Absent photo: Chainbar Toll

 A recurring theme in our range of absent images is turnpike toll payment houses.  Here is another, which probably results from the frailty of such structures even when first erected. and of course the usefulness of their tiny sites once no longer required. It is understandable that photographs would be rare or non-existent; the structures were very basic and once the Reading & Hatfield Turnpike had been taken over as a county road in 1880 there was no further need for the infrastructure.  So we are reliant on the attractiveness of a wider scene for an artist.

This view is from the top of Camp Road. with Stanhope Road on the left; Hatfield Road on the
extreme right.  The house which incorporates Chilli Raj.  At one time this junction was known
as Cure's Corner after the name of an early owner of the shop opposite.

The shop on the site of the former toll house in a photo taken in 1964, before its conversion to a restaurant.  The post box and telephone kiosk stand outside the section of the house next
to the shop.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

Homing in on the site of today's featured building we recognise it as the Indian restaurant Chilli Raj at The Crown corner, the current building replacing the former tollhouse known as the Chainbar Toll.  An alternative name, the Fete Field Toll, was also in use during its lifetime, taken from the name of the home field of St Peter's Farm nearby.

A feature of sections of the Reading & Hatfield Turnpike was the number of side tolls; that is, locations where payments were made close to the junction of a lane or minor road just before entering the turnpike road.  Although requiring more toll houses and therefore collectors than a system relying only on dividing the main road into sections, it may have been considered more fair to users; perhaps also more profitable for the owning Trust.  From the turnpike trust's perspective it avoided users being able to make use of free sections until reaching the next main toll.

From the OS map surveyed in 1872 is the toll house (circled) near the junction of Camp Lane
and Hatfield Road which curves around St Peter's Farm.  The initials TP stand for Toll Point.
Note that Stanhope Road has not yet been laid.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Throughout the life of the Chainbar Toll there was no Stanhope Road – this was still a cereal field called Hatfield Road field.  Camp Road joined Hatfield Road exactly where it does today, where the Royal Mail posting box is located.  Camp Road was the side road and therefore payment was due to entitle use of the section of the turnpike from that point as far as the Peacock public house at the junction with St Peter's Road.  From then on payment was not required to travel through the city.  The previous main toll was at Smallford – then called The Horseshoes – whose tollhouse was the subject of a recent post.

The next main toll in the St Albans direction was at the Peacock public house drawn in 1865.
It was later replaced by the structure shown below.  It faces Hatfield Road and is at the junction
of St Peter's Road and opposite Marlborough Road.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

To protect the payment point at the little side toll at Camp Road, a chain was hung across the road from posts on either side.  At certain busy toll points a separate lane was provided for traffic entering the side road since no payment was required, and therefore no chain.  Abuse of this return lane was not unknown and it is presumed that the chain was drawn across this lane at the discretion of the toll keeper.

We know little of the toll keepers whose task it was to collect the fees. Except one, Sarah Gray, who lived in the cottage next to St Peter's Farm homestead on the other side of the Crown junction (where the Conservative Club is located today).  She encountered Thomas Wheeler, who had just murdered Edward Anstee of Marshalswick Farm in 1880.  Her testimony was reported in the Herts Advertiser, and the event would have been a mere matter of weeks or months before the abandonment of the toll system.  Perhaps Sarah was relieved that she would no longer have to face the risks which must have been associated with her role.  

Little detail is available about the toll building itself.  We know it was residential and therefore contained at least one bedroom for permanent occupation.  We also know that it faced directly onto Camp Road and its front looked directly along the line of Hatfield Road eastwards.  The building was also very small.  That's all.

As for when it was demolished the toll house probably remained empty until long after the development of the Stanhope Road estate had begun.  One of the last buildings to go up was an impressive, though not extensive house on one of the then few plots at the eastern end.  The house was built with a detached garage, which was later  converted into a butcher's shop for Mr Bigg, and in the 1960s was  taken over by Mr Holdham.  The house itself was already shown as a Post Office on the OS 1897 map although does not appear to have been converted into a general shop until the 1920s; it incorporated the sub-post office.  Which is why the post box occupies the adjacent spot today – and was once also partnered by a telephone kiosk.

