It's Private

Almost no-one lived  in our East End before the age of publicly-provided schools of any kind.  Isolated hamlets and farm homesteads with children before 1870's beginning of compulsory education could look to the nearest village school at Sandridge, Colney Heath or London Colney, but the distance to be walked might have been considerable.  St Peter's Rural Board School, now known as Camp School, was the first to serve small populations nearer the city from the end of the century.

But there were several privately run schools. The term school was sometimes loosely used and may had registered fewer than ten or so  pupils – occasionally as few as three or four.  The children would have lived within the city or, if they boarded, perhaps brought from nearby towns.  So let's trawl through the 19th and early 20th centuries to discover how many private schools there were, from the advertisements the owners placed in the Herts Advertiser.  It is quite possible the same address was home to more than one establishment over a period of time, and the same establishment may have moved in response to expected growth. Nevertheless, it is a long list!

Oxford House began life in Alma Road under the tutorship of Mr G J Nettleton and was in existence before 1880.  It moved to larger premises in Bricket Road in 1883 before ownership transferred to Mr & Mrs J Thornhill by 1900.  From a mapping survey taken in 1877 Bricket Road had been laid out though no building had taken place; the first houses were on the east side.  It would have been one of these the school moved to.  Places were offered to both day pupils and boarders.  Below, in the paragraph about Claremont House, is a map showing that school.  Almost opposite Claremont is a pair of houses labelled Oxford Villas,  the starting location for Oxford House.

The pair of villas in Alma Road which were named Oxford Villas.  One or both of them had been
the first home of Oxford House School.
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An image of a room for younger children at Oxford House School.  It is more likely to have been
at Bricket Road than the earlier Alma Road premises.
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Rochester House: Miss Clara Bamforth opened this school in London Road, renaming it Rochester House High School once St Albans Girls' High School began advertising itself.  Miss Bamforth specialised in elocution training.  In 1901 the school moved to 101 St Peter's Street, next to the White House.  The Bamforth family are recorded in the 1901 census living here – the name may be familiar as one half of the partnership Gibbs & Bamforth, publishers of the Herts Advertiser.  Later numbered 68, it was next door to Mary Dear's Temperance Hotel, which was also home to a school for a short time.

Gentlemen's Preparatory School: In 1900 it was run from a villa called Verulam in Hatfield Road.  By 1919 it is thought to be the same establishment as "a school for young gentlemen from 5 to 13" known as Wellington House, Bricket Road, and headed by Mr W Millington.

Manor Lodge: for boarders and day girls in Upper Lattimore Road.  Miss Palmer was in charge in 1896, but she gave her address as Ramsgate; and a Miss Miskin offered a Paris address! The school, including a separate school room,  was offered for sale in 1909, marketed as a "high school for girls", although two years earlier the school also advertised having "classes for little boys".

The extant building which was formerly Manor Lodge in Lattimore Road.
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Merrilands was a rarely-found educational building on the Beaumonts estate, Elm Drive, opening in 1933 and closing on the retirement of its owner, Miss I M Kell, in the mid fifties.  There was a uniform with the base colour of orange.

The owner and head teacher of Merrilands School at the Oakwood Drive end of Elm Drive
lived in the house on the right.  The house on the left, part hidden by a street tree, was
occupied by a rather unflattering bungalow until the 1960s and so is a later build.  
This was the school.
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Birklands as a set of buildings had an interesting history, constructed  for Londoner Henry Jenkins Gotto in 1883 and called Newhouse Park.  He had acquired nearby Newhouse Farm in 1877.  Dating from the 16th century it had been a meeting place for nonconformist dissenters.  Miss Elizabeth Cox had a small girls' boarding school called Birklands in Highgate, London, but decided to move her school to Newhouse Park in 1905, renaming it New Birklands.  Although other schools moved to St Albans during World War Two, Miss Langridge, who had taken over ownership of the school, move her school from St Albans to Warwickshire, returning in 1945.  It continued at a smaller level until 1969 when the site was sold to the University of Hertfordshire.  It is now a range of apartments.

Originally named Newhouse Park, the school which later occupied these buildings was named
New Birklands, reverting to plain Birklands.  It was located at the London Colney end of London
Road, close to Newhouse Park Farm.

