Temporary buildings

During the next few years there are likely to be more temporary classrooms arriving on school fields and playgrounds, as the child population increases.  Previous attempts to ensure there were just enough places for the cohorts of local children were never going to work permanently.  Of course, 'Portacabin' classrooms are nothing new: Camp School's 'bungalow' arrived in 1936, and Fleetville School required similar facilities the following year.

Wartime nurseries, such as the one at Fleetville were made of sturdier materials, but were, nonetheless, a temporary solution to accommodation problems.  Fleetville Nursery, erected in 1942, continues to serve its community functions over 70 years later.  In 1946 huge numbers of HORSA huts were put up at secondary schools to serve the increased school leaving age to 15; and many were still in place to welcome pupils nearly thirty years later when the leaving age was raised further to sixteen.

Churches, of course, have often acquired temporary buildings; both Hatfield Road Methodist Church and St Paul's put up their tin buildings; and the formative St Mary's began with a second-hand timber structure.

The first Bunch of Cherries building.

Scouts are no strangers to wooden or concrete temporary buildings either, although it is rare for these to be replaced with permanent headquarters buildings; the 8th and the 9th are the only groups I can recall having done so.  When, in 1949, a new pub was granted a licence, another type of licence – for a building – could not be given, and so, until 1963, two pre-war wooden huts were pressed into service at the Bunch of Cherries.  And when their time had come, both huts were demounted by willing scouting volunteers and pressed into further service for the 2nd and the 16th scout groups.

Salwey headquarters of the 2nd (Camp) St Albans Scouts.

Several units of the Home Guard had wooden army huts, one standing at the corner of Central Drive and Hazelwood Drive.  These too must have enjoyed second lives somewhere or other.  Similar huts housed prisoners of war at Oaklands, Gorhambury, London Colney and other locations, and were then used to ease the housing shortage.  Then there were the 'ten-year' prefabs which were brought in to do the same job, but with local and national authority approval (the huts were really squatter accommodation).  That ten-year lifespan has stretched until, well, today, as a visit to Mitchell Close will reveal!

Smallford Station today from the former station yard.

Quiet railway branches often relied on timber or metal structures as stations, which might have arrived – by rail of course – in flat-pack form.  Usually given regular coats of company-colour paint they lasted pretty well.  We all know of one local station building, at Smallford, which has remained in surprisingly good condition in the 62 years since it last saw a passenger, thanks partly to it being on private land and covered on one side by undergrowth.  If you are in the city centre during the next two weeks, call in at the central library to view the little exhibition which Smallford Residents' Association have created there.  The Association intends to renovate the former Smallford Station, either in-situ or at another location.

Though not in St Albans, Barclay's Bank opened its Welwyn Garden City branch in a tiny – and I really mean tiny – timber building near the Campus in the 1920s, and International Stores, Sainsbury's and Marks and Spencer were among the retailers who deployed Nissen huts in the years after WW2.

We seem to have relied on our temporary structures in so many circumstances.

Share photos

First of all, apologies for the missing posts recently.  Well, they aren't really missing; just that there was a severe shortage of time to write them.

Last Sunday, a large number of people gathered at Fleetville Junior School for the annual festival of music; a most enjoyable event.  Fleetville Diaries also attended, with a twin exhibition.  Home From Home is a grant-aided project which focuses on the lives of a number of Fleetville residents who came here, often as children with their parents, from Asian, African or European countries.  Share Photos, the second exhibition, displays a number of pictures which have been donated by present or former residents of the eastern districts of St Albans.  Both exhibitions will be on view once more at St Paul's Community Day on April 13th, and then at Larks in the Parks at Fleetville Rec.  We can also take it to other local events during the year if organisers let us know ( bloom_liz@yahoo.co.uk )

SACS mobile shop

The importance of Share Photos to all of us continues to be revealed with every new picture which is emailed to me, or hides in each envelope arriving through the post.  Even after Sunday's showing, new pictures have arrived which amply demonstrate the value of searching out photos which may have a connection with other people.  Some of this week's arrivals are on the website, and on this blog.  Keep looking everyone!

There are several pictures around of one of the Co-op mobile shops, but Gordon, who used to work for the company, has also sent one of a fitted-out vehicle just before being stocked with its travelling products.

Imagine the tins of peas and biscuits!

He also found a photo of the Co-op's Cambridge Road grocery shop.

The shop in Cambridge Road.

Camp School class in 1931.

Carlton F C 1945/6

Not only that, but there was a fully named picture of a Camp School class from 1931 and a Carlton football team in which he played.  While, at present, I am uncertain about the origin of the name Carlton, it is understood that its players all lived in or around Burnham Road.  Does anyone else recall the team from the immediate post-war period?
























Volume 2 of St Albans' Own East End is still expected to be published in mid-April, which means just three weeks away.  As soon as I have a fixed date this will be posted on the website.  Meanwhile, signed copies of Volume 1 are available.  If you live in the St Albans District, I will deliver it to your door, and of course, free of postage.  Email saoee@me.com

Meanwhile, the Smallford Project members have been discovering more about their community, and on Wednesday 27th March Fleetville Diaries will be hosting a presentation by the author of the new book about Sopwell, Sandy Norman.  You are welcome to join us at Fleetville Community Centre at 7.30pm.