There appears to be no visual evidence of the Chainbar Tollhouse left for us today.  Travelling artists had produced sketches and watercolours, so perhaps one of the Chainbar Toll remains in a collection somewhere.  This junction would have made a delightful scene for artist or early photographer.

Community Football

 This week we are going to unpick a few community football issues from the very early years of our East End, and we begin with what is believed to be the first known amateur team which was formed c1890 from the residents then living in the new homes east of the Midland Railway, Cavendish, Albion, (upper) Camp, Stanhope and Granville roads.  A club by the name of Stanville FC was formed, the portmanteau name using Stanhope and Granville in its name.

Stanville FC adult team (there was also a reserve and junior squad) c1897.  However the setting is
not identified.  The gentleman centre back row is undoubtedly Thomas Oakley, who in this year was Mayor of the city.  Whether Mr Oakley had a formal connection with the club is not known, but he was present on this occasion!
COURTESY CHRIS REYHOLDS

Stanville's name appeared regularly in 1890s editions of the Herts Advertiser, playing other district teams, such as Abbey, Hatfield, Campfield (after 1995), Harpenden and Redbourn.  A report on one match in 1891 describes a home game played on its home ground in Hatfield Road.  This tantalising fact is set to test us.  Clarence Park is still three years from its opening, although the field from which the Hatfield Road side of the park was created had previously been a meadow known as the Fete Field and available for public events by the city's residents.  Another possibility was part of a field just east of St Peter's Farm.  The 1898 OS map shows unbuilt land on the corner of Stanhope and Camp roads, the green in front of St Peter's Farm, and a corner site on Hatfield and Lemsford roads. Perhaps these plots

were rather small for such a game.

How long the Stanville club lasted is uncertain, but the Adult School which opened in Stanhope Road in 1911, soon created its own football team, under the management of one of its members, Charles  Tuck, who ran a motor garage business in Hatfield Road, east of Sutton Road.  We might speculate that players from Stanville moved over to the Adult School team if some of their friends also transferred, or perhaps Stanville Club closed in favour of the Adult School.

The St Albans Adult School team from 1921, taken outside the School in Stanhope Road.
The team trainer/manager, Charles Tuck, is on the left of the middle row.

We know of another community street football team thriving in 1911, Glenfield FC – another portmanteau from Glenferrie and Sandfield roads, where the majority of their players are thought to have lived.  Once more, we have little idea of the lifespan of the Glenfield team and whether it was able to manage the frequent transfer of residents living in the rented homes in that part of Fleetville.  No doubt, as with other local teams, good or enthusiastic teens and adults from further afield would be encouraged to participate.

Another street football team was Glenfield FC, where many of the players lived in Glenferrie or Sandfield roads.   

We are, of course, not surprised by the existence of a football team in part of Fleetville in 1911; after all much of Fleetville east to Beaumont Avenue was either complete or in build before the First World War.  Whether such teams were able to re-form in the 1920s is uncertain.

However, there is an intriguing announcement in the Herts Advertiser during September 1898: the fixture list for that season up to the following April.  The list was headed Fleetville FC !  So, let's discover where the name Fleetville came from.  The printing works was in build during 1897, was completed during 1898 and named The Fleet Works, after the company's London address at the lower end of Fleet Street.  The rest of 1898 was taken installing machines and searching for a small number of skilled employees, although there were no houses closer than Cavendish Road, and Camp district was empty other than Camp Hill.  Factory owner T E Smith laid out plans for his Ville of workers' homes opposite the works, and placed advertisements for builders from 1899.  The name of the proposed development was initially Fleet Ville.  It would be a further year before a small number of homes in Arthur and Tess roads became habitable, and a year later than that when a few homes on the Slade building estate were also ready.

This photo of c1911 shows the locality which had been first identified as Fleet Ville and then as
Fleetville from 1898.

To have a ready name, Fleetville, for the residential district seems to us far too early, but ready it obviously was; to have sufficient residents, both adult and junior, ready to form teams also appeared far too early, but ready they obviously were.  In September 1898 the team – under whose management we know not – applied for affiliation to the district Football Association, which was accepted.  The Association had already received entries for the Cup from the following teams: St Albans A team, Campfield (probably from the Orford Smith printing works), Abbey, Harpenden, Elstree, Ware Excelsior, Stanville, Hatfield and Fleetville.

