Well done and not well done

Two events have come to light recently which link the former branch railway line between St Albans and Hatfield.  For those who are uncertain the route is now Alban Way, with stations included at London Road, Hill End and Smallford.

Smallford Station in 1947  Courtesy R D Taylor

Scene from film shot at the station in
1933.   Courtesy Smallford.org

The Smallford Heritage Group has recently acquired a certificate, reminiscent of those children would receive for being the best/most alert/highest scorer etc child in the school, and signed by the head teacher.

This certificate, available on Ebay, was awarded in 1947 to Smallford Station by the London and North Eastern Railway of which the branch was a part.  In the competition for best kept stations, Smallford won a first class prize.  There is no telling how many other stations took part, or won various grades of award.  Nor are we likely to know whether it was clean platforms, sparkling windows and a tidy coal yard which were considered for box ticking.  Maybe there were floral displays along the only platform.  It would be nice to think there were no weeds along the track either.  And if Smallford won a prize in 1947, did it also win prizes in other years?  Was it a question of "Smallford won, AGAIN!"

Best Kept Station in 1947.  Courtesy Smallford.org

Whatever did or did not happen – and assuming that the certificate did arrive at the station, maybe for a small presentation – the certificate had been retained somewhere for the past 69 years, possibly changing hands on several occasions, only to surface for auction in 2016.  It is now in the ownership of the Smallford Group.

At some future date, when the station is once more accessible and serves a useful function, perhaps the certificate will be framed and mounted on a wall of the booking office – a little late, perhaps, but nevertheless available for all to feel proud of.

A search of the Herts Advertiser for 1947 (and the start of 1948) revealed no report of the award, let alone a photograph.  But an event further along the track did just make it into print that year.  In the section – of an 8-page edition due to a post-war newsprint shortage – headed St Albans News in Brief, was the following on October 17th:

Sutton Road bridge in 1954.  It was this side which had
been demolished in the strike.

“Sutton Road was closed to traffic yesterday following the partial collapse of the LNER bridge over the road on Wednesday night.  The structure of the bridge was damaged when an army lorry struck a girder on the Campfield Road side and tore it away, causing the sleepers between the permanent way and the side of the bridge to fall into the road.  The railway line over the bridge was not damaged and traffic between the Abbey LNER Station and Hatfield was not affected.  A similar accident occurred at the same spot several years ago.”

For those who recall the Sutton Road railway bridge – where Alban Way crosses the road near the pedestrian crossing –  it was low, in fact very low.  Its headroom was ten feet, and that was after the road had been dug downwards.

The incident was at night and was caused by the driver of an army lorry.  In the years following WW2, military vehicles were common on our roads at all times of day and night, and especially on Sundays.  Bridge strikes were possibly quite frequent, then as now, but the combination of a military driver not familiar with his route and trying to use the only road linking Camp and Fleetville must have made this bridge vulnerable.  We are told that the timetable operated the following day.  Today, in spite of emergency overnight works it is probable that safety consideration would have dictated closure for at least a day.  But in 1947 it was a question of Keep Calm and Carry On.

A Cell Re-occupied

Some of you may have been wondering about the pause between the previous post and this one; it has, I believe, been the first month since 2012 when there has been a only single post within the  month.  Commitments have been heavy recently and blog posts have taken a back seat.

If you have lived in St Albans for more than twenty years you will be very familiar with the names of two, now former. institutions: Hill End and Cell Barnes.  Although they were not copies of each other, both cared for patients with a wide range of mental conditions.

Former Cell Barnes site being redeveloped.

The earlier – and certainly the larger – was Hill End and the former site is now occupied by a housing development.  The open space which surrounded the hospital is now in the care of Highfield Park Trust and is managed as an urban heritage park fully open to the public.  Hill End was not the only hospital to be closed 20 years ago, for Cell Barnes, which sat next door, also began closing its doors in 1996 (completed in 1998) for the last time.  Its many buildings have also been replaced by a new housing development, and like Hill End, the Metropolitan Green Belt regulations limited new building to  the footprint of the hospital buildings, so retaining the parkland.  All parkland except what was needed for a new link road, that is. Part of Highfield Park Drive now sweeps through the old playing field before linking with Highfield Lane.

While an example of a Hill End ward block and a lodge house from Cell Barnes remain, most other evidence has been obliterated, and it is probably not surprising that recent incomers have only the scantiest of information about former hospital settlements – or even earlier communities – below where the new homes have been built.

Last November Highfield Park Trust held a history event at the Trestle Arts Base, Russet Drive, where photographs, oral recollections and maps of Hill End could be viewed.  The evening included a lecture on  the history of mental care and the story of Hill End, under the title Hill End: What Lies Beneath.