Herts Advertiser pictures

Readers of the blog will know that an ongoing project in conjunction with HALS has been the re-photographing of all pictures that appeared in the Herts Advertiser between 1912 and 1960.  This has become necessary now that the newspaper's original photographic archive no longer exists.  Part one of the project has been completed while the condition of many of the issues have not deteriorated beyond the point where they can no longer be handled.

The Herts Advertiser has always sold photographic quality prints of the photographs its staff have taken, even if they were not published.  The first photograph is an example, submitted by Mike.  It is, of course, superior in definition to that which appeared in the newspaper.  Compare it with the smaller version below right.  Two other HA original prints are also shown here, below left and bottom left.

Competition winners at the former
Odeon Cinema

Scouts (group not known) with the
Mayor.

If, therefore, you have a photograph which you, or a member of your family, purchased from the Herts Advertiser more than twenty years ago, would you be willing to share it with us?  It would enable at least a small proportion of the pictures to remain in high-definition format rather than as newsprint dots.  A scan at 300 dpi and saved as a .jpg or .tif can be sent via email to saoee@me.com.  Try to add as much detail as possible, such as year, event, and the people in the picture.  You will be doing local history a favour!

Family picnic

Around 1995 I was given a video about St Albans which was then available in the shops.  It was called Bygone St Albans – a montage of cine footage taken at various times, and included such themes as the 1948 pageant, views from the Clock Tower, the Highland Games, fetes, weekend camps and archaeological digs.  For the first time in many years I have taken the opportunity to view the video once more.  Among the fifty minutes were three gems relevant to St Albans' East End.

First were three or four pan shots of the neo-georgian building which was W O Peake's factory in Hatfield Road, opposite Clarence Park.  It was a wonderfully-proportioned building which stretched from the right of the former Crown post office (now the Chilli Raj restaurant) to Granville Road.  When no longer required as a factory it was still in very good structural condition, yet it was replaced.  Here is a tantalising picture of the Peake building (sometimes floodlit) with its climbing plants around the door and manicured lawn behind the front wall.  Surprisingly, very few pictures have surfaced of Peake's factory.  If you have one you would be happy to share I would love to hear from you.  Meanwhile, enjoy this sample.

Then, if you were a child of the 1950s and 60s you may remember the children's funfair each summer at Verulamium Park.  It was organised by fairground ride owner Charles Hart, probably better known for his fairground and theatre organ collection in Camp Road.  Once again, pictures of Mr Hart's fairground rides are rarely seen.  Here, then, is one sample screen shot from the video.




Finally, the one topic which left the confines of the Abbey, Verulamium Park and city centre, came to rest in our patch, more specifically "Marshalswick and Jersey Farms."  The narrator was not specific but mentioned "Woodstock Road and Sandpit Lane," which was rather vague, especially in connection with the first quote.  A family picnic – mother, father and two children.  Well, I assume that the camera operator is the father of the family.  No buildings are visible, the ground is steeply sloping, the landscape is scrubby and there is evidence of the base of a tree trunk.  Mother and the two children are shown, with the boy in his school blazer.  Does anyone recognise this family?  The film was taken in the late fifties.  Over to you!

The video is still available as a DVD, from www.bygonefilms.org.uk

Trust the park

A public forum meeting took place on Thursday last at the Council Chamber.  Its purpose had intended to be to discuss and to take forward proposals from the council's legal department, updating the Trust Deed which governs part of Clarence Park.  Rumours and counter-rumours ensured that there was also a sizeable public presence, as much concerned about what St Albans City Football Club may or may not be proposing; and whether the council's intended trust changes and the club's ideas were suspiciously linked.

A shaded corner of the council-run part of Clarence Park.

From the historian's perspective I could not help wondering what history would make of this civic spat; how would it be recorded for someone in the course of the next century to make sense of?

Let's start with the Trust Deed.  Since the formation of the park in 1894, the sporting area of the park – what the deed refers to as the recreational park – is controlled by the trust, and historically the trustees are all members of the city council cabinet.  The area nearest to Hatfield Road, which has all the nice trees, the children's play area and the bandstand, is managed directly by – the city council!  So the proposal is to have the trust deed cover the whole of the park, "to make it more straightforward to manage".  So far, so good.  But the original wording of the deed would, if agreed to, be embellished, with clauses such as, "the power to permit clubs, societies and organisations to carry out improvements to the recreation ground and to erect buildings and provide equipment,"  and "the power to acquire land."

This is where many smelled a rat and made their own connection with what they had heard the football club was up to.  News of a stadium, restaurants and a nursery had done the rounds, and for many that was several steps too far for a traditional Edwardian park.

City Football Club owner Lawrence Levy was present and was asked directly to explain his proposals.  It appears that there are four options which the club is considering:  a future entirely in the football zone at the park; one where the match centre is at the park with ancillary training and youth facilities elsewhere; the reverse of option two with the match centre elsewhere; and full facilities elsewhere with no presence at the park whatsoever.

