Here we go again

It is in the nature of these things that we pick the junk mail from the hall mat and throw away, not only the double glazing and pizza leaflets, but a vital item of information for us, our family and our neighbours.

This time some residents of Smallford may have missed attending a consultation meeting at the St Albans Rugby Club HQ  because they did not know about ...

... proposals by Brett Aggregates to open up the ground at the ends of their gardens for yet another gravel extraction site, on  land at the western end of the former aerodrome formerly belonging to de Havilland Aircraft Company and later Hawker Siddeley and British Aerospace.

Parts of the huge site have already been developed for business, residential, university and retail.  But a large swathe is reserved as open space.  Indeed, Ellenbrook Fields is a pleasant zone of recovering open land following the removal of the concrete air strip.

We must have sensed that below the surface there were useful minerals, which one day would be removed.  After all, the district does have a track record for supplying aggregates to the world, and to the east and south of St Albans we have experienced gravel extraction at Colney Street and Harperbury Lane, London Colney, Coursers Lane, Roehyde, Colney Heath, Oak Farm, Beech Farm and other sites.  So the news of proposed workings at the former Popefield Farm should not come as a surprise.

No-one would deny that aggregates are needed for the construction industry and for roads – and that there will be plenty of new homes coming to the districts between St Albans and Hatfield in the next ten years.  Some residents, of course, don't want the homes or the workings, and of the extra traffic that will come in their wake – the same fears which are attached to the proposed freight depot at Hedges Farm, Park Street. The narrow and already-busy single-carriageway Hatfield Road will indeed be busier and noisier than today.

Since the days of the St Albans Sand and Gravel Company after World War Two, when the call was for gravel to rebuild London, there have been proliferations of holes in the ground, and in recent years its successor company, Lafarge, has sought to close exhausted sites and return land to former or new open space uses – with the singular exception of the contaminated Butterwick (although that company may not have been responsible).  Where have we been in those sixty years?  We have continued with our lives and lived with the industry around us.  Today we look back and realise that, taken in the round, the result hasn't been too bad.

It is the prospect which is difficult to contemplate.  Thirty-two years is a long while to wait until the Popefield site is restored and the community park formed for our enjoyment.  Well, I will be well into  my second century by then, but it will be something for a younger generation to look forward to.

But all of this depends on whether planning consent is given!

Books and celebrations

Raise your glasses for 150 years!

First, the celebrations, because that event is happening this weekend, 16th and 18th October.

On October 16th 1865 a station opened on the newly finished branch line between St Albans London Road (then extended to St Albans Abbey) and Hatfield.  It was called Springfield, later renamed Smallford.  Later still the station name had a strapline, for Colney Heath.  Though completely closed since 1968, the former rail route is now a well-used walking and cycling path called Alban Way.

An exhibition and lecture/presentation is taking place on Friday 16th at the University of Hertfordshire.  Although all places have now been booked the event marks the start of birthday celebrations, being preceded by a walk along the route (also, I'm afraid, fully booked) from Hatfield to St Albans.

However, on Sunday 18th, a family day has been planned at four of the still-extant platforms at which the trains once called:  Nast Hyde, Smallford, Hill End and London Road.  Entertainments, music and exhibitions are on offer at times throughout the day. Freely-available brochures, Walk the Train Along Alban Way, help to self-guide you along sections of the route, pointing out features of interest which were, or are, located on either side of the line.

Although most events are free, one or two will need to charge to cover their costs, and contributions will be welcomed to cover the costs incurred in giving everyone an enjoyable experience.

Do go along and say hello to everyone you meet.

Book sale

Many of us recall the great book sales organised by Paton's of St Albans, in the old court room of the Town Hall.  Alas, Paton's bookshop in Holywell Hill is no more and with its departure went the book sales.

However, St Albans & Hertfordshire Architectural & Archaeological Society (SAHAAS) has ridden up to Market Square, as it were, with wagon-loads of books for sale on Saturday 24th October in the Assembly Room of the Old Town Hall.  Browsing and buying is from 10am to 4pm.