At the end of the first half of Fleetville's first season the Herts Advertiser announced that a member of its junior team was to be censured and cautioned for disorderly conduct during a cup match against Stanville FC – a local derby!

September 1898 was probably the first occurrence in the newspaper of the name Fleetville.  The usage of place names not officially titled and created, usually takes time for people in a locality to become acquainted with such words which enter the common language naturally.  Fleetville apparently entered the local lexicon far earlier than we had all imagined.

Granville and Stanhope

 The two previous posts have drawn our attention to Conservation Areas (CA) in localities within our eastern districts –  Clarence Park and nearby residential roads, and Sleapshyde.  Perhaps a number of readers have or will take the opportunity to explore these streets and the buildings which lie along them.  It is usually only when we are walking that we are afforded the opportunity to notice details along a street. This week the third and final Conservation Area is Granville and Stanhope roads, where two of the three roads are busy thoroughfares in their own right.

Clarence Park is at the top; Station Way on the left; the trianglular 

space in the middle is formed of Granville and Stanhope roads; the two

houses in Grimston Road are on their own at the bottom; St Peter's

Farm homestead is on the top right.

COURTESY ST ALBANS DISTRICT COUNCIL

This week's Conservation Area is bounded by Hatfield Road (between the Midland Railway and Crown junction), Station Way, Grimston Road, and the rear boundaries of homes on the south side of Stanhope Road.  

Stanhope Road looking east before WW1. A tree-lined street with
The Crown PH at the lower far end.
COURTESY HALS

It is believed Stanhope Road was named after Philip Henry Stanhope (1781-1837), one-time president of the Medico-Botanical Society of London, who bred 55 species of orchid within the Stanhopea genus. I am less certain of the naming of Granville Road, although an individual of this surname is reported to have received bequests from Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough.  Grimston Road is, of course from Earl of Verulam, James Grimston (1809-1895) whose base was at  Gorhambury.

The CA comprises entirely of a single development estate, which was formerly a field, known as Hatfield Road Field or "the field next to the chain bar" (of the Reading & Hatfield Turnpike at the top of Camp Lane), owned by Earl Spencer and worked by Thomas Kinder for his company's brewing business.  Its transfer for development (or at least that part not required for the railway) was part of Kinder's retirement from business plan and the owner's opportunity c1880 to build homes for users of the railway, some of our early commuters.  Also included in the Conservation area are the buildings of St Peter's Farm, The Crown PH and the Hatfield Road frontage buildings between the Crown PH and Albion Road.

Shops were added to the eastern end of Stanhope Road and are included as locally Listed.

All of the villas on the south side of Stanhope Road are locally listed; mainly built between 1886 and c1914, and most are detached with bays or semi-detached with double bays, offering a satisfying variety to the streetscape.  Just a small number of more modern homes use plots not sold during the main construction period, and at the lower end were built four shops during the main development period.  These, together with the former post office, Alexandra House and corner shops at the front of the Cavendish estate provided the local shops for the development's early occupiers. All of the houses and shops on the south side are locally Listed, even those which are modern.

The northern end of Granville Road containing locally Listed villas.

Regrettably the street trees planted at the road edge in the 1880s were removed in the 1920s when buses began to use Stanhope Road to reach the station.  Whether they were suitable species for roadside planting I don't know, but the restricted width for a main road and inevitable street parking for most of the villas – despite a wide footpath – results today in a harder streetscape.

The north side of Granville Road is lined with villas for half of its length from the Grimston Road end, but development eventually slowed down.  Some ground was left unbuilt and the remainder became an infill industrial building, both of which have been replaced by modern blocks of apartments in keeping with the rest of the street: The Maples and Ashtree Court.  All of the properties on the north side border a modern road, Station Way, which is busy with buses and station-bound cars.

The villas between Granville Road and The Crown along Hatfield Road were replaced by this 
Neo-Georgian style factory building for W O Peak.  This was itself replace in the 1980s.
COURTESY DIANA DEVEREUX

Number 108 Hatfield Road next to Station Way which is the only house in the group not to be
locally Listed.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

Hatfield Road, facing Clarence Park, was developed with two and three-storeyed villas.  While those remain at the station end, the homes below Granville Road were gradually replaced by extensions to the former W O Peake coat factory, and have been replaced for a second time with modern residential flats and offices.  Photos exist for the neo-Georgian factory, but extensive searches have failed to reveal images of the range of villa terraces that preceded it, which is very disappointing.  Above Granville Road the gradient of the bridge embankment of the 1860s becomes evident as the homes built on the original field level have allowed for a lower-ground floor to be designed in.  All except the house nearest Station Way are locally Listed.  This exception is not explained in the document other than not to mention number 108.  Yet this house is shown, along with the others, on the 1897 OS map and appears to be the original building.