A vista across the formerly gravel-worked Butterwick Farm.

The "elsewhere" site being considered by the club is already well advertised.  The East End of St Albans would be home to the new site, on space behind the north side of Colney Heath Lane.  Some of us will recall this as the home of former Butterwick Farm and Smallford Farm.  It appears to be a sensible location, near the bypass and and a walking route, Alban Way; although, no doubt, residents of the lane and its little closes will have reservations.


By the end of the evening those against football club developments at the park could relax a little, for the main decision turned on the Trust Deed alterations, plus one other rather important aspect.  The meeting was part of a wider public consultation, which included a survey form.  Many considered the questions to be poorly worded, with several of them leading the respondents towards a particular answer.  The meeting told the council to look again at the Trust Deed and to obtain advice from experts on creating a better survey form.

The Bunch of Cherries

This week I have received a picture typical of the 1950s.  Taken in the coal yard at the old Fleetville sidings – now Coach Mews – it shows two Kendall's coal lorries, having picked up a new load for delivery.  Kendall's took over the coal business from Stanton's, whose family had a wood and coal business in Castle Road.  Many thanks to Steve Kendall for letting us recall those days, when children were often asked to "count the bags in" and to "go into the road and pick up any dropped lumps."  A photo of Kendall's shop in Bycullah Terrace appeared recently on the front page of the website and is now on the photo library page.

Thanks also to Janet Lang who is now able to let us see once again, not only the pub sign for the Bunch of Cherries public house at Oaklands, but also a drawing of the first building.  This was occupied in 1949 when the licence was first granted, but at a time when no licences were available to erect permanent structures.  Use was made of former builders' huts, believed to be already on site from  unfinished pre-war house-building activities.  The huts remained in service until the 1960s when the present house was put up by owners, Whitbread.

It is rare to find a group photograph with all of the names of those appearing listed on the reverse.  Fortunately Janet had undertaken that task as soon as she received a copy of the picture in 1961.  If you were in Oakwood School's top class of 1961/2, and were taught by Mr David Sidnell, then visit the School Groups 2 page of the website.  You will only be disappointed if you were absent on that day!

It seemed about time to give some coverage to a former hamlet known as Camp Hill.  First identified on a map in 1766 with a single house, it became home to an increasing number of families, initially associated with farming and domestic occupations; and then, from the start of the twentieth century, to industries setting up nearby, including the rubber works, electricity works and printing works.   Work places also came to the hamlet, although all no longer exist.  Today there are a number of modern office and apartment buildings near the top of the hill, but it all seemed to begin with a single home, known as Camp House.  There is now a new page on the website called Camp Hill; see the menu list on the righthand side of the Welcome page.

Thomas Smith

Last week I finally went in search of the will of Thomas E Smith, whose printing factory launched Fleetville.  Finding the date of his death was not easy, for a start.  Enter Smith, Thomas,  London into any search engine and you are confronted with dozens of possibilities.  After much searching and cross referencing, I discovered that Mr Smith lived in a very grand house in Enfield; a house called Bycullah House, in Bycullah Road.  So there is our link to Bycullah Terrace in Fleetville!  According to the obituary in the local newspaper in Enfield he was a driven man, taking little rest and having a mountain of different interests.  One of them being the Liberal cause.  He had just returned by train from St Albans where he had been addressing a Liberal meeting, when he collapsed and died while running along the platform to catch the last train home at Kings Cross Station (today Enfield trains leave from Liverpool Street).  This occurred in February 1904.  I still have not discovered a photograph of the founder of Smith's Printing Works, and his Enfield house is no longer there.  It and the grounds in which it was set have long since been transformed into a housing estate.













Ian, who kindly provided that lovely photo of Branson's shop, on the corner of Harlesden Road and Burnham Road (now on the Photo Library page of the website) has sent two more locally relevant pictures.  Although no other information accompanied the pictures, shown here, it is likely that the Osborne advertisement was printed on the back of the admission ticket to the sports meeting, held in 1922.  Until the opening of Verulamium Park a considerable number of open air entertainments took place at Clarence Park.  Even through the 1950s the Co-operative Society held its annual family Co-operators' Days there.  The modern connection between bananas and sporting activity is clearly not so new.  Osborne, a fruiterer was in Hatfield Road, near the Methodist Church.  It later became Jagel's, fruiterers.  Now it is Connecting People, a recruitment agency.  The street number is now different, following a renumbering in 1932.

I have also received a tantalising glimpse inside the Kendall's shop in Bycullah Terrace, as it was when this final house in the parade was converted to a shop in the 1950s.  Thanks to Steve for sending it.  I am hoping he will be able to produce a higher resolution picture so that it can be further enlarged and enjoyed.






Finally, I have found one – just one – example of those cinema poster boards that could once be found.  Usually a red Odeon panel sat next to a blue Gaumont one; both cinemas being owned by the same parent company.  This 1959 example comes from Exeter.  Does anyone possess a photograph in which one or two of these boards appear?  Let's hope so, and of course, the film being advertised will help to date the photograph.