Clare House began from the address of the Misses Hare in Stanhope Road in the 1890s, although it had moved to Lemsford Road post WW1, under the tutelage of Miss Ingall, and later by the Misses Bryce.  It was another school specialising in education for girls, although there was a prep section for boys, according to an advertisement from 1907.

Clare House occupied a detached 1890s villa in the newly built Stanhope Road, then on the edge of
St Albans and before the district of Fleetville existed.

Claremont House.  This school may have been the forerunner of the above-named Clare House.  It appears to have begun life at a building known as College House in College Street, but by the 1880s moved to a villa of the same name in Alma Road.  Advertisements for this establishment appeared in the Herts Advertiser as early as 1872, under the rather long name of "Mr C Root's Middle Class Boarding and Day School for Young Gentlemen".  In 1872 a separate establishment was being advertised under the name Claremont House: the Classical Commercial and Scientific School, although by 1876 this had been modified to St Albans Commercial School for Boys, in which day boys and boarders continued to attend.  The latter named establishment was still advertising in 1898 and run by Mr Wroot – although this is the year in which he died.  The sale particulars stated the house possessed 13 bedrooms and that there were boarded buildings and a playground at the rear.  It was later in the charge of Mr Jackson Harrington.  Today, this property is partly on the footprint of Telford Court. Claremont House seems to have been unusual in being exclusively for boys.

Clearly shown on the town plan survey surveyed in 1877 Claremont House has a similarly long
rear garden space as other villas in Alma Road, but as a school much of this space has been
added to the domestic quarters specifically for school use; dormitory bedrooms and a 
school room.  There is also evidence of a playground and toilets at the far end.  This is a
sheet from the town plan surveyed in 1877.
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Russell House.  Opened in WW1 in premises formerly occupied by St Albans High School for Girls in the cottage hospital building in Holywell Hill.  The final advertisement appeared located in Kelly's Directory in 1932.  The site is now occupied by Abbey Court on the corner of Albert Street.  The school was run by sisters, the Misses Cloute.

On the site which is currently Abbey Court at the junction of Holywell Hill and Albert Street,
had previously been a small cottage hospital, but other occupiers of the site had been an inn and at least two schools, one of which was Russell House.

Aylesford House in London Road.  This boys' school was begun by Mr W Hanford Turner from a villa on the country side of the Midland Railway bridge.  The name came from the villa it occupied on start-up.  In 1907 the school was owned by Mr C Leighton. c1935 the school purchased the adjacent villa, Nunsmead, and thus became 246-8 London Road.  Mr and Mrs Bayley owned the school at this point.  It accepted boys from 7 to 14, preparing them for public schools and the Royal Navy.  The uniform colour was grey with pink edged blazers, later changed to pink stripes.  In 1939 the school announced there was a large concrete cellar, a facility which would have been uppermost the minds of potential parents in that year.  In 1947 the school moved to occupy part of Sandridgebury House, and was later merged with Hardenwick School, Harpenden.

The Hall. Around 1930 a small school "for young children" opened at 20 London Road, the site of the former Dear Hotel.  The owner was Miss Elsie Bodkin.

On this site in London Road – at an access driveway to a car park – was a Victorian temperance
hotel known as Dear's. When no longer required for this purpose a later occupier was Miss Bodkin
who ran a small school.  A renumbering of London Road is the reason for the replaced
building being numbered 64.

Verulam School. Not the current establishment in Brampton Road, but the advertisement indicated it was close to Clarence Park at 88 Hatfield Road, one of the villas near to Granville Road.  First advertised in 1903 it espoused "a modern and practical education" run by Mr J W Cassels.  By 1919 it had moved to Upper Lattimore Road. Here it was run by Miss Collier as a girls' school with a boys' prep class.  While at Hatfield Road it is assumed it catered for boys.

If you thought this was a fine list of private schools to have occupied St Albans, the above collection is yet less than half complete.  In almost all cases the establishments occupied buildings previously intended as residential dwellings for individuals, couples or families.  No-one spent money in engaging an architect to design a school for that purpose.  Especially given the poor investment rick.

The collection will continue.