A pair of houses in Grimston Road is included in the Conservation Area and are locally Listed.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

In addition to the houses mentioned in the three above roads is a pair of more modest houses in Grimston Road.  The space for these was created by shortening the plots of the properties in adjacent Stanhope Road.

The deNovo Place apartments at the northern end of Stanhope Road where previously had
stood St Peter's Mission Church and then St Albans' Adult Schools.

On the island side of Granville Road is the Spiritualist Meeting Room which opened in 1910.

Seven villas were built on the lower end of the north side of Stanhope Road.  The rest of this
side was occupied by the Grand Palace (later renamed Gaumont) cinema. The Chatsworth 
apartment development has replaced the cinema.

The island section, between Granville and Stanhope roads, contain seven villas on the Stanhope (north) side, again, locally Listed.  The apex of the triangle is now on its third incarnation, having begun with the tin church of St Peter's Mission Church, then the Adult Schools once St Paul's Church had opened; today is a modern style of residential apartments, deNovo Place.  In 1922 the remainder became the cinema (Grand Palace, which changed its name to Gaumont) and its car park.  Today the cinema has gone and Chatsworth Court, the name giving a nod to the Dukes of Devonshire, has replaced it.

Finally, a compact plot in the triangle was used from 1910 as a spiritualist meeting house, and its usage for this purpose continues today.  The meeting house is also locally Listed.

Readers may perhaps agree with me that a fourth CA might be appropriate in the eastern districts: the heart of Fleetville, encompassing Bycullah Terrace, Woodstock Road south (formerly Tess Road), Royal Road, the recreation ground, Arthur Road, 
 including the former Printing Works Institute and the Rats' Castle, and possibly Burnham Road and Eaton Road.  Fleetville Infants School might also form part of the group.

 

Off to Camp

 In the previous post we finished with a pint at The Crown. Yet the series which has taken us along the south side of Hatfield Road westwards to the Crown doesn't have a clean finish.  For a start, there are shops not yet visited.  We also referred to the little turnpike toll house without providing any detail.  And the Cavendish estate has been extensively referred to without so much as a mention of the houses down the hill in Camp Road; these too are part of the Cavendish estate.

The triangular shaped green space has not yet been built on to provide the homes in
lower Clarence Road (top of map).  Camp Lane (here named Camp Road on the
1898 map) is on a hill leading down to the branch railway and a former stream.
The open space, lower left, is the Breakspear estate, formerly Gaol Field.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The Stanhope Road shops as seen c2012.

The shops and other businesses we have already visited on the corners of Cavendish and Albion roads were the only local ones even after the building of the Stanhope Road villas.  Of those on the north side of Hatfield Road, although built before 1900, many remained houses with tiny front gardens for a few years.  The four shops at the lower end of Stanhope Road were completed in 1901, and provided services for boot repairs, hairdressing, stationery & confectionery, and cycle repairs.  The shop prominently facing the junction, now Chilli Raj , opened in 1905 as a grocery and, later, combining a post office; the latter providing the postal services which were at the height of their social importance.  It is undoubtedly for this reason the red post box came to be placed outside. Before the Second World War the location came to be known as Cure's Corner after one of the shop's owners.  The unit behind this shop, a butchery, was a late arriver from around 1930; previously it had been the garage in the garden of the post office premises.

The former general store and post office.  This is the location of the earlier turnpike toll house
(see small pink building on the map in the previous post).  Stanhope Road, opened in the 1880s,
is on the left and Hatfield Road, onto which Camp Lane opened, is on the extreme right.