A similar evening called Cell Barnes: What Lies Beneath, will be presented on Friday 4th November at 7.30pm, also at the Trestle Arts Base.  The story of Cell Barnes is remarkable in its own right, but equally heart-warming are the stories of staff who, though six decades cared for the residents, the lives of whom had been improved and enriched because of their care.

There are a few tickets left for this event, but you will be severely disappointed if you leave it until the last minute, because the seating available is limited.  The booking details are below.

Roads Which are Part of Us

September may be the tail end of the outdoor activities season, but it surely is the best time to review what you have achieved during the Spring and Summer months.  As with five summers before 2016, the local history group, Fleetville Diaries, has arranged a number of guided walks around many of the roads in the Fleetville district.  Also part of the programme have been story walks meandering around Hatfield Road Cemetery.

Walks attract a fair number of guests, but fortunately not too many, given the limited amount of standing space at key stops such as junctions and narrow footpaths.  The maximum the organisers can accept for street walks is 25.  One guest's dog has also joined us on several occasions and appears to have taken a keen interest in his surroundings, if not to the speaker.

Wellington Road in c1954

The most recent addition to the programme was walked for the first time this week as an impressive number turned out to discover more about the Camp estate, particularly Cambridge Road.  This is not simply an opportunity to peer into people's front gardens and how they cope with cars and bins.  It is a trace through time, from when the streets were fields with hedges and streams, locked into the annual cycle of producing food for the table.

So is revealed the origins of at least some of the street names (we are still considering Wellington and Beresford roads), the many styles of house design helping us to locate where early gaps were later filled with newer homes.  Being a residential road well back from Hatfield Road's shopping mile, we can marvel at the number of shops which opened here in the first half of the last century; most no longer open for business

Guests are usually given location maps and laminated photographs to compare an earlier scene with the present day.  Such afternoons or evenings are a pleasantly social experiences, where talks become meaningful discussions.  Everyone has something to offer, and everyone goes home with a newly recalled memory or fresh information.

A story walk in the "Laid to Rest" series,
Hatfield Road Cemetery

As for the story walks, the organisers are frequently surprised by the number of guests for which this would be their first venture beyond the splendid main gates.  Among the thousands of burials in such green and peaceful few acres, stories about a small number have been researched and presented.  Of course, most people lead private lives and their stories are unknown to others.  But if we are to include those which Fleetville Diaries members will be working on during the coming winter, there are nearly fifty stories, told a dozen at a time.

Local history comes in many forms and a tramp around the streets is no bad way to discover more about our patch.  After all, these roads, and the people who live or work in them, are part of us, and we are part of that same community.

A story with gaps

Recently I was reminded of a story I had been attempting to follow up for a number of years.  It concerned a school known as St John's Preparatory.  I have notes on over thirty private schools operating in the city during the late 19th century through to the 1950s, though not all at the same time.  But those about St John's are extremely brief.

St John's was one of a very few on the eastern side, at least east of the railway.  And it may have begun elsewhere before re-locating to St Albans.

Let's start from the year, 1899, when the first part of Beaumonts Farm was sold off for development.  Mr H Adey, of the brewing family, had acquired the brewing interests of Mr Thomas Kinder, and when the late Kinder's trustees sold some of the farm land Mr Adey was first to move in, having a large house built at the north end of Beaumont Avenue.  The name was Avenue House, but by the time the Misses Blackwood moved in its name had changed to St John's.

Beaumont Avenue, northwards to Hall Heath.
Avenue House shown as the only house in 1915 between
Salisbury Avenue and Sandpit Lane.
COURTESY HALS

Sisters Emma Mann Blackwood and Elizabeth Stewart Blackwood were born in Edinburgh and appeared to live much of their lives in Lothian.  Unmarried, both moved to St Albans and set up (or continued) a school in the Beaumont Avenue house which they purchased.  The sisters were both approaching seventy when they purchased the house.

Elizabeth died in 1932, aged 86, and Emma in 1933, aged 83.  One-time councillor and mayor William Bird then became the owner. In 1934 a new house built in Jennings Road, later becoming number 75, was named St John's and then St John's Preparatory School.  Living there was Mr R Pritchard.  Why, we may ask, might the school have pitched up in a new home?  It is possible that Mr Pritchard was assisting with the administration or specialist teaching under the Misses Blackwood in Beaumont Avenue.

When the school finally closed is so far unknown,  but fortunately I have been contacted by one former pupil from its time in Jennings Road.  He writes: "Thank you for providing some very interesting information  regarding this little-remembered school. I thought that all recollections of it were long lost in the mists of time.  I certainly remember attending this school in the early forties, at the end part of the war. We had mauve blazers , mauve  and silver horizontal striped ties.  Unfortunately it is here my memory fails me.  I didn't seem to be there for long, moving on to Fleetville School in 1944."

