Absent Photo: Original Rats' Castle

 The first in our series of absent buildings which have left no known visual trace occupied a well-known plot in Fleetville.  Mention the Rats' Castle to anyone who has ever lived in our around Fleetville and they will identify with the corner of Hatfield Road and Sutton Road.  The Rats' Castle (inevitably printed without the apostrophe) public house has been a landmark here since 1927; and there is a reason why the building sits at this spot.

The latest of three buildings which have occupied this corner of Hatfield Road and Sutton Road.
The Rats' Castle PH opened in 1927.

When we pull out photographs of this corner we are inevitably shown a view of the current structure designed for Benskin's by architect Percival Cherry Blow and opened in 1927.  Many versions have been taken: with or without floral displays, and with one or another of several hanging signs interpreting the name of the pub using the artist's imagination.  We'll return to the name shortly.

Primrose Cottage was first a dwelling but was subsequently partly converted into a shop.  It seems
that the windowless rear extension was added at this time, with a boundary wall against the
recently converted track into Sutton Road.  Part of either 1 or 3 Castle Road can just be seen on
the extreme right.
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Alternatively, a fine monochrome print of the building which the public house replaced, Primrose Cottage, completed c1895.  The title suggests it was constructed as a detached dwelling, but within two years construction work began on a large printing factory, the Fleet Works, and nearby workers' homes which were given the collective title Fleet Ville.  Until that moment Primrose Cottage was alone in the countryside, the nearest dwelling over a quarter mile away.  No time was therefore lost in converting part of the ground floor into a general store, and, as far as we know was first photographed c1903 after shop conversion under the management of Percy H Stone.

If you compare Primrose Cottage and its shop with the later public house it is possible to spot similarities in some of the design elements. There is just one known image of Primrose Cottage and shop, but I wonder whether, during its thirty year life span other views existed – still exist.

A section of the 1879 Ordnance Survey map shows the Hatfield Road (in brown) and the turnpike toll house (in red).  At the bottom of the extract is the low embankment of the Hatfield & St Albans
branch railway.  The former track, later renamed Sutton Road, then tree-lined, is between.
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Before either of the above buildings had existed a far more basic structure had been erected on the same footprint.  Although there is no proof of the wall materials – probably brick – we do know from recorded recollections that the roof was thatched and that it was a "little square" in floor area.  Its function was to house a turnpike toll collector (the road between Hatfield and St Albans was part of the Reading & Hatfield Turnpike Trust).  The track beside the little building later became Sutton Road and was on the edge of Beaumonts Farm owned by Thomas Kinder who also happened to be a trustee of the Turnpike Trust.  He gave the land on which the toll house was to be built and which enabled tolls to be collected before travellers set foot, wheel or hoof on the turnpike.  The track belonged to Mr Kinder and so he had a double interest in benefiting financially.  We know the toll house was erected before 1879 as the Ordnance Survey map of that year informs us, but the only known earlier record is the 1840 tithe map which is absent on the matter.

The rest of Broad Field was sold for development in 1899.  By then it was known locally as
Rats' Castle Field.  This photograph shows the upper end of Castle Road.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

Formally called the Hatfield Road toll house it was given up by the Turnpike Trust and continued to be occupied for a time before being abandoned by 1890.  It became rat infested, the rodents making their  homes in the straw roof.  Passers by had already given it a nickname by the time of the 1891 census: "the rats' castle". The building was identified as such in the 1891 census, and the field in which it stood, previously known as Broad Field, was known as Rats' Castle Field.  When in c1899 houses were built on part of the field the road was named Castle Road.

While we have been able to build a story based on those facts available to us no-one has brought forward a photographic image or a reasonably accurate pencil drawing or water colour painting.  We know where it was located from map evidence but we are badly in need of a photograph or drawing.  Let's get searching.

For further details of the above buildings on this site:

http://stalbansowneastend.org.uk/topic-selection/rats-castle/

Wanted to Be On His Own

Today, Hutton Street is still a narrow street near Fleet Street, but comprise modern office buildings
instead of tightly grouped trading factories next to the Whitefriars Glass Works.

Hutton Street is tucked away behind the lower end of Fleet Street, near Ludgate in the City of London.  Its association with the printing industry was long established and many nearby firms developed as jobbing printers for the hundreds of City firms.  Thomas E Smith & Co was just one of them. Its footprint, like almost all back-street businesses, was typically small to reduce cost, but instead it grew upwards.

Fleet Street is just beyond the top margin of this map.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

In 1896 Smith's really wanted to expand into other ranges of work than churning out endless quantities of invoice blanks, letterheads and forms.  Colour work was attracting attention but the new colour machines were considerably larger and more complex, and were difficult to accommodate on the existing floor spaces, quite apart from the weight restrictions on upper floors.

Smith's inserted a promotional supplement into the 1907 St Albans Pageant book which it printed.
The Hutton Street premises is on the right and the expansive Fleet Works in Hatfield Road has
replaced the field sold to it by St Albans Grammar School.

