Up for the Cup in 1996

Every so often it behoves all of us to spend time clearing out, or maybe tidying the piles of stuff we hoard.  A while back we were undertaking a similar task at Fleetville Community Centre, although the intention had been solely to discover records of the Centre's early years from 1982.  But you know what it's like; you discover interesting programmes, minutes or newspaper articles, stop to read them, and later two hours progress remains slow.

The 1995-6 squad.  Back L-R: Robert Ade, Nick Malham, Jonathon Smithers, David Adams, Elliott Ryan, Jonathan
Michie, Tom Price, Stuart Hames.  Front L-R: Sam Parratt, Ben Herd, Chris Seeby (Captain), Matthew Jones, James Buck.

Among the miscellaneous documents were the three images shown on this post.  They were familiar and the reason became clear later when I consulted Bob Bridle and Duncan Burgoyne's book "100 Years, a History of Schools' Football in St Albans".  1995/6 was the final year described and illustrated – that year was Bob Bridle's final year overseeing the fortunes of schools' football in the district.  The book shows a squad line-up, the three goalscorer from the Cup match, and captain Chris Seeby holding aloft the trophy after the match against Hackney.

Goalscorers David Adams, Ben Herd and Jonathon Michie
in the Southern Counties quarter-final.

In a box of documents at the Community Centre is also a set of three photos, though not originals.  The squad from that year has fewer players than the one in the book, the goal scorers photo is in the collection, and another threesome pic is from an earlier match against Sutton, with the two team captains and the "regular referee".  The photos are all captioned and probably came from a local newsletter.  The locations may well have been at Fleetville Junior School, and at least some of the team will have had Fleetville connections.

Captains Chris Seeby (SA) and Ben Harding (Sutton), with
referee Chris Wood.  Southern Counties quarter final.

So we ponder over their futures, both in football or other sports, and in life.  All will now be in their mid-thirties and it would be great to hear from any of them, wherever they are now living – anywhere between Colney Heath Lane and the Falklands – as they reflect on their team recollections.  No distinctions will be made, so comments from ex pupils of other parts of the city are also eagerly sought.

The owner of these pics isn't known and so can't yet be acknowledged.

A Mile is Not a Mile

There are many puzzles about the Hatfield Road cast iron mileposts and what they tell us.  These posts are reminders of the Turnpike road between Hatfield and Reading, and in this district the only posts left are at Ellenbrook, Popefield, Oaklands, Fleetville, The Peacock PH and St Stephens Hill.  All of the others have disappeared.

Turnpike mile marker at Fleetville
Recreation Ground.

The Fleetville marker may still be present, but it has moved.  It is currently on the corner of Hatfield Road and Royal Road, but there are people who seem to recall it has not always been there.  But if it is a mile marker it should be exactly one mile from the previous mile post at Oaklands; in its current location it is further than that.  Ordnance Survey maps up to and including 1924 locate the post outside a shop on Bycullah Terrace.  The marker is not shown on the 1937 map, either in its original location nor any other.

Of course, the post, when first installed, was at the roadside in front of a field in the countryside – Fleetville was still to be invented!  When Bycullah Terrace was built c1900 the property doorways were arranged around the location of the post, although it can't be ruled out that the post was moved along the road by a yard or two!  

Numbers 207 and 209 Hatfield Road

Photographic evidence is also absent.  Two fine postcard photos of Bycullah Terrace dating from approximately 1914 show the shops both from the west and the east, but obstructions and shadows on both views hide a potential post.  The map suggests it should be present outside number 209, presently an optician's premises, but in 1930 was a house occupied by Dr Frederick Smythe.  Dr Smythe then had a house built on the corner of Royal Road – Fleet House – which gave the new owner of 209 the opportunity of opening up the front,  first built as a manager's house for the Fleet Print Works, for use as a shop.

Bastin's plan showing the mile marker position.

But absence of the post from its measured location is intriguing, and until recently we still couldn't be conclusive about where it was being stored.  Now, as a result of a recent find we can be more specific about its removal.

