The Co-op Arrives

An early St Albans Co-operative Society grocery shop soon after the Society's formation in 1902.

 This week the focus for a photograph and building has only one problem: we don't know where it was, or rather, I have little idea of its whereabouts.  All I know is the obvious, because it says so on the fascia.  St Albans Co-operative Society. We see a fine establishment, apparently intending to go places; four assistants plus the manager, and much money spent on the shop frontage so clearly not for a location in the suburbs.  The style is in the typical design of the opening decade of the 20th century.

We know that the St Albans Co-operative Society expanded into other nearby towns, such as Hatfield, Harpenden and Hemel Hempstead, but of these only Hatfield had opened in the very early years.  Perhaps in St Albans Road and possibly near Tingeys.  But when did shops at Harpenden and Hemel launch?

But we should begin, as they say, at the beginning.  The Co-operative movement arrived in St Albans in 1902.  It is from the St Albans Society's Golden Jubilee booklet that we learn of the early shops that were open to its members.

The first grocery shop opened in London Road, in the same year of its formation.  Unfortunately I was unable to identify the premises, and critically for SACS a serious fire destroyed the building within a year.  So if that was the premises above, what an early end to this story!

The Society quickly obtained a short lease on 13 Verulam Road, which today is the location of Pizza Express.  Kelly's directories suggest the shop opened in c1906 and remained open until around 1914.  However, although the shop is shown attached (to number 11 on the left) there is no attachment where the fence is to the right, but we know that an attached building (number 15) was present at the time.  Which means the photograph is not 13 Verulam Road.

The Co-op bakery was build in Castle Road in 1914, its Hatfield grocery opened in the same year, and a bakery shop traded at 89 London Road.  The latter probably opened after the Fleetville bakery and therefore possibly not until the end of the war.  By which time shop front design had changed somewhat and would probably have been plainer at the lower end of London Road.  The bakery shop may have had a short life here as there is no mention of it in Kelly's directories. Today it exists just upstream of Gabriel Square.

A push to Fleetville took place in 1922 and Cambridge Road c1940. Warrior House and the Society's Central Hall was also opened in 1921/2.

We have therefore excluded any further possibilities for the shop in the top photograph, and from the evidence and possibilities above we can conclude that the location could have been

1.  The unknown numbered London Road premises in its opening year – an appropriate year for the Society to engage a professional photographer, but not to suffer a catastrophic fire; or

2. The Hatfield Shop which opened c1914. Much may depend on its exact location; or

3.  A location known by one of our readers.  Remember, key clues might be the building to the left, the space to the right, and what can be seen in the reflections from the display window.

Over to you!

Ten Years

 Although this blog had begun life a couple of years earlier, the current Blogspot format was launched in 2012 with the aspiration of publishing about three posts each month.  There was no intention to reach a ten-year lifespan, or in fact any set target, but here we are, ten years later and SAOEE blog is still going strong.  While the last year in which the target of thirty-six posts in a calendar year was reached was in 2014, I am pleased to have reached this total again in 2021.  Further, this post is number 350 in the current series.  I'll raise a glass to that on New Year's Eve.

I've chosen to look back at the festive period in the 1970s, to re-discover what events were making the news in our East End during that decade.  None of those selected recorded public celebratory events, so there was no reference to Christmas trees or other street decorations – we left that to the city centre – although many of the shops did create their own special display windows with little lights, cotton wool snow and Happy Christmas signs, and exhorted via signs invitations to purchase festive food, do-it-yourself decorations, and small trees and holly stems.

But the following all occurred in December and would have added an extra dimension to the local scene.

1970: A supermarket (a newish term in everyday use) was slated to open at Whitecroft, London Road, right on the edge of our patch. Named Downsway, its warehouse was owned by T W Downs which  had opened on the Butterwick Industrial estate a few years previously.  This small group later bought out another small chain, but later in the 1970s found itself selling to one of the big guys: Fine Fare.