We therefore know that the school was in existence up to 1944; we know what the school uniform was like; and we know who ran the school, and where.  There may, though, be some personal recollections, a book or account – even a photograph – somewhere, if only it could be found! Until then there are, as can be observed, many gaps in the story.

In particular, I have never seen a picture of Avenue House, St John's.  It is, of course too late now, for St John's and its neighbouring property, The Grange, was demolished in the 1960s, being developed as St John's Court.

If you have a photograph of the old house, or know someone who has, you know what to do!

The democracy of desire

Every city, town and village has its own footprint shape, created as a result of  encroachment onto the undeveloped land around it.  You'll know what I mean as new housing on the edge avoids a river, old quarries, an outlier hill or protected green belt land. The boundary is irregular,  but the shape of the settlement is unmistakable to those who live there.

There is another unique footprint: the pattern of roads which enable us to get around (or pass through) our home town.  These veins, as a complete network, form unique patterns.  For the most part we don't need to know the names of those roads; the pattern they form is sufficient to identify where we are, or to pick out our town from any other.

There are road patterns, often associated with new towns or development towns, which have been largely designed into their place; superimposed on the landscape.  In many places, however, the road patterns, especially close to the town centre, appear disorganised, and it often seems impossible to tidy the pattern without the democratic opinion of residents getting in the way.  The great fire of London in 1666 did produce a grand opportunity to do just that – to start again.  Several plans were submitted in the years following the fire, all of which came to nothing, largely because there was no equivalent of compulsory purchase and land owners had no intention of giving up their precious plots for no compensation, just for a better road.  So today's City roads are not so very different from those before the fire, 350 years ago.

Footpath crosses a field near Smallford.

Former field footpath retained near Kingshill,
Marshalswick.

Now, let's move from the town streets to an ornamental park, or woodland, or even expansive open grassland.  The precursors to the town's muddled streets are here too.  Finger signs point us to footpaths, byways, bridleways and tracks, most of which have been worn through time to link settlements or individual dwellings.  While a proportion of them follow field hedges or lines otherwise fenced off, many ignore these boundaries, and some of the easier topography too.  Narrow routes have been democratically worn into the landscape over centuries and have now been accepted as a permanent part of the Ordnance Survey map.  Even where towns have spread and enveloped the muddied lines, they have been protected in the new developments as alleys (in some parts of the country known as ginnels, snickets or twittens).  They can't be obliterated or altered except through a very public legal process.

Aerial map reveals a network of paths across the former Butterwick Farm,
including a circular pathway around the willows and pond.

The most democratic of all these desire lines are worn by pairs of feet whose owners decide they will take the route they perceive to be the easiest, rather than the path that is intended they should use.  A community football pitch may, over time, also reveal where walkers between matches have crossed the field diagonally to reach a facility, or another route, on the other side.  Open parks with designed elements – mown grassed areas intersected with grids of prepared paths – will always show public use very differently as grass is worn along diagonals.  Angled paths nicely surfaced with red or green macadam are routinely ignored as grass, or even flower-bed corners, are worn with irregular use.  A short path of trodden soil or flattened grass reveals where casual users really wanted their path.

These tramplings are the most democratically created of all routes, where, as long as people are not trespassing or causing criminal damage, they decide their preferred route.  The decision made by that first pair of feet, is added to over time as yet another desire line across the landscape is forged.  Some will be short lived, but others may be reinforced over time, their status enhanced.  One day they may become a meandering city street and future generations may wonder why the road was not created straight!

Being part of the story

Read almost any book which tells the history of a place and you are being told the story of people of some significance.  There is the possibility it might include detail of an individual whose record only appears because of a single event.

That's the problem; a history is not unbiased, it is not fair (as in, "you've only heard his side of the story" – and it usually is 'his', not her).  And it most certainly is not complete.

To try and fully understand the complexity of a recorded history of a person, a place, an event or a time period, we will begin with an individual: you, or me.  We have many opportunities each day to make our mark.  We email or text others, we take photographs, we complete forms (some for ordering products and others for banks and to record official events, such as births).  Our belonging to groups may include records of membership, decisions made or newsletters of our contributions. Who knows how many records are made of our employment, our health, our travel, our pensions.  We may write a letter, and if it is to a newspaper or journal, that and our name may be published and may form part of a dialogue.

Our daily lives are recorded in so many ways, most of them with at least some of our personal details.  Whether it all gets left around to be picked up by historians in five hundred years time will depend on how effective our descendant communities are in sifting and keeping; passing on our records or stories for future generations.  Who knows how permanent our digital records will turn out to be.  And if our photos are so personal to us why are we so casual about storing them, unsorted and unlabelled on our phones?