William Bastin was a Fleetville-based builder and had his yard, now occupied by Chapman's Auto Centre, just east of the Rats' Castle.  Albert Smith acquired Dr Smythe's premises at 209, with the intention of opening it as a bakery.  He therefore engaged William Bastin to draw up plans, which he did before realising there was an obstruction: the Turnpike milepost!  We know this because the post was drawn onto the plan by hand afterwards.

Proposed new shop front showing where the milestone
would obstruct the shop door.

This is therefore the first visual proof of its exact location.  While it was satisfactory for the building before modification – it stood in front of a piece of blank wall – the planned shop required the entrance to the shop to be located on the left, while the existing door on the right would give access to the first floor flat.  It seems that some negotiation must have taken place with St Albans Council, which then agreed for its removal and storage.  It is thought that the post re-appeared when Hatfield Road was widened slightly at the recreation ground.

The answer to the question, where was the post in Bycullah Terrace?  Between numbers 207 and 209.

The answer to the question, when was the post moved?  The plan is dated 1933 and Mr Smith was trading by 1934.

Mixed Up 1940

Previously selected items of news from the decade years was featured, and 1940's choice was weather related, how people continued to survive everyday life through the bitterly cold weather. But there were other events.

Life in St Albans was, of course, a very different community than usual. A depleted young male population as they moved into the Services, large number of adults out of place, that is, having arrived in the city from elsewhere on wartime contracts, many of them boarding in homes with spare rooms.  It was this coming together of strangers which gave rise to the hugely successful Garden Club. Then of course there were schools and families who had evacuated, initially from London, and just a year later from the south coast.  Not far away were also island groups from the Channel Islands now  living more safely in Harpenden.

With the safety of the nation's children in mind, the government set up convoys of chartered ships to take families and unaccompanied children to Canada for the duration.  Although escorted, the passage of ships across the Atlantic was a huge risk and a convoy in mid-September was attacked by U-Boats.  

One vessel early in the convoy, thought to be SS Volendam, was torpedoed.  On board were "several hundred children" according to the Herts Advertiser and later recorded as 320, so we assume it to be a large vessel.  One of the supervisors on board was a teacher, Margaret Walker from 23 Hatfield Road.   

Later ships, SS City of Benares, SS Marina and SS Hurricane were also hit and the resulting loss of life was considerable.  This included death from extended exposure over several days in lifeboats.  Evacuation to Canada was immediately halted as the risk was clearly significantly greater than if the families and unaccompanied minors had remained at home.

Although Margaret Walker came from St Albans – or at least she was living here immediately before being deployed on the evacuation mission – we are uncertain whether any local families or children were also part of that convoy.  But there are other examples of people moving towards perceived safety and who nevertheless lost their lives.  Many Fleetville residents will be aware of the Strowbridge family who moved out from north London and took up residence into a newly completed house in Beaumont Avenue and on the night of the Coventry bombing in November suffered the loss of four of its members in a direct hit.

St Albans had other connections with child refugees both during World War 2 and in the decades following.  Details of some of these connections will be related by the author at a Fleetville Diaries event at Fleetville Community Centre on Wednesday 29th January at 7.30pm.

St Albans provided relief funds to the survivors of the
Duisberg bombing many of whom had become refugees
in their city's basements.

Decade News

The recent news from the District Council announcing its new and welcome policy on trees, as well as the County Council's proposals for use of some of its land for solar energy, is a positive start to a new decade.  Looking back to the first month of earlier decades provides a mix of decisions, events and observations which are shared here.

Stanhope Road homes built of land sold by Thomas Kinder

1880: Thomas Kinder, owner of Beaumonts Farm relinquished two fields he had previously grown malting barley in – for his brewery business – and this provided the development opportunity we know as Stanhope and Granville roads.  And what became a huge event that summer, the murder of Marshalswick farmer Edward Anstee.

1890: The district was in a bind regarding the treatment of patients with contagious diseases, especially since the pest house at Smallford had been closed.  The city council proposed to build a new isolation hospital on part of the Hatfield Road cemetery, itself only opened six years earlier.