1971: A postbox standing on the corner of Ely and Cambridge roads for many decades, suddenly became a headache because of its position – on private land – and the owner now wanted it moved from the space in front of the corner shop and onto public space. St Albans Council and GPO jointly agreed to it residing on the footpath a few yards away, where it remains today.

1972: Now that there was no land left on which to farm, the barn next to Cunningham Hill Farm homestead was being converted into two houses, one four-bedroomed and the other five-bedroomed (above).  A feature article in the Herts Advertiser stated the barn had been acquired by Michael Hunter from a Watford contracting firm, but had previously belonged to James Baum, of the last farming family at Cunningham. The barn was estimated to be 400 years old.  The existing roof tiles were retained and two-century-old bricks were brought from a Southwark church to fill the framework sections.

1973: In one of those subsidence alerts which occasionally come to light – and the holes sometimes produced – the end of the year brought the worrying news that a house in Sandpit Lane, the last to be finished just before the Second World War, was to be shored up because of unstable ground.  In testing the ground conditions there appeared to be a space between 15 and 80 feet depth.  The Herts Advertiser stated that other nearby homes were also affected.  An "unsettling" time for the house owners affected.  And just before Christmas.

1974: A decision had been made by Hertfordshire County Council that both the Girls' Grammar School and Boy's Grammar School were to be extended, in both buildings and pupil numbers, were to become all ability schools, and would, from the following September, change their names.  The boys' school in Brampton Road would henceforth be renamed Verulam School, while the Girls' School nominally removed the word Grammar, reducing its initials from STAGGS to STAGS.  The Girls' School had occupied today's Fleetville Juniors buildings until 1952.

1975: The extension of residential housing in Hatfield Road had strangely prompted a proposal to increase the road's speed limit from 30 to 40mph between Colney Heath Lane and Ryecroft Court.  After a period of intensive community lobbying, the speed upgrade did not take place, and the existing limits apply to this day.

1976: Hertfordshire County Council applied for planning consent for a new 40-place nursery unit at Fleetville Infants School, a year after the move of the Junior section to larger accommodation at the former Sandfield Road School.  The new unit, including development on the site of the closed police houses, which were also owned by the County Council, allowed for the closure of the temporary and inadequate Day Nursery erected in 1942 on the Recreation Ground. Fifty-five years later this temporary building is still in occupation by Fleetville Community Centre.

1977: From the 1920s until 1977 the St Albans Bypass was a three-lane single carriageway, although sufficient land had been purchased for dual three lane roads. One section had been dualled in the mid-1950s, but in December 1977 it was announced work would begin on converting two further sections to dual two lane carriageways: Noke to Park Street and London Colney to Colney Heath.  This work would greatly ease congestion throughout, but as we have some to experience capacity has been reached once more, especially at the roundabouts, and the benefits which once derived between Hatfield and St Albans are now behind us.

1978: Cllr Ronald Wheeldon was helping Fleetville bid for cash towards making the area a General Improvement Area (GIA), including a traffic management scheme.  Fleetville had been the subject of a scathing report by the Labour Party three years previously.  Castle, Cape, Sutton and Burleigh roads were assessed as being the most needy in the ward.

1979: In the ongoing tussle between the Council and St Albans Cooperative Society, another building design was submitted for the Society's proposed supermarket (on today's Morrison's site).  A number of Fleetville traders were concerned about their future livelihoods and a number of residents looked forward to improved shopping experiences, though many were greatly supportive of existing grocers and greengrocers.

So, in those years there was much to look forward to, as well as hopes for battles in progress.  As always, changes affect people in different ways; commercial takeovers may risk employment, especially worrying at the end of a year.  And many residents would continue to wait a long time for improvements to their living conditions.