The event, organised in conjunction with St Albans Civic Society, is raising funds for the much-anticipated conversion of the OTH into a new Museum and Art Gallery.   The event will have a good mix of older and nearly new books.   Welcome back to the book sales – although I think this is a one-off event.  Do support it to bring the day of the new museum even closer!

Another empty space

Thousands of vehicle drivers pass this spot every day; the double roundabout at the complicated junction of Hatfield Road, Beechwood Avenue, Beaumont Avenue and Ashley Road.  Even in the 1930s there were observations about sightlines from Beaumont Avenue, and in the 1950s from Ashley Road.  The junction has always been made more difficult because Hatfield Road chooses here to bend.

The junction in the early post-war period.
PHOTO COURTESY PHILIP ORDE

Children on their way to and from Fleetville School walked along Beechwood Avenue and crossed Beaumont Avenue to reach Hatfield Road or the alley, even though their presence would have been blind to left-turning drivers from Hatfield Road.  And those children were often unaccompanied by adults.

Pre-World War Two, the proposed "Circle Road" would cross at this point and there were many discussions about installing a roundabout.  The concerns were ignored, but eventually traffic signals were installed at this intersection of the Ring Road.

The garden wall of the house built on the green space.  The
street shelter had been to the left of the blue sign, and the post
box to the right of it.

An interesting photograph has recently surfaced, showing part of the junction in the early 1950s (the caption gives a later period but I am sure that is not correct – but I may yet be proved wrong).  The green space behind the brick building was a pre-war builder's yard – the entry from the road can still be detected, the way subsequently blocked by a street plate.

The former brick police box was sited where the flowers
now bloom.  The 1960s house is behind.

The City Police Force introduced wooden remote police boxes in the 1930s so that officers did not need to return to the Victoria Street Police Station at the beginning and end of each duty.  In 1939 it was decided to renew these offices in brick.  The public could also use a phone from the window to call the emergency services.  In the same style, but out of shot to the left, was a street air-raid shelter and a posting box with an arrowed sign on top pointing to Fleetville Post Office.  The shelter was played in by children until the entrance was boarded up.

The well-known local building firm of Tacchi & Burgess was



engaged in building homes in Sandpit Lane and Chestnut Drive, and the company took the opportunity to let everyone know in the same manner as hundreds of other hoarding signs throughout the 1930s.  The sign was removed at the end of the project, but the framework remained for many years, while children played on the patch of rough grass.  When the brick police box was removed, at the same time as the street shelter, a public telephone box was placed up against the first house to the right.

Approaching the junction from the Hatfield side in c1900.
PHOTO COURTESY ST ALBANS' MUSEUMS

Of course, a house was eventually constructed on the grassed space, and the present flower bed stands where the police box had been.

Goodbye ... for now

The weekend of 12th and 13th September, is the district's Heritage Open Days.  A number of buildings and sites will be open for everyone to visit, often arranging special activities or displays.  How many residents of the city have never climbed to the top of the Clock Tower?  Come on, be honest.  Yes, I thought so.  Take the opportunity now!  We are used to the Signal Box being open every month, for us to pull levers and investigate what an old-style box was like inside.  This Sunday the Signal Box is also hosting an exhibition of photographs and artefacts by the Hertfordshire Home Guard Living History Group.

The Museum of St Albans, at least until September 20th.
Courtesy ST ALBANS MUSEUMS.

The following weekend, September 19th and 20th, is of course London Open House weekend.  But there is a far more important event to celebrate closer to home.  On Sunday 20th the Museum of St Albans (MoSTA) closes its door for good.  Born as the Hertfordshire County Museum, the building has been added to and knocked about a bit over the years, but hundreds of residents have known it as the "dear little museum in Hatfield Road.  Most of us are quite unaware that the former archivist's bungalow at the back has been home to some remarkable research as well as being a key meeting place for planning new exhibitions and installations.  And beyond that a restful garden.

However, this little gem is no longer able to provide an appropriate level of exhibition space to satisfy  a district with the history of this great little city – even without the wonderful Verulamium Museum.  This is where the Old Town Hall enters the story, for as soon as the final funding is received, it is the OTH which will be home to the New Museum of St Albans.

View through the top floor round window to the garden below.
Courtesy ST ALBANS MUSEUMS.

