Just Going to the Shop

Joseph Haynes at the shop, which is in his wife, Clara's, name.

It has been mentioned just once or twice in this blog devoted to the largest concentration of suburban retail in St Albans, that – even here – the individual corner shop was just as important to the East End as the rows of shops between the side roads along Hatfield Road.  The corner shops were possibly even more essential, given that in almost every case they were general groceries, which also sold a range of other goods which nearby householders might require at short notice.

Having swept all aside in the post second world war period, the major supermarkets are today  beginning to appreciate the value which customers once placed on the corner shop, as mini versions of the big stores once more come closer to where people actually live.

The premises today.

The reason for exploring corner shop culture yet again in the SAOEE blog series, is a photograph sent in from a member of the family who used to own one.  Although long-since closed it is still possible to see the evidence in the surviving fascia at 42 Camp View Road.  Here was the shop of Mr and Mrs J Haynes, and of course, Mr Haynes is standing in front of his business.

It seems that Mr Haynes' shop consisted of the main shop window section of two storeys, with the family living accommodation to the right, where can be seen part of the bay window.  At some point the side garden was brought into use for a single storey extension to the shop, although there was very little depth to this section, the plot boundary being steeply angled.  The quality of the building work connecting the extension to the main shop was, perhaps, not brilliant!

Shortly before WW2, the St Albans Co-operative Society secured the purchase of the space to the left of the shop – we can see a workshop on the site, as its owner, Mr J Mann was a coach builder here.  The Society built twin shops on the plot.  On the right, next to Mr Haynes, was a butchery; on the left was the Society's grocery.  Interestingly, the butchery's address was 44 Camp View Road, while the grocery became 2 Cambridge Road.  There were two doors from a single entrance.

Next door arrived the Co-op!

BUT – and this was significant – this was the time when Co-op shops became more popular.  It was also a critical time for retailing of all types.  For a time Mr Haynes' shop was taken over by Mr G Price.  But to have two small general shops next to each other was competitively challenging, and one trader had to give way.

Today the street frontage looks very different.  Two properties have been made out of the accommodation, and in order to provide separate entrances the bay window is replaced by a door.  Would we now know whether there was ever a shop here?  Well, the clue is in that fascia.

Note: there were other shops in and around Cambridge Road, for which we have  regrettably seen no photographic record.  Perhaps there is the odd picture around; if you have one, do please contact saoee@me.com

Friday evening at the Trestle

What did you do last Friday evening?  If not an impertinent question, you might have stayed at home or made a visit to the cinema.  Of course you may have been working a night shift.

Former chapel, now Trestle Arts Base

Forty people or so made a visit to a place in St Albans' East End which many have heard of but fewer know much about.  The Trestle Arts Base is at Highfield, surrounded by new houses and is close to the open spaces managed by Highfield Park Trust.  The former chapel of Hill End Hospital has now been brilliantly converted into flexible spaces for arts activities, performance, including mask work, and exploration opportunities in the performing arts for children, young people and adults.  We will return to Trestle in a later blog, but in the meantime do visit www.trestle.org.uk

Former Hill End (centre), Cell Barnes (top left)
Ashley Road industry and Camp (top right)

The purpose of Friday evening's function was to enlighten residents who live locally on what lies under their feet, especially if they live at Highfield itself.  A talk was the centre-piece of the evening, held in the Apex Room at Trestle.  Originally titled A Place Called Hill End and renamed Highfield: What Lies Beneath for this event, the talk explored the history of mental care and different ways in which society has managed it during the past two centuries.  Hill End was one of those huge sprawling Victorian edifices which always struggled with increasing patient numbers and earned an enviable reputation for developing care and treatment strategies; even giving life to a daughter hospital nearby called Cell Barnes.

Friday's visitors were able to pinpoint various hospital facilities, now demolished, in relation to the current homes on the site, and understand more about the layout and names of some of its roads.

The ticket revenue for the event will support Highfield Park Trust and the upkeep of the beautiful former hospital grounds and new open spaces.