The Skelton investment

In our exploration of the properties lining Hatfield Road eastwards from The Crown, Rumballs land agents had enabled Horace Slade to acquire Great Long Field (or Long Field East as it was also known).  The hedge separating Long Field from Long Field east met Hatfield Road just before the line of Blandford Road, so when Frank Sear first purchased the land for his nursery and its shop and house it was on the east side of the hedge and in Long Field East.  But Jacob Reynolds of Heath Farm expressed an interest in part of St Peter's Farm and purchased a strip of land on each side of Blandford Road.  He was clearly only interested in residential development,  not main road development.  His purchase had not included Sear's future Ninefields Nursery, nor had it approached the main road on the east side of Blandford Road.

An early plan of the land purchased by Joshua Reynolds.  The road names
have not yet been agreed, but the land is on either side of Blandford Road.

In stepped Mr H Skelton, a builder from Luton who purchased an interest facing Hatfield Road when development first began in 1899.  On this land he straightaway built two terraces of four houses each.  There will be a closer look at these in the next post.  For now, that land accounted for only half of the Hatfield Road frontage in his ownership.  From Blandford Road he was content to leave a sizeable plot vacant for a full ten years.  As for living close to the job, he, his wife, son and daughter, occupied four different properties, at least two of them – and maybe all of them – he had been responsible for building.

Mr Skelton's purchased land east of Blandford Road.  The first building, consisting of four purpose- built shops was not developed until c1910.  On the far right, the building beyond Asker's awning is where J B Rollings ran his wholesale confectioner's business.  The rectangular clock is fixed
to the first floor front elevation.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

The ornate balustrading hides the view from the street of the second-floor windows, which are
nevertheless visible from the more distant view shown in the top picture of this pair.

In 1910 the design for a terrace of four at the plot-in-waiting at the Blandford Road end was agreed and proceeded with, and would certainly have made a greater impression than his earlier gable ends further along the road.  Those who only look down or ahead when walking along the road may not have noticed.  Neither is it obvious to many of us that this terrace is triple floored.  Above the ground floor, which was intended to open straight onto the pavement rather than via a slim six foot garden space, the first floor has residential squared profile bay windows and adjacent ancillary rooms with a flat window.  Except the corner property, which only has a longer bay window, which is angled; no flat window for another room.  The reason for this becomes clear when we look around the corner.  These appear to be more than tiny flats and all four extend some distance to the rear.  Number 109 has two windows overlooking Blandford Road, a benefit not available to the other three properties; it is therefore probable that the internal layout is different.

The third level attic room windows are mainly hidden behind an ornate stone balustrade with the roof drainage fed downwards from pipework below balustrade level.

Since 1922 number 109 has been a home of St Albans Co-operative Society grocery department.  The author only remembers it from the 1950s, when it was already self-service, except for the delicatessen counter. Home delivery, so popular once more, was also a feature back then; the customer handing in a notebook, with requirements ticked if supplied, and the assistant calculating the cost.  Even "subs" were taken into account if the exact product wasn't in stock.  Today it is still part of the Co-op as Funeral Care.

Next door at number 111 it took until 1938 for the Co-op to open its butchery, which previously had been an independent shoe shop and a gents outfitter.  The shop front was fairly impressive, with the lower facing panels having a black stone grained finish, and heavy glazed doors with shiny metal edgings.  When the Co-op opened its supermarket its little local shops closed.

The third Co-op shop in the row, number 113, was its greengrocery and then Society Dry Cleaners, but only from the early 1950s. Before then the sign above the door welcomed young people to the Carlton Club, while the fascia stated Bishop's Stores.  The shop attracted a number of young people and one of the activities which came out of these comings and goings was a very successful football club.  To this day, a detail page on the St Albans City Football Club's website carries photos of the teams of young people from the immediate post-war period.

A 1945 Carlton team pictured at Clarence Park
COURTESY THE GORDON JAMES COLLECTION

Number 115's first occupant was a trader which later became well known for its delicatessen shops in Victoria Street and Chequer Street, Saxby Bros, but by 1930 A Asker had taken over what had previously been a watchmaker's and then become Fleetville's pawnbroker's shop.  Today it is a cafe.

