Looking down

From the early days of flight pilots and their passengers have peered downwards on our cities, villages and landscapes in awe.  This, after all, was the perspective on our world which had never been previously experienced, except for the more limited views from the heights of tall buildings; and they were nothing like the height of the Shard at London Bridge.

Companies have, since the end of WW1, taken oblique photos from the cockpit of, or special ports on the underside of, small aircraft.  A collection measured in millions thus accumulated, but there was never an easy method of searching for what people might be interested in, and reels of early negatives on unstable film steadily deteriorated, and continue to do so.

Fortunately, the entire surviving collection is gradually being scanned, digitised and made available online – www. britainfromabove.org.uk    It is a project of considerable timescale, but this week the organisation announced its most recent batch of newly treated pictures.

Among them were a number of 1939 shots of de Havilland's and even earlier pictures of the airstrip, aero club and the firm's swimming pool.  There are fine studies of Welwyn Garden City before WW2, and in St Albans a number of photos, taken from a variety of angles of the Electrical Apparatus Company (EAC) off Mile House Lane.   These complement earlier arrivals on the site of the Rubber Works, Salvation Army Printing Works and the Electricity Works.

It is well worthwhile searching the St Albans' pictures now available.  You will discover enthusiasts skating on the lake in the winter of 1946/7, the business of Mercer's in St Stephen's Hill, the fields beside the St Albans Bypass before Roger Aylett brought his youthful enthusiasm for a nursery there.  It is possible to spot two cottages which once stood to the north of the junction of Hill End Lane and London Road, before the new housing development and school arrived.  You can almost identify the crops growing in many of the allotments behind Springfield.

However familiar the scene, it is rewarding to simply enjoy the experience of picking out little details in each photograph, and of course our familiarity with streets does not always prepare us for discovering what once
lay behind the facades.  Google Earth may cause us to take for granted how our urban landscapes are laid out today.  Seeing the views from the 1920s or 1930s will always surprise.

Delivery a little late

In last week's blog I related how the curator of the South Africa Astronomy Society in Johannesburg has been seeking information about a telescope we had made for them.

I say 'we' because the device, made by the telescope company with the highest of reputations, was made in Fleetville.  Howard Grubb was a Dublin company until the UK government, in 1916, installed it in the ailing printing works building which later became Ballito.  You can read further details in the previous blog.

A recently taken photo, courtesy Michael Robins, of the telescope within
the building originally constructed for it.

It now appears that the order for the telescope was placed in 1909, but was not finally delivered until 1925!  So, the early work was undertaken in Ireland, but of course progress on the telescope came to a halt for the duration of the war.  It was substantially complete, however, in 1920, and most of the rest of the time was occupied in making a successful casting of the substantial lens, called an objective glass.  To indicate how tentative the delivery date was, the firm made the name plate and dated it 1923, although it was a further two years before the parts were shipped to South Africa for assembly in the building which the Society had completed in 1912.  The cost, on delivery, was £7,375

The curator tells me that serious research was stopped on this particular instrument in the early 1970s because of the high level of light pollution, but it is still in use for viewing and outreach programmes.

It was designed specifically for double star viewing, and the number discovered by 1961 was 6,555, which, the curator informs me, was the most by any telescope at the time.  The instrument is now owned by the South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement.

Rather like hearing what school friends have been doing with their lives when we meet them later, this news is fascinating in that it makes us aware of unusual products made in St Albans' Own East End, how they have performed and  how long they have lasted.  Proud Fleetville is part of this particular story.

Work in secret

A business arrived in Fleetville in 1916 and remained for nine years; yet at the time, and since, its existence was little known.  Strange, since it occupied one of the most identifiable factory buildings in the district, even though that building no longer exists.  For some I only need to mention the name Ballito; for others it is Morrison's.  They are two of the post-WW2 occupiers, not the secretive company.

During the middle of WW1 the highly reputable Irish company of Howard Grubb, who designed and built optical and refractive telescopes, was contracted by the Government to undertake development work on submarine periscopes and gun sights.  Since this was highly classified research, the Government brought the company to St Albans and installed it in a half-empty printing firm called Smith's Printing Agency, Hatfield Road, Fleetville.  Until 1921 there were active D Notices on the building, preventing  information about Grubb's activities from being  published.

The company's peacetime role included building some of the world's largest telescopes – so large in fact, that much of the construction work had to be undertaken outside, which is where passers-by would have seen the intriguing work in progress.  By 1925, Grubb's was merged with another company in Newcastle, and was renamed Grubb Parsons.

This story has become topical because the curator of the South Africa Astronomy Society (Johannesburg Section) is searching for an operating manual for the Grubb 26.5 inch refracting telescope, which the Society has in the city.  This model was not far off being the world's largest at the time, and if made between 1918 and 1925, was certainly manufactured in Fleetville.

So, if you are keen on astronomy, and if there's the remotest possibility that you have an operating manual for the Grubb 26.5 inch refracting telescope, could you just check your bookshelf or the loft?  I have a curator who is in need of it, and I can put you in touch.