The garage built behind the shop was subsequently adapted as a butcher's shop and occupied for many years by Mr Holdham

The general store may well have been constructed at the same time as the villas on the north side of Stanhope Road, had it not taken some time for permission to be granted for the demolition of the tiny turnpike toll house, which was referred to in the previous post – the little pink building on the Hatfield Road curve.  So, how tiny was it?  Difficult to say, but probably a "one up one down", with the ground floor doubling as a private room and a duty room for collecting tolls from vehicle drivers and animal drovers as they arrived from the Camp hill and before they turned onto the Hatfield Road.  Unfortunately the distance covered by the payment took users only as far as the Peacock PH, from whence no further payment was necessary through the city.

There were other side road toll houses at Colney Heath Lane and the Rats' Castle, both of which were small and with thatched roofs; it is therefore probable that the Camp Lane toll house was similarly roofed, although no photograph or drawing of the house has been discovered.

During the lifetime of the turnpike road (Hatfield Road) a number of  road users had discovered a short cut across what is now part of the Breakspear estate onto the later-named Victoria Road and therefore avoided the toll payment altogether.  It is therefore doubtful if there was always a permanent toll keeper; for a time the keeper lived in the St Peter's Farm cottage and walked across the green to the toll house when needed to remove the chain barring access to Hatfield Road.  The final tolls were collected in 1881, coinciding with the development of the surrounding land, which had been an impediment to house building along Hatfield and Stanhope roads.

The view of The Crown PH from Camp Road.

The terraces of Cavendish estate on the Camp Road frontage.  Until the 1920s the land on the left
was an open field and by 1930 was largely built-up.

Homes from the Cavendish estate also lined the hill from The Crown down to Cecil Road on what was then known as Camp Lane until the footpath was laid with the city's typical engineering bricks. Residents living on the lane, as well as those walking from more outlying areas, regularly complained how poor the road surface was, and twenty years later, at the turn of the century, travellers were still complaining.  The terraces and semi-detached homes from The Crown, numbering 18 small properties, hardly reached the junction of Cecil Road, the lower ones having rear gardens reaching Albion Road behind, there being insufficient space for a full row of homes in Albion Road itself.  The front rooms of the terraces of Camp Lane all had a view across to the Gaol Field which climbed uphill towards the path connecting with Grimston Road.  This field was finally developed in around 1930 and known as the Breakspear estate.

In the space of fifty years development had enveloped The Crown, swept uphill towards the prison and towards the new railway station; and flowed downhill beyond the branch railway bridge and along Campfields.  St Albans has hardly paused in its expansion since.

Behind the Cinema

 This phrase won't mean much to people nowadays, but was sometimes uttered by anyone puzzled by the location of Granville Road.  The cinema in question being the Gaumont.  Part of the field on which the houses of Granville Road – plus Stanhope and Hatfield roads had been carved out in the 1860s for the Midland Railway, the Midland Station and the goods sidings associated with it.

Granville Road on the 1898 OS map.  Granville west development almost complete.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Oblique view facing west, with Hatfield Road on the right and the junction with Stanhope Road
on the left.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

But that wasn't all.  It was quickly realised that land around many stations was eminently suitable for villa houses for employees and business men having jobs in London. Some of St Albans' early commuters. One road passing through the field between The Crown and Grimston Road was Stanhope Road; which we will return to in the future.  It is the second street which is little known, Granville Road, and while both roads were planted with street trees when first laid out only those in Granville Road remain today.  Trees in Stanhope seem to have been removed when buses used it as a short-cut to the station in the 1920s.

The mission church c1900.  Granville Road to the left. Stanhope Road on the right. Both
roads tree-lined.
COURTESY HALS

The same view as above.  The de Novo Place development.

As with other estates built for sale Granville Road was never finished and some of the plots intended for houses had alternative uses, and second developments.  An added complication was the development of the east side of the road, part of the triangle; more of the triangle later,  but first the west side which backs on to the railway land, part of which possessed an increasing amount of back space nearer the Hatfield Road end.

Walking along the road today from the Hatfield Road end there are blocks of flats on the right for fully half of its length, with mainly semi-detached villas in the further half.  That, however, is not the result of a modern response to an unfinished development.  There had been two substantial detached villas and four further pairs.  Developers looking for suitable land would have taken advantage of the rear gardens and possible spare space which would make modern blocks viable, and so we have The Maples and Ashtree Court today.  An adaption further along, Granville Court, gives us a previous terrace of four with additional accommodation at the rear and a tunnel access.

The remaining villas end at Grimston Road with a vehicle repair premises creating a full stop.

The meeting hall, a 1920s building.