Mr Skelton's purchased land facing Hatfield Road between Blandford and Glenferrie roads is
boxed in orange. The properties in this post are numbers 109 to 115, and number 117.
MAP COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

And finally, in this post ...

Mr Skelton had a plot of land left between the 1910 development we have explored today and the two terraces of houses to the east and which we will find out more next time.  Around 1920, and because of the small amount of extra width he allowed a shop for Mr John  Blackmore to run a drapery business, with residential accommodation to the side rather than above or behind.  However, for whatever reason Mr Blackmore sold up within a couple of years in favour of a man well-known in Fleetville, Mr John Bradbury Rollings.  He was living in a small house in Brampton Road and in charge of a small wholesale business.  The urgent need to expand brought him to buy number 117, which he named Clifton House after the house he had previously owned in Finsbury.  As he did not need the attached house for residential purposes, this, along with the shop, became the new warehouse.  The top photo, taken in 1964, shows the property – it is the one with the rectangular clock attached to the frontage.  Compare it with the picture taken in 2012.  The right side which was the original shop received a significant change, both to the frontage and to the roofline.  In the 1960s, further expansion forced the company to move into a warehouse at the top of Camp Hill, number 117 eventually being the home of a popular computer accessories retailer called Beebug.

Add caption

We have seen a considerable range of traders moving into this growing party of the city, and either staying because they were successful, or moving on after a while to try their luck elsewhere or in the search for larger premises or more popular locations.  This week Saxby's, Rollings and the Co-op did just that.  Next time we'll see how Mr Skelton's terraces of homes fared.

 

Decade News

The recent news from the District Council announcing its new and welcome policy on trees, as well as the County Council's proposals for use of some of its land for solar energy, is a positive start to a new decade.  Looking back to the first month of earlier decades provides a mix of decisions, events and observations which are shared here.

Stanhope Road homes built of land sold by Thomas Kinder

1880: Thomas Kinder, owner of Beaumonts Farm relinquished two fields he had previously grown malting barley in – for his brewery business – and this provided the development opportunity we know as Stanhope and Granville roads.  And what became a huge event that summer, the murder of Marshalswick farmer Edward Anstee.

1890: The district was in a bind regarding the treatment of patients with contagious diseases, especially since the pest house at Smallford had been closed.  The city council proposed to build a new isolation hospital on part of the Hatfield Road cemetery, itself only opened six years earlier.

1900: At the beginning of the year the Bath & West Agricultural Society announced it would organise an agricultural show that summer at Cunningham Hill Farm.  Animals and equipment was brought by rail to London Road Station and taken to the site via a drive, now Cunningham Hill Road.

St Paul's Mission Church, Stanhope Road

1910: It was announced that St Paul's Parish Church would be consecrated at a special service that Easter.  The church had been launched in a tin building in Stanhope Road and building work on the permanent building begun in 1908.

1920: Work began on a cenotaph memorial at the intersection of main paths at Hatfield Road Cemetery, and was completed in time for its dedication that November and before the memorial in St Peter's Street.

War Memorial at Hatfield Road Cemetery

1930: A partnership of builders, Walter Goodwin and Charles Hart completed purchase of a small field and began the task of building homes along three short roads, Lynton, Windermere and Glenlyn avenues.

1940: The beginning of the year proved to be bitterly cold; fuel was in short supply; most schools were working part time to provide accommodation for evacuated schools, and some schools remained unheated.

1950: A major main drainage project began to enable both old and new Marshalswick estates to be connected to the city's sewer network and its treatment works.  It was still a time when such work lagged behind house building.

1960: Residents living in St Albans' East End districts who commuted to London, finally saw the launch of new diesel trains and said goodbye to the steam locomotives calling at the City Station.

1970: A field with access from Barley Mow Lane was considered for a suitable location for gypsies, although the field was thought to be too large.

1980: St Albans Co-operative Society submitted yet more plans to a concerned council for its proposed supermarket on the site of the former Ballito hosiery mill.  The concern was not its size, but elements of its design and brickwork.