Old Year

Certain thoughts drift through our minds on the final day of the year – achievements realised or or not, as the case may be.  But in the case of the St Albans' Own East End blog it is the realisation that new posts have been trickling through the system now for ten years, at the rate of over 30 posts a year.  Which is over 300 items in total, and all about the East End of St Albans.  Unfortunately the very early posts are no longer available online, but the original function was to generate interest in a couple of books about the district which had yet to be completed.  Well, a decade on and work is progressing well on preparing for the second editions of those same books.

Let's talk about housing for a minute.  In 1919 the city council was discussing a chronic under-supply of basic homes fit to live in; the rural council engaged with local communities to provide new homes for agricultural workers; and, slow off the ground, projects under Homes for Heroes eventually materialised, but for far fewer tenants than the target.  Eventually, estates were provided at Townsend and Springfield.

In 1949 the city council was still grappling with the issue of lengthy housing waiting lists, with thousands juggling with allocated points to move themselves, hopefully, nearer a house.  Local authority houses and homes for reserved occupations such as police, teachers and nurses, were created from whatever resources were available.  Estates at Beaumonts, London Road and Slimmons Farm became available, augmenting the private developments from the thirties at Beaumonts, Spencer, Camp and Breakspear; and in the fifties at Marshalswick.

In 1979 further private developments had been launched at former farms and later in the grounds of former hospitals.  Today, if there was an all-embracing list, with or without points, how many potential home owners and tenants would show themselves to be in need of accommodation in this city; east, west, south or north?  Prices for even modest-sized homes are beyond many pockets and banks. Yet it is revealing that St Albans was one of the locations selected for a special edition of Monopoly!  As a young couple, still living in a modest parental home, commented recently: "finding a house (or flat, or even a barn) is not a game."  Which takes us back to 1919 – and in 1949 – because that is where many were forging out an existence, in barns, old caravans, huts and buildings awaiting demolition.  Articles in the Herts Advertiser reported, with unfortunate photographs, many eviction cases. And, if we include overcrowded and multi-occupied dwellings, many are probably still there in 2019; the hidden population of St Albans.

SAOEE's New Year Greetings is for you more than anyone, though you are the residents who are most unlikely to be reading this message.

What About Those 50 Houses?

At the top of the website's front page is this banner:
1919: Council proposed 50 houses on the corner Hatfield Road/Beaumont Avenue.  Did it happen?

It would have been so easy to provide a single word answer; job done; but so much more satisfactory to explore the question a little further.

An early drawing for one of the four-home blocks at Townsend, Waverley Road area. HERTS ADVERTISER

Townsend HFH in Margaret Avenue GOOGLE STREETVIEW

St Albans Council in 1919, shortly after the end of the First World War, didn't fully respond quickly to the call for local authorities to build huge numbers of new homes under the banner Homes for Heroes.  By April, however, it had agreed to explore three sites. First, 65 homes in Camp Lane opposite Sander's nursery (presumably where Vanda Crescent is now); this did not go ahead but was later replaced by the Springfield site at the top of Cell Barnes Lane.  Second, 50 homes at Townsend, which was the first development to go ahead; the scheme was formally announced in 1920.

Newly completed Springfield home in 1928. HERTS ADVERTISER

The third location was, perhaps a surprise: 50 homes on the corner of Hatfield Road and Beaumont Avenue.  This was fairly quickly crossed off the list as the city's drainage network did not extend that far at the time.  However, was the choice of location just a curiosity or was there some logic at work?

We have to forget what was actually built, but later, and focus on the farmscape in 1919.  Beaumonts Farm had been acquired by Oaklands in 1899 and the land on the west of Beaumont Avenue had been sold for development.  That left the east side of the Avenue and the fields lining Hatfield Road to be managed as a mixed farm.  Today, Beechwood Avenue and Elm Drive sets the scene.  We even know how this field had been used during the war. Checks had been made to ensure farmers were making effective use of their land for cropping and one field in particular caused concern as it gave the appearance of not being cropped at all.  Mr Moores, the farm manager, implied that he had more-or-less given up with that field as the local residents – meaning Fleetville at the time – regularly used it for recreational purposes, there being a gate near the junction.

Beechwood Avenue from the old pre-development field gate entrance, Hatfield Road.

So, in 1919 there was a field alongside Hatfield Road which gave the impression of being neglected and would probably prove easy to acquire by the Council.  We should also remember that the Council boundaries had been extended from The Crown to Oaklands (Winches) only six years previously.  This field would have been eminently suitable for a Homes for Heroes development, and if the authority had been able to muster sufficient funds there would have been space for considerably more than fifty new homes.

The field remained until sold, along with others, in 1929 and the Beaumont estate came about.  The short answer is therefore no!