An early view of the cinema.  No-one takes picture of the back of a cinema, but from here it
is possible to imagine the view Granville Road householders had of the mass of the cinema's
rear wall and entrance – for the cheaper seats!

On the triangle side of Granville Road there were a few similar semi-detached pairs, but gradually these became converted workshops for W O Peake, the coat manufacturer, before becoming part of its substantial rebuild from the 1930s.  The prison end became locationally attractive for the mission church and then the Adult School.  In the middle the "little and large" 1920s development of the meeting room and the Grand Palace (Gaumont) Cinema.  Today, on the triangle side only the meeting hall remains unaltered.  The new developments are Cotsmoor with its modern access road, Peake's Place, Chatsworth Court (ex cinema) and de Novo Place.  For the first time since 1880 the old Hatfield Road Field is a fully functioning and almost entirely residential development – and even retains its street trees.  

Perhaps one feature it no longer has today which was once a bonus, is Granville Road's very own entrance to the park, right opposite the mouth of the road.  If you walk along the park boundary today it is possible (just) to spot where householders could take a leisurely saunter across the main road and through the park using their very own gate.

How Safe Was Hatfield Road?

 The main road through Fleetville was, until c1880, a toll road (the Reading and Hatfield Turnpike).  There were undoubtedly a number of accidents along its length westwards of Hatfield when its condition and visibility was poor, and width inadequate.  But at least there were few local users – who would want to live along a road where you had to have your friends pay to visit or to have deliveries made?  There were, as a result, no homes beyond St Peter's Road.

There were few rules of the road in the early 1900s and vehicles might be permitted to travel as fast as 10mph.  Signs might be placed anywhere (with plenty of time to read them) and councils could justify any number of pedestrian crossings.  But these freedoms and responsibilities did little to control the number and seriousness of accidents, and two notorious locations at the western and eastern limits of Fleetville were the scenes of many vehicle conflicts where speed was not the issue.

Ashley Road/Beechwood Avenue did not appear on accident stats until the 1930s as neither existed; today neither road would be permitted to join Hatfield Road unless the latter had been straightened first.  That might have been possible at the time, but no authority was given to the county to pay for the land acquisition and road improvements.  So, until the 1960s when traffic lights were installed, the exit from Ashley Road was blind to the right.

Bus and van crash outside the general store at the Crown Junction in 1935.
HERTS ADVERTISER

At The Crown end the traffic movements were even more complicated.  Camp Road drivers might turn into Stanhope Road or proceed to Hatfield Road, but had to watch for users of an early roundabout outside The Crown itself.  From Clarence Road drivers had to look left, ahead and right.  In the latter direction, as with Ashley Road, there was no visibility down Hatfield Road at all until the Council decided to move the park fencing back to remove the triangle at this point. Early double-deck buses sometimes lacked the stability of our more modern counterparts, and the varied cambers and gradients at the junction occasionally resulted in an overturning. When Stanhope Road was tree-lined – yes, there was a time – overhanging branches sometimes made contact with bus tops.  Round the corner in Camp Road those same buses also made contact with the railway bridge (not the present blue one but an earlier version with a brick arch). Of course, only single deckers should have been on the route, but injuries did occur.

After a collision in 1931 a bus is shunted into Camp Road beside the shops in 1931.
HERTS ADVERTISER

A car on its side in Hatfield Road above the Crown junction in 1929, and attracting much interest.
HERTS ADVERTISER

Oversized trucks, either by height or width, also blocked passage at the former Sutton Road railway bridge.  Many side scrapes have occurred along the narrow section of Hatfield Road between Laurel Road and The Crown, even in recent times.

The reason for widening next to the recreation ground in the 1960s was the number of accidents when visibility was poor around the  bend opposite West & Sellick (now CAMRA) and street lighting was still the pre-war installation.  Thick fogs were also quite common before the Clean Air Acts.  Heavy road rollers and steam carriers were known to be hazardous, especially those hauling trailers, or  those which unexpectedly off-loaded loose barrels, and especially vehicles which were attractive to small children nearby.  Sudden noises might frighten horses pulling carts or wagons and cause them to run away with their tow.

A delivery van made it too literal at the Co-op grocery in Blandford Road in 1933.
HERTS ADVERTISER

Although Camp Road was somewhat quieter, accidents were just as prevalent.  The early road was poor in condition in places, and in at least two places tree banks blocked part of the road near the school and at the former Oakley's dairy farm.