By-Pass It

 Until the 1920s the road network between London Colney and St Albans was straightforward: High Street in the village connected with London Road and High Street in the city; Shenley Lane in the village connected with Napsbury Lane and then the ancient road from London towards St Albans; the old road between the village and Cell Barnes Lane (Alexander Road and Nightingale Lane) took a rather different route to the city's market centre via Cell Barnes and Victoria Street. Finally, a link was available from High Street via White Horse Lane to Tyttenhanger Green and Camp.  This last route was still possible while the St Albans Bypass was still a single carriageway.

Working on the St Albans Bypass North Orbital in the 1920s.  The land purchased was sufficient
for twin 3-lane carriageways plus additional space for cables, pipes and space between the
carriageways.  Only one carriageway was completed.
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A post-WW1 national roadbuilding programme included a bypass around St Albans between Hatfield and Watford – a section of the North Orbital Road – squeezing through the gap between Cotlandswick and Newhouse Park Farm.  This fresh west-east barrier between London Colney and St Albans remained a single carriageway until the 1950s, but it did include a roundabout linking the village High Street with London Road.  A "square-about" would be a more appropriate label and was located a little west of the present maze of traffic lights.  Elements of the square-about can still be detected by the roadside.

The first roundabout which separated London Colney's High Street and London Road, the main A6
road before the London Colney Bypass was built.  The abbreviation TCB (circled) was the
location of a telephone call box.
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At the bypass end of the stopped up High Street remain the connections for the former telephone
call box which served this important road junction.  The just-visible overbridge marks
the location of the original roundabout (sometimes known as a square-about).

The often-related account of the capture of a German spy at this junction in 1940 still retains its location evidence; the former telephone kiosk used by the spy, an off-duty soldier and a police officer from the former Fleetville police station where a telegraph post and a pavement connection box remain in place at the bypass end of the former stopped-up High Street.

To pass along Shenley Lane and Napsbury Lane across the first iteration of the bypass was on the flat, which was fine in its early days, but to herald the major widening works in the 1950s a new bridge was constructed over the approaching dual carriageway.

Photograph taken on the Shenley Lane over bridge looking towards London Colney roundabout,
as the second carriageway was opened in 1956.
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Shenley Road over bridge completed in advance of the new carriageway and which replaced
the original surface junction.

Compare the sparse traffic level of 1956 photograph with a 2014 view of the London Colney
roundabout before the present addition of further traffic signals and their re-phasing.

A significantly larger roundabout was also required for the next stage of the project, and the imminent inclusion of the three-mile London Colney Bypass.  This shaped relocation required the diversion of a small length of London Road between Birklands and Nightingale Lane.  Houses already built became satisfyingly marooned in their own backwater, although those in Nightingale Lane were less fortunate, being closer to the incessant streams of roundabout traffic.

In or around 1920 the Electrical Apparatus Company (EAC) opened one of its four works buildings (the others being at Walthamstow, Wandsworth and Vauxhall) between Birklands and the Midland Mainline Railway.  Small farms are vulnerable when modern infrastructure and expansive developments nibble at the edges or slice through the heart of a farm.

The "square-about", and to the left the surface junction of Shenley Lane and Napsbury Lane.

By 1954 Newhouse Park Farm effectively ceased to operate, having earlier relinquished land for the factory and housing, and now transferring still more to the Ministry of Transport for road construction.  EAC acquire 37 further acres for its staff playing fields.  The farm homestead, outbuildings and a home field became the property of Albert E Bygrave, and in 1959 he opened his nursery fronting the bypass.

Yes, these houses are in London Road.  The road led to London Colney High Street. The original
"square-about" was out of sight at the end of this view.

However, the youthful entrepreneur Roger Aylett entered the horticultural marketplace a full four years earlier, having completed his horticultural qualifications at Oaklands Agricultural Institute (now Oaklands College).  He acquired through his parents a seven acre segment of land surplus to EAC's recent acquisition.