1900: At the beginning of the year the Bath & West Agricultural Society announced it would organise an agricultural show that summer at Cunningham Hill Farm.  Animals and equipment was brought by rail to London Road Station and taken to the site via a drive, now Cunningham Hill Road.

St Paul's Mission Church, Stanhope Road

1910: It was announced that St Paul's Parish Church would be consecrated at a special service that Easter.  The church had been launched in a tin building in Stanhope Road and building work on the permanent building begun in 1908.

1920: Work began on a cenotaph memorial at the intersection of main paths at Hatfield Road Cemetery, and was completed in time for its dedication that November and before the memorial in St Peter's Street.

War Memorial at Hatfield Road Cemetery

1930: A partnership of builders, Walter Goodwin and Charles Hart completed purchase of a small field and began the task of building homes along three short roads, Lynton, Windermere and Glenlyn avenues.

1940: The beginning of the year proved to be bitterly cold; fuel was in short supply; most schools were working part time to provide accommodation for evacuated schools, and some schools remained unheated.

1950: A major main drainage project began to enable both old and new Marshalswick estates to be connected to the city's sewer network and its treatment works.  It was still a time when such work lagged behind house building.

1960: Residents living in St Albans' East End districts who commuted to London, finally saw the launch of new diesel trains and said goodbye to the steam locomotives calling at the City Station.

1970: A field with access from Barley Mow Lane was considered for a suitable location for gypsies, although the field was thought to be too large.

1980: St Albans Co-operative Society submitted yet more plans to a concerned council for its proposed supermarket on the site of the former Ballito hosiery mill.  The concern was not its size, but elements of its design and brickwork.

Old Year

Certain thoughts drift through our minds on the final day of the year – achievements realised or or not, as the case may be.  But in the case of the St Albans' Own East End blog it is the realisation that new posts have been trickling through the system now for ten years, at the rate of over 30 posts a year.  Which is over 300 items in total, and all about the East End of St Albans.  Unfortunately the very early posts are no longer available online, but the original function was to generate interest in a couple of books about the district which had yet to be completed.  Well, a decade on and work is progressing well on preparing for the second editions of those same books.

Let's talk about housing for a minute.  In 1919 the city council was discussing a chronic under-supply of basic homes fit to live in; the rural council engaged with local communities to provide new homes for agricultural workers; and, slow off the ground, projects under Homes for Heroes eventually materialised, but for far fewer tenants than the target.  Eventually, estates were provided at Townsend and Springfield.

In 1949 the city council was still grappling with the issue of lengthy housing waiting lists, with thousands juggling with allocated points to move themselves, hopefully, nearer a house.  Local authority houses and homes for reserved occupations such as police, teachers and nurses, were created from whatever resources were available.  Estates at Beaumonts, London Road and Slimmons Farm became available, augmenting the private developments from the thirties at Beaumonts, Spencer, Camp and Breakspear; and in the fifties at Marshalswick.

In 1979 further private developments had been launched at former farms and later in the grounds of former hospitals.  Today, if there was an all-embracing list, with or without points, how many potential home owners and tenants would show themselves to be in need of accommodation in this city; east, west, south or north?  Prices for even modest-sized homes are beyond many pockets and banks. Yet it is revealing that St Albans was one of the locations selected for a special edition of Monopoly!  As a young couple, still living in a modest parental home, commented recently: "finding a house (or flat, or even a barn) is not a game."  Which takes us back to 1919 – and in 1949 – because that is where many were forging out an existence, in barns, old caravans, huts and buildings awaiting demolition.  Articles in the Herts Advertiser reported, with unfortunate photographs, many eviction cases. And, if we include overcrowded and multi-occupied dwellings, many are probably still there in 2019; the hidden population of St Albans.

SAOEE's New Year Greetings is for you more than anyone, though you are the residents who are most unlikely to be reading this message.