If we have impressed so many marks on history, just from our everyday lives, what about Thomas Blackmore and Elizabeth Fetty?  For the sake of this article I have to invent their names because they were just two of a small group of people who lived between St Albans and Hatfield in the early 1500s.  There is no record of their lives at all, not even their names.  It might be reasonably argued that therefore they did not exist at all.  But homes do not get built without a need for shelter.  Land is not tilled without a need for  food.  The continuity of a settlement is not sustained without children to form the next generation.

Thomas and Elizabeth, and others like them, were used to moving from one place to another, but we do not know whether they knew each other, married and had children, or whether they lived their lives as strangers.  They represent the wide base of a pyramid of  sixteenth century existence in every part of the country and in those parts of our east end of St Albans at that time occupied.

The point is, Elizabeth and Thomas survived and lived out their lives while others made the history we read about.  They were, of course, part of that history, but it was not recorded, even in the most rudimentary ways.  If only the voice recorder was available to Thomas, just as it is to us, so that he could speak his thoughts at the end of each day, or when some unusual event occurs.  Wouldn't that give us a more complete view of the period in which he lived?  Elizabeth's life was transitory, each day's existence wiped clean by the next.  Without an ability to read and write, or the opportunity to buy a medium on which to record thoughts as words, and a secure place to keep them safe, Elizabeth's life was not even worth to others the equivalent of an inscription on a park bench.

So, who gets to tell the paragraphs, pages and chapters of our collective history?  Power, influence and education have counted for most of the contributions, and our knowledge of the history of these islands have been dependent on the parts of the story they chose to tell us.  Those parts played by all the Elizabeths and Thomases down the ages are largely absent.  If we were aware of their evidences, surely that would provide us with a much more rounded account.  As it is, a democratic process it most definitely is not.

Do we need a bank in 2016?

Although no official statement has been announced by the company, a number of Marshalswick residents think they know that one of The Quadrant's two banks, Lloyds, is to close.  Whether they have made an assumption, base on the bank's latest national intention to close two hundred branches, on top of the branches in the current closure programme, may simply be speculation.  Lloyds' website only lists the tranche of branches being closed under the existing programme.  It states that after that programme "90% of its customers will still be within 5 miles of their local branch".  It is, though, a moot point whether a branch which is five miles distant can be considered local.

Barclays and Lloyds occupy opposite ends of a side block at
The Quadrant.

Even if every customer used online banking and cash machines (ATMs) there would still be a need for banks.  Cash which businesses need to deposit, or any of us, come to that; cash which we need to withdraw for our own use (and for which uniform £10 or £20 notes are not satisfactory; the advice and help branch staff are able to give, face to face, more satisfactorily than via telephone calls to service centres; ditto after online problems have grunged up our systems or been interfered with by malicious strangers.  If banks wish to add to their customer base, they need to invest in their customers.  Remember when banks universally opened weekdays only from 9.30 to 3.30?  Then they tried Saturday mornings with limited services. Then they closed again, leaving an ATM in charge. Now many have 9 to 5 opening and extended Saturday business for a full range of services.  Is this the time, then, to shut customers out and force them to travel out of their local area?

Barclays opened a branch at The Crown before World
War One.

Until World War One all of the banks in St Albans were in the centre of the city.  But then you could probably draw a circle a mile around the Town Hall and enclose almost everywhere, except for Fleetville and Camp.  Barclays was the first to open in the east, with a branch at Alexandra House, on the corner of Hatfield Road and Clarence Road, and there it remained until around 1968 when it moved to the corner of Sandfield Road.  The Midland arrived in 1922 (now part of Tesco Metro).  NatWest opened nearby in c1970, where the Grove charity shop is now, and moved to the other Sandfield Road corner five years later.  Lloyds pitched up at the Harlesden Road junction, now the home of City Glass.

Barclays moved more to the centre of its Fleetville
customer base in the 1960s.

Although NatWest and Lloyds seem to have arrived late on the scene, all of them recognised the huge mix of business potential in Fleetville – which would include Camp, given that no Bank existed along that road.  But today there are no banks in Fleetville, although there are broadly the same number of businesses and even more families.

Marshalswick has been served by two banks ever since The Quadrant opened, and since 1960 the eastern districts have continued to grow outwards.  It is not as if modern (i.e. online) banking has reduced the waiting time if we require counter service or need to speak with an adviser – meaning a member of staff who could make decisions, a role which used to be known as the Branch Manager.

Dare it be asked, that could the decline in banking availability be arrested by requiring us to pay for our accounts?  Should we have a right to complain if our account is serviced for free?  Maybe there is no room in the market today for two banks at The Quadrant.  Just as long as the one which remains doesn't "up-sticks" and disappear into a vortex as well.  And in order to spread a little banking happiness would it be too much to ask for the bank which leaves The Quadrant (if, indeed, one does) could not return to its old haunt in Fleetville?