Roger Aylett's parcel of land lay between the houses on the north side of Napsbury Lane and the remainder of the former Newhouse Park Farm homestead.  He benefited from a lengthy frontage to the bypass and its newly fenced off works being prepared for the second carriageway.  Aylett may not have realised it at the time but his frontage opening along a busy road and a second minor access from Napsbury Lane, offered his business a splendid kerbside vista, which Bygrave used to good effect as a location marker – "adjacent to Aylett's"!  A dual carriageway might have resulted in awkward access for his customers, but in the case of Aylett's the large nearby  roundabout on one side and an over bridge on the other ensured convenient access when entering and leaving his site.

Map and aerial photograph providing an overview of the topic. London Colney is to the
bottom right; London Road leading to St Albans to the top of the image.
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Driving or riding on a bus between London Colney and St Albans via the roundabout was one thing, but if you wish to cycle or even walk the bypass makes life difficult since it was necessary to carriageway-hop – until it became essential to respond to the accident rate and provide a scaffolding bridge on the site of the former square-about.  This bridge was later replaced by a more elegant structure, which is still in use today.

Meanwhile, the round roundabout became larger and collected even more traffic signals!

Nicky is Sixty Plus

 If you were reading the Herts Advertiser last week you will already be aware that one of our secondary schools celebrated its sixtieth birthday.  Nicholas Breakspear Secondary is the school, but its birthday is only that of the current suite of buildings in Colney Heath Lane, just on the south side of the railway bridge over the former branch railway (now Alban Way).

The land had previously been reserved for a  partner establishment to Hill End Hospital.  However the size of the site was discovered to insufficiently large for that purpose and the partner hospital became Cell Barnes, after the nearby lane, in 1930.  It no longer exists but part of Highfield has been built on its former site.  For a short while in the 1950s the Colney Heath Lane land was used for playing fields for St Albans College of Further Education, before moving to Smallford but a parcel of land is still retained by Oaklands College.

The story began here: at 148 London Road, just uphill from the current Odyssey Cinema.

Rooms at the back of the SS Alban & Stephen church in Beaconsfield Road were organised
into a full-time school...

...but external rooms were brought into use at the now-demolished Adult School
in Stanhope Road as pupil numbers increased further.

A purpose designed school opened in Vanda Crescent with separate sections for infants, 
juniors and seniors, creating an elementary school.

In the 1950s the secondary pupils found a larger site at Garston which we have always known as
St Michael's Catholic High School.

...and in the mid sixties a whole-school's-worth of secondary pupils found their present home
under the banner of Nicholas Breakspear Catholic School in Colney Heath Lane.  It has been
some journey!

But to discover the true origin of the Catholic Secondary School we need to travel much further back in time.  A Catholic denomination church was established on the south side of London Road in 1878, and educational provision was undoubtedly offered on a limited scale, but for worship and educational purposes a new church centre was opened in Beaconsfield Road,  a number of rooms at the rear of the site being used as a school, unfortunately rather close to the busy railway at the Midland City Station.

The school in this building remained here until 1935, although some of its classes also occupied external rooms, including in the Adult Schools building in Stanhope Road. The Ss Alban & Stephen School as an  organisation was  formalised on Elementary principles, just as the rest of the educational service had begun to separate into separate primary (infant and junior) and secondary establishments.  The new elementary school was achieved by the acquisition of Friederick Sander's private garden in Camp Road when this was sold by his sons in the 1920s after their father's death.  A purpose designed single storey set of buildings was created and was opened with separate infant, junior and secondary wings in Vanda Crescent.

Although plans were made in the 1950s for two outreach schools at Marshalswick and St Julians the development of these two units was much delayed.

The opportunity arose in 1955 for the secondary unit at Vanda Crescent to become a larger junior space.  A new Catholic secondary school was opened at Garston under the name St Michael's in High Elms Lane.  The SsA&S secondary pupils transferred to Garston, enabling a more mature secondary curriculum to be offered.  However, within three years St Michael's became full, and expansion came with the provision of a Catholic secondary school specifically for St Albans.

The new 3-form entry school opened on the Colney Heath Lane site under the name Nicholas Breakspear Catholic Secondary School.  Occupying the 31 acres previously deemed not sufficient for a hospital the site has now settled for the longest period in its history, so this is an additional reason for celebrating the anniversary.

For further information St Nicholas Catholic Church is located in Watling Street and St Adrian's JMI school in nearby Watling View opening in 1960, just ahead of Nicholas Breakspear School.