Today's traffic flows may be substantially busier and kerbside parking potentially more dangerous, but perhaps most of us are  better trained for driving and negotiating other road users.  That must count for something.

New Home in Hatfield Road

Last week we discovered the laurel shrubbery behind St Peter's Farm and the consequent naming of the short cut-de-sac.  This week we will find out what filled the space between Laurel Road and Clarence (Park) Road as the development estate got under way From 1899.

Alexandra House on The Crown corner.

Corner plots with a commanding presence often attract a premium price.  In this case the corner plot, with a view across the wide Crown junction and its new commuter houses in Stanhope Road, was snapped up by land agent Dorant and left as an open space for another ten years before becoming a residence, a shop and the district's first bank.  It was named Alexandra House.  Its boundary was where today's bus stop is located. But to start with the farm house and its cottage retained a view from its slightly elevated position over the Crown junction.  There was an open green with a path from the front door leading down past a pond towards Hatfield Road.

The green was now potential development land and the first block to be built on the green was an impressive terrace of four houses, with first floor hung tiles. This was Clarence Villas. The end homes had recessed front doors while the centre houses opened onto a minuscule front garden, still visible as the tarmac covering behind the footpath.  For the first decade there appeared to be no attraction in converting these cottages into shops.  After all, there were already established shops opposite, purpose-built retail premises newly opened in Stanhope Road, and the prospect of a post office and grocers replacing the former toll building.

Clarence Villas converted to shops

But the increasing popularity of this corner eventually led to  conversion of Clarence Villas to shops.  From west to east, the first was a garden produce shop (which might have meant a greengrocer), then a tailor, and for much of its life a cleaners. The second began as a jeweller but was well known as a greengrocer for much of its life. The third premises was a confectioner for all of its 20th century life, except for its first year when it sported the name many St Albans people were familiar with, Saxby Bros, a delicatessen.  The fourth house became another well-known name. Goody's (then taken on by Bugler's), the baker's and caterer's.  It was probably Clarence Villas  which established Hatfield Road as a shopping street, but it was beaten to change by the next block.

Three converted houses on the hill

It is believed the remainder of the green was also to have been built on straightaway, but the agents took a further three years to negotiate a sale agreement for the second block; these three properties were to be constructed on the hill itself.  They also began their lives as houses with bay windows, but were successful in conversion to shops before those at Clarence Villas – quite a coup for the time.  First was another confectionery, later becoming a hairdressing salon, then Mack's Store and finally a laundry.  Frederick Butler, a son of Ephraim Butler the butcher in St Peter's Street opened in the third premises in 1906, remaining there until the mid-seventies.

Showing the frontage as intended

To gain an insight into how the early houses were shown to the street, we can walk to the block after the entrance drive to the farmhouse, now the Conservative Club. The first two of three have remained a dentist and a doctor, and the slightly higher paving still in place was the original front garden.  The third property, now the Chicken Shop, originally the third of the trio, would also have had a ground floor bay window.  As a shop it began as Lupton's grocery  before becoming a picture framer and art shop – there are still many people who recall Mrs Young who ran the shop, having taken over from Harry Giddings.

Enamelled streetplate from 1906

Before moving on we may spot an original blue street plate fixed to the front wall of the dentist, although tree foliage hides it in season.  These plate were made by St Peter's Rural Council and reveals where the city boundary used to be until 1913, otherwise a street plate would have been installed on a property at the foot of the hill.

We have now reached the corner plot with Laurel Road, constructed in two parts, firstly the residential section for the corner shop owner, which was only converted to a fruiterer's shop in the 1930s, and the corner shop itself.  This was Arthur Hitchcock's cycle maker's until the mid-thirties, and then Mr Henderson's secondhand shop until conversion to Thresher's wine shop in around 1960.

From Laurel Road corner looking westwards

So that we don't lose our way, today the first block (Clarence Villas) are Ace Balloons, Menspire, The Carpet Store and Nino's.  The second block are Grill 'n' Fry, Launderette, and Madina General Stores. At the top of the hill are St Albans Dental Clinic, Doctors' Surgery, The Chicken Shop, Clarity Yoga Shala, and Thai Massage.