Surviving Hill End ward block

More talks

A number of groups and organisations ask for talks about the East side of St Albans, which is Mike's speciality subject, following the publication of his two books, St Albans' Own East End.  A programme of talks is being arranged for 2016, and organisations are invited to book a date for their members.  During 2016 all of the donations collected at the talks will be in aid of that final million for the new Museum project by Renaissance St Albans.

Groups have a range of subjects to choose from:

The 'Mike' talk at Trestle last Friday.

A Crown Story

Nurseries and malting, treadwheels and commuting, a fete field and a park.

Beaumonts: a story of two manors

One missing manor, then another, a Cromwell Connection, a take-over, then everyone wants to live here.

Camp: the place on the hill

No better place to live than near a stream or two, and watch the militias at play.

Fleetville: a game of consequences

There was no planning or order here; no-one in control; but there were opportunities as well as penalties.

Flicks at Fleetville (about 25 minutes)

St Albans’ fourth cinema; the one no-one’s even heard of.

The Chalk Rooms of London Colney

How a village managed to educate its children.

A Place Called Hill End

The story of a missing community that came to a place and called it Hill End.

East to Smallford (for second half of 2016)

The connections between land, people, road and rail from Oaklands to  Hatfield.

Paying the Price

The fogotten story of the Reading and Hatfield Turnpike Road.

St Albans’ Own East End: an overview

The parish which became the backbone of two books.

Letting photographs tell the story (for second half of 2016)

What stories are revealed from the surviving photographs of St Albans’ East End?

Letting ‘Herts Ad’ photographs tell the story (2)

What stories are revealed from the Herts Advertiser Re-photographing Project?

For further inquiries please email saoee@me.com

Houses of a public kind

Historically there have been as many public houses in a single street in the city centre as were established throughout East End of St Albans – and one or two I have included below because they are or were on what are the undrawn boundaries of the eastern districts.

King William IV, Baton, Bunch of Cherries (Speckled Hen), Plough, Rats' Castle, Crown, Camp, Mile House, Comet, Three Horseshoes, Blackberry Jack.

Mile House (though it was on the southern side of London Road, it was still considered a local for many living on the London Road estate, or Mile House estate) morphed into apartments many years ago, and Camp closed earlier this year, again, for development into apartments.

If a local pub closes, as recorded in this blog previously, there is often a substantial journey to make to the next one which remains open.  Such was the case with the Camp; the Plough at Tyttenhanger, Rats' Castle or Crown may mean resorting to the car.  But that means of transport always requires one member of the party – assuming you are not visiting on your own – to not consume an alcoholic drink.

So we might ask the question, why are many pubs closing?  Of course they have been doing so for a long time, and several of those who opened in the East End of St Albans were enabled to open in the first place because their owners were able to transfer licences from unprofitable city centre locations.

Not all pubs are under threat of course; whether a typical drinking house or a "new style" establishment, pubs can and do thrive in all sorts of locations.  Companies have discovered that going out for a drink or a meal is big business. Family pubs are the new thriving hotspots.  Of course, those who simply want an old-fashioned drinker will sometimes shudder at the thought of their local being converted to a family oriented restaurant, where children are also catered for, including a play garden or an indoor den.  Such a conversion is not always possible given that new demands must be made on limited space.

The Camp PH did have plenty of space, and good car parking too.  So it is not easy to understand why its owners, McMullen's, appeared not to take the bait.  Perhaps it was not especially interested in changing its business model.

The latest news, of course, comes from the Quadrant.  This is a busy, often congested, quarter, developed as the high-density zone of the new Marshalswick estate.  Its pub was originally intended to be constructed opening onto Marshalswick Lane, but many residents living on that road in c1960 objected.  The site in The Ridgeway is quite spacious, and has the benefit of being able to borrow parking during its most busy hours.  The whispers about possible closure (actually not whispers given that a planning application has been lodged) are generally considered disappointing news, and if its owners are really struggling to attract customers, a family-centred establishment with brilliant marketing would surely make sense, given the large residential and retail zone it is a part of.

The acid test is the ability of the local community to persuade its owners.  I wonder how long we will have to wait.  You could contact Punch Taverns and let them know how you feel.  www.punchtaverns.com  The company lives in Burton on Trent.  Good luck.

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.