Which brings us back to Sunday 20th.  An intriguing art installation has been growing on the top floor of MoSTA recently, even as other galleries are being denuded of their displays and placed into storage.  Lyndall Phelps has used a number of recently accessioned artefacts in her installation; they represent a range of the significant industries which once thrived in St Albans.  Visitors are able to see the gallery grow, and reach completion on Sunday 20th September, when there will be a celebration of the museum's longevity between 2pm and 5pm.  The Mayor, so used to opening things, will be on hand to formally declare MoSTA permanently closed.

At that point it will be time to look forward to 2017, when a different mayor will no doubt do his or her civic duty and open the New Museum of St Albans at the Old Town Hall.

Hopefully we will be welcomed by some of the staff and volunteers who, during past few years have welcomed us as we walked through the Hatfield Road doors.  To them a big thank you for your smiles and helpfulness.

So, on September 20th it will be goodbye ... but only for now.

New estate

Marketing brochures – we come across them all the time.  All the big house-builders produce glossy magazines in colour; their pictures looking stunning in their pristine surroundings with newly-laid grass.  'Don't anyone tread on the drive now we have raked it for the publicity pics!'

The unmade Lynton Avenue when the
builders were still on site.

It was just the same seventy or eighty years ago.  The photos will have been black-and-white, and the paper an inferior quality.  The content was the same but, to us at least, told in an old-fashioned style.  The message: buy our houses because they are the best around.

Internal views from one of the
first homes to be finished.
PICTURES COURTESY SAHAAS.

In 1928, Charles Hart and Walter Goodwin purchased a small field, Daniel's Field, on the south side of Camp Road.  Daniel's wasn't very deep and the layout of the homes reflected that: three closed avenues.  The left and right ones, Lynton and Glenlyn avenues, were culs-de-sac, with two pairs of semi-detached houses around the turning circle.  The middle road, Windermere Avenue, was designed rather differently, with houses along both sides, but leading to a white gate at the far end.  Beyond was an allotment field, but it was designed in this way to enable the opening up of this road in the future if the allotments should ever become homes.  Between the avenues there was space for homes along the Camp Road frontage too.  Taken together, this was the New Camp estate, distinct from the Camp estate on the north side of Camp Road.

The illustrations for the brochure were all taken in Lynton Avenue, the first of the roads to be completed.

"The general character of the houses seems to indicate the most careful forethought of the needs of the future, combined with tasteful variety of detail and meticulous selection of the best material.  The main consideration has been that of fitting up the houses with labour-saving devices in such a way as to reduce domestic work to an absolute minimum, and no consideration has been allowed to interfere with this idea."

Photo postcard for the Firwood estate.
PICTURE COURTESY THE GOODWIN COLLECTION

The same partnership went on to construct other developments, including the first part of the Firwood estate off Colney Heath Lane, which was then completed after World War 2.  Goodwin and Hart continued to market their homes, with brochures, posters and photo postcards.

In other areas A A Welch distributed brochures for his houses on the Beaumonts estate, and T F Nash enticed potential owners with similar brochures for the new Marshalswick estate.  No doubt there is similar illustrated printed material for other housing developments in and around St Albans ... if only it could be found.

Sixty-one years ago

Last month a photo appeared here of the former Sutton Road railway bridge.  It had come from an 8mm film shot in 1954, believed to have been taken by a resident of Cambridge Road.  The film is available to be viewed at the BFI Player website (search "St Albans").

The opportunity should not be lost in identifying other scenes from that film.  For those who remember the scenes as they were the experience will be pure nostalgia.  If you are younger, you will certainly identify the locations.

We begin with a screen grab from Wellington Road, taken from the junction with Cambridge Road.  The film followed these three children on their bikes for some distance along a largely car-free road, and now they have paused near the camera to chat, and maybe decide what they might do next.  They all appear to feel quite safe.  The children probably lived in the road.  Today they would be about 68 to 70 years old, and today it would not be possible to take such a photograph of an empty roadway.

The comprehensive play park at Clarence Park today is generously provided with equipment.  But many of us recall the swings, the bucking horse, and that spinning roundabout which could be made to travel in either direction as fast as a child or teen could push it.  Hold on very tight!