Of course, the structures of school buildings from the post-war period, were not expected to last for an endless period; nor were they expected to be efficient to maintain.  The school is therefore planning ahead for a future with new buildings.  And who knows what NBS will look like in three or four years time.

More of the Same

 The previous post described how, in able to find space for a new school in 1938, proposed homes were scrubbed from the developer plans.  It seems this was not unique hereabouts.  Roll the calendar back thirty years along Tess Road (now Woodstock Road South) and Royal Road, and the house building scheme for the space between those two roads had just begun, when a lethargic education authority jumped to life and responded to residents' complains that there was no school in Fleetville for their children. A public meeting was held in a room at the Fleetville Institute on the corner of Arthur Road and the parents pressed their case successfully. The St Peter's Rural School (Camp) coped inadequately for the new Fleetville district as well as serving Camp and Tyttenhanger et al.  Stung by the pressure, the education body ensured no more houses were added to Tess Road and work began on building a new school – well, part of one.

Fleetville Elementary Schools – which for four years 1908 to 1912 accommodated children from
5 to 13 years old.  The view is from Royal Road.

A revision of the 1897 OS map and published in 1912.  The intended division of the building into
separate girls & infants, and boys sections.  The empty block to the south is reserved for an
infants only building, opened in 1912 but after the survey preparation for this map.
Incidentally, ignore the Benskins reference; that links to the green site just visible on the left.
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On a new estate with young families you would usually begin with an infants wing, or today, a nursery with infants wing.  But families in Fleetville had been waiting for so long the need was evident in all age groups.  Work began in 1907 on the Juniors and Seniors building.  You will notice a line delineates the playground, and therefore the classroom accommodation, for boys separately from girls.  South of this the map identifies an empty plot, which four years later would include an infants building.  The map is unusual in being a re-survey required because of the pace of new building in the district.  Published in 1912 it was not, however, late enough for the new infants building, opened in the same year.  Until then infant children were crammed into the existing building with two classes using the hall.  Fleetville was therefore over-full at birth!

The three houses at the south end of Tess Road just about pre-dated the schools, and were immediately transformed into the district's police station, and would much, much later offer essential school space in a further burgeoning accommodation crisis.  Keep an eye, too, on the outside toilets next to Tess Road. They began as equal spaces for boys and girls, although later extended to match increased numbers, especially for infants.  

The school's north end in the 1930s.  The "boys'" playground was used for major demonstration
events.  Today, a 1960s extension has been added to the original building.
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The 1937 map finally shows the infants building (below the word Schools), although today
the space between has been closed in with a 1960s link building.  The houses on the west
side of Tess Road are in use as a police station and staff accommodation.
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The next available map was published in 1937.  So this is the first opportunity for proving the existence of the smaller infant building – it had only been there for 25 years!  1937 was also the year when work began to expand the infants accommodation: a wooden hutted building raised off the playground and with steps to each of the two classrooms. To view this building we need to fast-forward to the next available map in 1963.  I have not been able to find a single photograph of "The Huts", and by the time it appeared on the 1963 map plans were afoot to construct a permanent hall building in its place.

Look across Royal Road to the recreation field, much used by the older children.  This map was published too early to show the temporary nursery building which arrived in 1942, but we do find proof that the field was then surrounded by metal railings with recognised gates.  Generations of children had worn a path from Hatfield Road towards the school entrance, officially Royal Road, via recognised gates.

One other restrained feature on the 1937 map is a short double line on the top left of the main building; our only clue to the basement boiler heating room at the foot of a flight of stairs.  It also performed a role as store room.

By the 1960s extensions have created a rather different outline shape to
the building.  The smaller building just to the left of the word "South" 
is the timber building known as "The Huts" which arrived in 1937 and
would soon be replaced by a permanent hall structure.  The 1942 wartime
day nursery appears on a map for the first time.
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The start of greening the playground spaces. The wall to the right is what remains of the former
outside toilets which were in use for all children for sixty years.

1963 reveals that the space between the main building and infants building has been filled in, providing important additional accommodation, including toilets and offices.  The outline shape at the north end was also different, providing toilets and an additional classroom.  The work removed evidence of wartime blast walls at the main entrances of both buildings, and therefore not shown on any map.  Also appearing for the first time – although probably present for nearly fifty years – is a small wooden structure used as a cycle shed.