Green Cheer

It is hoped both of the following items of environmental news will bring St Albans' residents some seasonal cheer, but of course, no-one can guarantee one or both announcements would not be considered controversial by a proportion of people living in this city.  But let's look on the bright side – cup half full approach – and see them as positive opportunities.

Former Butterwick Farm

The extensive swathe of land  inside of the box between the St Albans Bypass, Smallford Lane, Hatfield Road and Colney Heath Lane these days has the name Smallford Pits.  Until the 1960s it was a working farm, Butterwick, before becoming gravel workings and then infilled.  There have been many proposals for future uses as industry, housing, sports stadium, and possibly other ideas, but nothing has been actioned as yet.  

COURTESY GOOD ENERGY

The County Council, which owns the site, is now set to spend money to enable access to the power grid and to allow the land to be used as a solar farm.  124 acres will accommodate enough panels to generate up to 22 Mw of energy, so that's 22 megawatts St Albans can use without burning fossil fuels, but only during the day time of course.  Still, it's clean energy and it's making sensible use of land which has no current use except for horse grazing and dog walking.  Tick number one from a council.

New planting at Heartwood backed by mature woodland.

The second announcement hails from the District Council which has committed to planting 600,000 trees during the next few years. As with the solar scheme this is largely an enabling project, where cost contributions will come from other sources, but the planting land will belong to the Council.  

The recent announcement also links with the decision, made public some while back, that the County Council intends to reduce its tree costs on land it owns and especially on new development projects which specify trees in their designs.  The District Council is taking over responsibility from the County for the latter's tree estate along and close to the district's public highways.  It is understood that the District Council will be encouraging the community to participate in the periodic seasonal tree planting projects. Tick number two from a council – and a third tick for community involvement.


 

A Collection of Names

The first edition of St Albans' Own East End Volume 2 lists the names of all streets in the East End which were in existence down to the 1960s.  That is where the history told in these books concluded.  However, development has not ceased and there have been many pockets of expansion since then.  The street names list will be brought up to date in the next edition.

Harrier End

In the meantime we will focus on just a few which bring the list bang up to date, beginning our search for the meanings behind the names – and it is a search in which we can all join.


Harrier End: Most of us will refer to it as the ongoing Sandpit Lane development, or Oaklands Grange.  But families are now living in the first tranche of homes to be completed.  Roads in or near open country with names having a connection with the landscape might refer to Harrier as a bird of prey.  On the other hand, less than a mile away was de Havilland Aircraft Company. When it merged with Hawker Siddeley and in the 1960s the combine designed and manufactured a vertical take-off aeroplane much used in the Royal Navy, the product was named the Harrier Jump Jet.  Harrier End could therefore be either – or something else.

Austen Way early in the development.  COURTESY STREETVIEW

Austen Way:  The development on Beaumont School's front field was marketed as Kingsbury Gardens, though at the opposite end of the city from the Kingsbury we historically know.  Now the homes are complete the street plate has gone up: Austen Way.  I did attempt to find out the origin from the development company and wasn't surprised to receive no reply.  Now I have discovered a second plate to the west of the site, Bronte Close, and the answer is clear.  So, a literary connection!

Montague Close COURTESY DANIELS

Montague Close: An access drive in Hatfield Road opposite Sutton Road is named Montague Close.  The driveway originally gave a connection to a farrier's workshop and later to vans belonging to the laundry on which the new development has been created.  The origin of the name used is currently unknown, so, unless there is a Shakespearian connection, your suggestions will be welcomed.


Now three roads which have been in place for some time: first Langford Close is the site of former garages which served the Chestnut Drive homes.  Though a very narrow entry it does sport a street plate.  Is there a connection with a Bedfordshire village, or one in Oxfordshire?  Or is it perhaps the name of a person?


A small development off Windermere Avenue was named Staveley Court.  This name continues the group of roads based on the Lake District.  OK, so that one was easy, but finally, leading off Jersey Lane is Jodie's Court.  Far from a new development the connection remains unclear.  So, who, or what, was Jodie?  It's over to you, and the residents of Jodie's Court may be the first to let us know.