections All Round

During the past three months there has been a steady flow of old news arriving at SAOEE.  Occasionally prompted by a previous item on the website; on other occasions quite unsolicited.

Marconi staff photographer (using Marconi technology, of
course) atop the old Hill End water tower.
COURTESY MARCONI LTD

Let's start with the heaviest; a collection of eight volumes dating from the 1950s, of the staff magazine of the Marconi giant, of which Marconi Instruments Ltd had three bases in St Albans, all in the east end.  The pages contain details of new technologies, developments within the factories, results and snippets from sports encounters, and on occasion the social difficulties of finding sufficient houses for the company's employees.  Time will be taken to abstract the St Albans features, which also include photos not previously seen.

House and shop of Sear & Carter, Hatfield Road
COURTESY MARK CARTER

A few years back, and published in the SAOEE books, were details of one half of the Carter family, Charles, who launched a motor garage in Fleetville, which later became Hobbs Garage and is now KwikFit.  So a very warm welcome was extended to a descendant member of the other half of the Carter family.  Thomas had arrived in Fleetville before Charles and had teamed up with nurseryman Frank Sear.  The name Sear & Carter was well-known in the district, not only for its little Ninefields nursery where St Pauls' Place is now located, but also for the more spacious nursery where is now Notcutts Garden Centre at Smallford.  One result of our recent conversations has been the rediscovery of a photograph of the house and shop opposite Hatfield Road cemetery.

Occasionally the topic of the Smallford Speedway crops up (and also the nearby golf links too, but that's another story).  The names of a few cycle speedway teams have been put forward by Bill, another correspondent.  You may recall St Albans Cobras and EAC Hawks, Hilltop Vampires (Redbourn) and Harpenden Aces.  Just to show that none of us has a monopoly on local knowledge, we are trying to establish where the home grounds were.  The Cobras, for example, raced in Cell Barnes Lane, and Bill sent me a photo of a group of the Springfield houses opposite the former farm yard entrance.  Of course, the circus field was close by, so perhaps it was there.  We also need to establish the specific location of the Hawks' track.  Was it in the grounds of the EAC factory, did they share with the Cobras, or was there another Cell Barnes location, for example, at the bottom end?

Advertisement for L Rose & Co Ltd on
back cover of 1953 Pageant programme

Having long been custodian of a souvenir programme of the 1907 St Albans Pageant – printed at the works which launched Fleetville, T E Smith's Fleet Works – I subsequently acquired a cover of the 1953 pageant programme; just the cover!

 Now, through the diligence of Gill, I have both the 1948 and 1953 programmes complete.  Both contain interesting advertisements and these will appear on the website in the months ahead.

Former coal yard and coal office St Albans City Station
COURTESY ROB CRISP

Rob delighted me one day recently, supplying me with a picture which had, until then, resided only in my memory; the chalet shop, or coal office, by the railway bridge where today is the road into St Albans City Station (and where many news reports are transmitted from).  There it is, looking a little worse for wear, shortly after closure, and shortly before work began clearing the former sidings and coal yard.

What a great time local history is having.  Long may it last.  Future blogs will expand on all of these topics, and more as they arrive.