The 1963 map is also the first to show the 1942 nursery building, although does not include evidence of the ramps leading down to the wartime tunnels under the nursery and beyond into the field.  Maps are sometimes poor recorders of  landscape changes!

The eighties see the infants section take over the entire building; the juniors moving across Hatfield Road to a nearby empty school building.  But that hasn't been the only move; the seniors from elementary school days finally left just in time to become part of the new Beaumont Schools in 1938.  Just as well, for in 1940 evacuee children from Princess Road School, Camden (now Primrose Hill Primary) arrived to share the buildings, thus creating one of Fleetville's periodic bulges, the next one lasting through the 1950s until 1980 even though a whole new school (Oakwood JMI) had opened from 1959 specifically to counter overcrowding at Fleetville.

The former day nursery has been a community centre since the 1980s; the nursery
then moved to the garden plot of the former police houses, and its car park was
created where the police houses themselves once stood.
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Google's flyover photo today reveals both a familiar layout and a fuller
one, especially in the use of the outdoor spaces.
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To bring us up to date in the absence of intermediate maps, Open Street Map informs us that the former day nursery moved from its temporary location on the recreation field to where the garden for the former police houses had existed, and an expanded hall building dominates the Woodstock Road South side of the site.  If you were to walk along this road you will discover the former wall of the outside lavatories still in place!  And what of the former police houses?  They are now razed in favour of a car park for the Nursery building.  The modern map gives no clue to the busy-ness of the playground spaces, which encourages creative play instead of simply running around; and is a combination of grassed and shaded zones.

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Much change has been packed into the past 116 years at the busy school in the busiest of districts in the city.

Making Something Fit

 The need for new schools, especially senior establishments, forced Hertfordshire Education Authority to search diligently for appropriate sites, often catching up with builders and developers forging ahead with their housing estates.  Equally, the authority, was playing catch-up with government's regular changes of requirement and its own decisions to improve building and facility standards.

This week we ask the question why the students of Verulam School continue, after 86 years, 
 to walk to their games lessons between Brampton Road and Sandpit Lane.  Here
is the imposing school building when first opened in 1938 – although not visible until
reaching the inner end of the school drive.
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These playing fields, now adjacent to Oaklands Grange, at the eastern end of Sandpit Lane, was
originally purchased in the 1930s for the future senior school for Marshalswick.  Minds were
changed when the Education Authority realised it had purchased a site at Brampton Road which
was too small for the school it wished to build.
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This all leads to the question of why, since 1938, the pupils of Verulam School, have walked their way to the eastern end of Sandpit Lane for their sport zone (games field).  Why did the Education Authority not incorporate the buildings and the games field on one site?  Good question.  The short answer is the sudden requirement for all areas to create new grammar schools if no alternative buildings were available, and in St Albans, there were was only one; the Central Girls School, opened only in 1931.  The plan was to create a  grammar school for girls on a new site and convert the Central School for a boys' grammar school.

Negotiations between the Authority and Earl Spencer, to acquire a portion of his new development between Brampton Road and Jennings Road, which was already under construction, managed to shoe-horn sufficient space for a new school between Park Avenue and Hamilton Road.  Unfortunately most houses in both of those roads were already completed and occupied.  Similarly, Brampton Road homes were largely occupied, except for the space opposite Sandfield Road.  The reason for such a space by the mid thirties is thought to be a new road linking Brampton Road and Churchill Road intended to connect Hatfield Road and Sandpit Lane.  This aborted section of the Spencer development, intended to assist with the Authority's purchase also prepared the way for the new school's entrance location.