The far eastern end of Camp Road led to the entrance of Hill End Hospital.  There is a small roundabout there today; the Lodge is still identifiable, though, somehow not as imposing today with its plainer windows.  The entrance gates to the left of it have gone, and with them the former hospital buildings behind.  Was it actually possible for a Green Line bus to stop right on the corner, as the stop flag seems to indicate on the left of the picture?

There are a few roads which rarely get a mention; one of them is Springfield Road.  Don't know there it is?  Look for it at the junction of Camp Road and Cell Barnes Lane.  It is T-shaped, and this nice shot discovers one of the Ts.

It is not surprising that the man is pushing his bicycle, for this is Camp Hill.  The building in the background, at the foot of the hill, is the former Campfield Press (Salvation Army Printing Works). The grass beside the hill would later be occupied by the Herts Advertiser and, more recently, Centurion House.

Double deck buses under London Transport ownership were still the norm, and this full vehicle on the 341 route to Hatfield shows an advertisement for Martell's as it turns from Stanhope Road into Hatfield Road.

The same bus pauses at the stop opposite to Martell's coal office (the former coachman's house for the Crown Hotel) – a nice connection with the photo above.  Further along the road was the shop of E Hooker, a well-known glass trader and maker of stained glass windows.  The old sodium street lamps are still in situ; they had caused such a rumpus among a number of women in 1938 because of the yellow lights' effect on the way their faces looked after dark.

Later in the year I'll post a few more screen shots from this lovely home movie.

More jelly and cake

As many readers are aware I am keenly interested in celebrations, particularly street parties.  Even though permission has to be obtained from the council, there is something vaguely guerrilla about walking out into the middle of a road – your road – and taking over the space, having first blocked it off at both ends.  Daring?  I should say so, or that is how it would appear when you are a child!

My first street party was in 1945, on the lower part of the south end of Woodland Drive.  I have no personal memory of it as I was only one-and-a-half years old (at that age the extra half makes all the difference), but I was definitely there!  So, it was quite exciting to discover a street party in full swing in almost the same spot one blissfully warm July Saturday afternoon as we were walking along Central Drive.

Victory street party Cavendish Road 1945  COURTESY LINDA FULLER

I know that there have been other parties between this and that very first 1945 event, so there seems to be an ingrained culture for celebrations in this particular road, and I would imagine there are still one or two residents who recall the biggest of all the Woodland Drive parties in 1953, so large that a procession, fancy dress, sports races, teas and presentations of books to the children had to take place on the field where Oakwood School is now; and all topped by a fireworks display and bonfire on the land now occupied by Irene Stebbings House.  We called it "The Green".

Enlarged section Victory street party 1945 COURTESY LINDA FULLER

Only two weeks later I was offered a copy of a street party picture from Cavendish Road – the Victory Party.  I had heard that a party may have been held in the road in 1945, but until now had not been furnished with any proof.  Well, here it is.  This one was not particularly "guerrilla" as it was tucked away on the little stub of the road just below the Cecil Road junction, and would therefore not have impeded road traffic.

The fence behind the group separated the road from the premises of Sander's orchid nurseries, and is now the pleasant site of SS Alban & Stephen Junior School.  With flags aplenty, and a sunny day, it appears there was a large squadron of Cavendish Road children present in 1945.  It is, of course possible that it was a joint effort with Albion Road.  It has always amazed me how such parties became so well furnished; no doubt schools and churches came to the rescue, and possibly a miscellany of chairs from nearby homes.  In 1945 a householder heaved his radiogram (for a definition refer to a dictionary) into the front garden to provided suitable music, and a piano was heard playing through windows flung open at the front of another house.  All very jolly.

Behind the fence today.

Fortunately, the Cavendish photo is sufficiently detailed to be able to identify individuals; so, if you were there on that glorious day, you may just remember the simple food laid out: sandwiches, jelly, cake and squash, parents having saved up coupons and used a few of their precious rations.  A complete list of known street parties is listed on the website: www.stalbansowneastend.co.uk ; and now there are two more to add.