Smith set up a separate arm of his business which he named the Smith Colour Printing Agency; and given that colour work would be in the form of catalogues, brochures, advertising and booklets, with the likelihood of large national distributions, a location away from London but with convenient transport connections was sought.

1896 was also the year in which the Trustees of St Albans Grammar School gave serious consideration to the inadequacy of its existing accommodation and to the future of the School. The tithe map reveals that with Earl Verulam the body owned three fields along Hatfield Road.  It was intended that the fields would be offered for development and the income used to create new buildings for the school.

The Grubb periscope and telescope works occupied the building c1916 and left in 1925. One or
two of the largest instruments were constructed in the open air at the back of the works.

A 1950s view of the factory in the second phase of the Ballito era. The side road on the left
is Sutton Road and in the foreground was the toll house nicknamed the Rats' Castle.

Mr Smith required a large site but nowhere near where others lived, so there would be no distractions for his employees.  He would build homes for them, provide shops and an institute for their downtime needs.  He would not need public houses or other risqué entertainments, nor provide them himself.  So he purchased two of the three fields, one on each side of Hatfield Road and in an area he thought of as "remote".  The factory, called Fleet Works after his London printing centre of the company's origin, went up on the south side of the road.  Houses, shops and an institute were planned for the north side in a development he established as Fleet Ville.

So we now know exactly where it was because locals have been calling it Fleetville ever since.  And once you give a place a name people have reasons to be attracted to it.  No sooner had Smith's walls gone up than Earl Spencer sold his St Peter's Farm to add to the earlier housing at Granville and Cavendish; and the trustees of Beaumonts Farm disposed of the first tranche of its land.  Smith did not want his printing agency to be anywhere close to others; regrettably for him, that was not in his gift, and within a few years his factory and ville were surrounded by homes and workshops belonging to others.  But it did give him plenty of employees living close by, and a hugely successful business.

The field on which the factory was built, bounded by the branch railway, Sutton Road and Hatfield Road, gave the district its life blood.  T E Smith Printing Agency lasted until 1918 (although no work was likely to have been undertaken after 1916, the firm having lost almost all of its skilled employees during the war.  Sir Howard Grubb & Sons Ltd were clandestinely moved in by the Government to continue its submarine periscope research before developing some of the world's major optical telescopes.

An aerial of the expanded works with a multi-storey building.  The bus is passing in Hatfield
Road.  The greyed-out section top right includes the adjacent timber yard run by W H Laver.
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In 1925 the buildings were acquired by the Ballington Hosiery Mills (brand name Ballito), another successful business both before and after the Second World War.  During the war the factory turned out millions of shell casings. 

Aerial view today but it includes the former timber yard. No part of the original factory complex
survives.  Although the supermarket is substantial in size it is still smaller than the factory it
replaced.
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Ballito moved out in 1967 and the site became home to Marconi Instruments for a few years before the site was cleared for supermarket use: first the Cooperative Society, then Safeway and currently Morrison's.  We will return to this retailer next time as land has been added in recent times.

Streaming through Fleetville

Just imagine: a flow of water making its way along Hatfield Road towards Sutton Road.  Sixty years ago it didn't need imagining.  The drains were poorly connected and surface water had limited escape routes within the pipe network.  The result was extensive flooding following prolonged and heavy rain.

Might this have been a former Fleetville landscape?

Of course, before we all set up our homes in Fleetville and Camp it didn't matter, but there were locations where homes flooded or pooling of water in gardens or the road cause water seepage inside. As we have written here before, there had been, or it was believed there had been, several streams, most of them flowing southwards towards the Colne or Ver.  Two of them still flow on the surface between St Albans and Hatfield.  

Evidence of early settled population groups, possibly one or two family groups, suggested the presence  of a stream flowing from the area of The Wick towards Fleetville and Camp.  These were clear water courses springing from the chalk, and it wouldn't have only been the pure water which gave rise to small settlement groups winning a livelihood from the landscape.

Wherever there is flowing water there is a range of plants not found in drier locations; plants which we could use and can be nurtured in chalk streams and the pools which are often associated with them.   Imagine being able to collect watercress on a walk along a clear rippling stream, perhaps in the vicinity of Eaton Road or Camp Road.   Now, of course, that is not possible for the simple reason they no long flow, largely because we now occupy much of the land area in south and mid Herts.

Hampshire chalk stream and watercress.  Courtesy Geograph.

The most recent watercress beds were at the River Ver at Priory Park, and one family, the Pinnocks, made a living from the plant, having moved from successfully growing it in  Westmill's clear streams, to start again at St Albans and its  Ver.

A member of the Watercress Wildlife Association, Cath Gladding, will be presenting a talk on the watercress and wildlife theme at Fleetville Community Centre on 30th January, but there will be no samples of the wholesome green stuff to take away!  Today it is available on markets and in supermarkets from further afield.  But it is as good for us as it ever was, and can be eaten straight from the bag.  And two or three hundred years ago it was probably picked from just down your road or on your way back from the market.