Brampton Road running left to right in 1924, near the bottom edge. Clarence Road is partly
developed on the left, the gardens of Woodstock Road are on the right, and Jennings Road is
only partly laid out.  In this large space Park Avenue, Hamilton Road and the school would
find their spaces.  Had it not have been for the school another road linking Sandfield Road and
Churchill Road would have been driven through this space.
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In 1939 the School is one year old and new homes have enveloped its grounds.  Its front
drive opposite the end of Sandfield Road is the only part of the road which never was which
still exists. This was the school which was, together with tennis courts, how the school was
intended.  The Authority acquired the site to the right of the drive as the school's caretaker
accommodation.
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The space available for the proposed school was further restricted by the lengths of the rear gardens in the three roads, though not the south side of Jennings Road where housebuilding had not begun.  So, under the circumstances quite limited, but under the authorised layout requirements for schools it was sufficient for a girls' grammar school, and so the plans were drawn up.  In the meantime the Authority bean-counters suddenly realised the existing Central school in Hatfield Road was already a girls' school with accommodation for girls' facilities.  Rather late in the day, Central became the new Grammar School and the boys were provided with the new buildings in Brampton Road.

By 1963 more buildings have been added and a tennis court relocated; garden ends have already
given way to school space.
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The rules for space, particularly for playing field space were inadequate for a boys' school (of any kind – it was the gender which counted, not the specialism).  The future school for Marshalswick was aborted and became the playing field for the Boys' Grammar School.

It did not take long for the existing 1938 buildings to become inadequate for the new school.  By 1963 the main quadrangle block to be extended on the south-west corner and to the east; and a new building and swimming pool to the north.  

Since then, other accommodation and a car park has been added to reduce the grassed area to little more than an amenity space, perhaps just sufficient for a single football pitch.  The school has also now  acquired houses in Brampton Road, and a few rear gardens have been nibbled to squeeze in buildings.

The layout of the block today as revealed by the current Open Street Map
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The same view, one hundred years forward from the earlier 1924 map.
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So, if had not been for girls toilets already in place in 1938 at Hatfield Road, today the Verulam site may have been an established girls' school, boys would have had their school at Hatfield Road – and would probably have ended up on an extended site in Sandridgebury Lane.  It all came down to how much land the Authority agreed to purchase and therefore the flexibility to expand, their maximum pupil numbers, and what may be expected of the establishments over time.

Shoe-horning is not the answer.

The Show

COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY SHOW & AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY

 The majority of counties hold an agri-fest each year, generally under the auspices of a county agricultural society. In Hertfordshire these events began as ploughing matches and gatherings to explore new farming techniques and principles.  The annual gatherings, usually over a single day, morphed into "explainers", in which visitors were invited to visit a site – usually a spare field – to learn more about agricultural practices and the management of animals; farmers showed off their best and classiest farm breeds; and commercial manufacturers showed off the latest machinery.

The larger these events became the more commercial the attractions became, and single day operation was increasingly costly; most, including Hertfordshire now run for two days and on permanent sites where the infrastructure is built in.  A ploughing match launched Hertfordshire's foray into public demonstrations, with a day set aside in the grounds of Hatfield House, with a wider programme a few years later.  The Hertfordshire Show remained in the vicinity of Hatfield, although the time came to experiment with a travelling show; although a decision was made for a permanent site to be opened for 1962 at Friars Wash.  For such a move Hatfield would have been more central, while Friars Wash was perched close to the Bedfordshire border.

An aero photo survey plane happened to be in the east of St Albans on show day 1953. Tree-
lined Coopers Green Lane slides past Oak Farm – Beech Farm lies on the opposite side of the
lane.  The junction with Sandpit Lane is in the distance.  The large show ring is in the centre,
but absent then are the large car parks!
COURTESY HISTORIC ENGLAND

The buildings of Oak Farm today.  In this shot Coopers Green Lane is on the right.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

During the peripatetic period, 1953, a field was loaned at Oak Farm with its road access along Coopers Green Lane.  The various negotiations required for acquiring a site during the middle of the crop growing season would presumably be complicated and I can only presume an opportunity was available in this particular case with the sale of the farm by Robert Paterson and its acquisition by the aircraft company, de Havilland.

In the period before mass car usage attracting large numbers of paying customers for this one-day show would always be a challenge in the countryside.  Although close to St Albans, the site was distant from main roads which entertained regular bus routes or had the capacity for a sudden surge in traffic movements.  I have no idea whether special buses were laid on from St Albans and Hatfield but such an arrangement would have been a distinct advantage.  Two photographs from the Herts Advertiser suggested there were a number of school visits.

Charles Evans and Peter Mott from their school, thought to be Beaumont.  The name
of the foal was Easter Pride.
COURTESY HERTS ADVERTISER

Children from Gascoyne Cecil School, Hatfield touring the sheep pens.
COURTESY HERTS ADVERTISER

But we should remember that the County Show was a Thursday event close to the May Bank Holiday but still a working weekday.  The notion of using a Saturday (later in more enlightened times Saturday and Sunday) had not yet dawned.  Thursday was also a school day which would have been a further hindrance to family visits.  

I was nine years old at the time and lived within a reasonable distance of the show ground; yet I have no recollection of the Show at Oak Farm.  I can therefore presume that, compared with today, the profile of the event and the publicity surrounding it was less intense than is expected today, although I always recall boards by the verges and field fences along main roads announcing the forthcoming Hertfordshire County Show at ... followed by the date and location.

So, in 1953, it was the turn of the East End of St Albans to host what has probably become the largest annual open air event in the County.

That was sixty-five years ago!  Did you attend then, and have you returned, probably to the permanent show ground, since?

Today's County Shows are as much the presentation of entertainment and big yellow machines, as
it is with animals, competitions and food.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY SHOW & AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY

              

D-Day + Twelve

 It is now a frequent and regular occurrence  for groups of secondary students to make journeys to the major battlefields and cemeteries of Europe, as they learn and experience the landscapes and events of the European wars of the twentieth century. It marks a very different perspective on war and the wastage of human life.

In 1956 students from Beaumont Boys' School undertook a journey to France. Until the last minute there was some conjecture about whether the journey should proceed; there had been a number of student riots in Paris which had concerned our parents.

Boys from each year group participated. Among the staff were our French teachers, although the opportunities to advance our French conversation were very limited.  There was certainly a cultural and geographical element, with the first week spent in Paris, lodged in a residential school and visiting all the usual tourist locations.   We then removed to the coast, not far from the ferry port of La Havre, the small town of Fecamp; again staying for a few days at a rather smaller residential school within its stone boundary walls.

A calm and long-cleared coastal zone today.  Beyond the distant headland and the mouth of the 
Seine are the line of five beaches where D-Day played out in 1944.

Yes, there were visits to nearby locations, but also rather more "free time," and since it was a coastal location partly projecting into the Channel and with – almost – a view into the mouth of the river Seine, much time was spent on the beach, in the shallows, and exploring the cliff tops, former gun emplacements and pill boxes.  Just below the steeply descending cliffs was a little port; lots of little fishing boats.

I returned home with a number of strange visual recollections: sunken caissons swamped by the tides and lying at varied scattered angles; barricaded sections of beach with warning notices against entry – the typical explosion and skull & crossbones signs; concrete contraptions intended to prevent boats coming ashore.  What were all these strangers to seaside holiday locations?  Either I had not been paying attention, or surely, we were missing something.

"The War" had not been referred to at all during our stay; no opportunity to bring to our attention the events that had occured just over a decade earlier.  It was as if the events of D-Day had not taken place; as if we were not standing as close as was practicable to where the battle for the free world was being determined.  A coach, a map revealing the road down to the Seine Bridge would have brought us towards the coastal communities and their beaches which today we have come to know from many commemorative ceremonies as Sword, Juno, Gold – and in the further distance – Omaha and Utah.  We had come this far, and a day's coach journey and beach lesson from our teachers would have shown us so much.

Gold was the name given to the third of the landing ground beaches, eighty years later.

The reason for such an omission was probably entirely understandable at the time, twelve years on.  Perhaps it was too close for the families of our teachers; too close for the dissemination of the event's minutiae of details.  Perhaps the mammoth nature of D-Day, its secret planning, its background; and the resulting aftermath, was still being played out in the memories of far too many people.

We should also remember that it would still be a further six years before the world knew anything about The Landings through the three-hour mammoth movie The Longest Day.  So,  the D-Day landings played no part in our education while we sojourned on the Normandy coast. Forty teenagers of the Fifties who instead were being taught that  the world needed to forget the recent past.  To us The Longest Day was just another war movie, and our parents had to remind us that it really did happen and husbands and fathers did not always return.

The beaches as 6 June and its aftermath played out, as envisioned in the 1962 film The Longest Day.