Another alternative road name
A reader of Volume 1 contacted me recently about the lane near the old Hill End railway crossing called Hixberry Lane.  It connects this point near Colney Heath Lane, with Tyttenhanger Green at the Plough.  A friend of his is certain this lane was also called the Ashpath and wants to know whether this is correct.  With local names it is always a possibility, and one lane may have two or more such local names, in addition to a name added to a map.  The tithe map (1840) even states that it was called Beastney's Lane.  As this seems to have occurred on only one surviving document, it is not possible to conclude that it was a name in transition or whether it was a cartographer's error.

The Ashpath is well-known for being the local name for the farm track between Hatfield Road and Hill End Lane, later receiving an official name Ashley Road.  Although Ashpath is only one of the local names for the track; many people also knew it as the Cinder Track.  If you knew Hixberry Lane by another name, do please email me ( saoee@me.com ).

Of course, I would also like to receive news of any other road in the district which you or your family called by a name other than the one it was given (its official name).  I can add these to the Streets page of the website.

Getting our history right

When the number of blogs slow down, you can bet that the blogger is busy on other matters!  Not necessarily on matters of local history of course.  This is harvesting time on the allotments, holiday time for some of us, and catch-up time for the rest, who have jobs of various kinds waiting in the wings for the normal lack of opportunity to attend to them.

However, there have been several experiences or events to report.

A younger relative of an elderly gentleman contacted me this week after a visit they had made to the gentleman's childhood home.  All was going well until they arrived at Marshalswick and they were trying to orientate themselves, and he to remember back through time exactly where the house was.  They found the house, only to discover it couldn't be, since it was the wrong street.  Was the man's memory wrong?  I was able to set their minds at rest; the road was renamed c1960 to avoid confusion with an almost identical name close by.  But I can imagine it was a confusing moment, just when his memory needed that final support, only to find a completely different street plate!

Occasionally I come across examples of stories that are mixtures of fact and repeated fiction.  Such is the oft-told legend around the name of the Rats' Castle in Fleetville.  Since there will be blog readers who have not been able to read my book, St Albans' Own East End Volume 1, I have launched a new Rats' Castle page on the website.  The data currently on the page will be added to shortly, and I will find a better version of one or two of the maps.  But it is a start.

An excellent example of diligent research around a story came my way recently, when I had sight of a thoroughly researched document about a bombing incident at de Havilland's in 1940.  The author, Terry Pankhurst, had sourced nearly thirty eye-witness and other very different, and sometimes conflicting, accounts which had been recorded since the incident, teasing out the factually correct, the probable, possible, unlikely, and plainly wrong contents of the reports; and then, using the evidence available, attempting to write as correct a version as records,  common sense and the passing of time would allow.  I have no idea at this moment whether the report has been published.  If it has been I will recommend everyone to read it as a lesson to all of us who are involved in disseminating information.

A delighted reader of St Albans' Own East End Volume 2 this week had discovered a family member who had been named as a member of his school football team in the 1920s, but she did not recognise the book which had provided that information and which I had acknowledged.  I was able to show her, not only the reference, but also two photographs in Bob Bridie's book, now alas out of print, 100 years: a History of Schools Football in St Albans.  A reference to the very same boy a few years later, in the Roll of Honour in Volume 2, enabled the reader to inquire about the young man's final resting place.  Regrettably this was likely to have been "at sea."  However, by using the admirable website of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, we were able to establish that his name is attached to the extensive Naval Memorial at Portsmouth.  No doubt she will be arranging a visit in due course.

Finally, and on a more personal note, I discovered, after the event, that I had been sitting almost next to a man I had last seen in 1965, when he was 15 and I was working in the same establishment.  We each of us realised the 'near miss' at the Community Archives Conference only when we each visited the same forum a couple of days later, and our names were revealed!  Since then, a project has been launched to enable the stories of around 40 children of the time to relate their early experiences which led to their arrival in the UK at the Pestalozzi Children's Village in Sussex.

Other projects where have been, or are being, collated in and around St Albans, include Home from Home by Fleetville Diaries, and Smallford Memories by Smallford Residents' Association.

"To allot or apportion ..."

This month is the peak of the season for picking fruits.  The pigeons, snails, mice, deer, and any other non-invitees, may have attempted to eat you out of home and, well, allotment, but there is no greater satisfaction than a spell on your very own allotment at present.  That, if you have the time.  And if you don't you will lose this year's crop.  What fruits have you grown?  Maybe strawberries,  raspberries, currents in varied colours, gooseberries if you can overcome the spikes.  Later will come the blackberries, although I already have a few of the advance guard.  The hot dry weather is making it difficult for some vegetables to produce useful material for us, but, hey, we can't always win on all fronts.

St Albans abounds with allotments although there were many more grounds than exist today.  But then, allotments have always tended to be temporary in nature.  Camp district had vast swathes of former farms at Beastneys, Little Cell Barnes and Cunningham.  Hatfield Road sported allotment grounds to the east of the cemetery, and there were growing spaces in Burleigh Road, the Willow estate, Gurney Court Road, Chestnut Drive, on spaces between the houses on slow-to-develop housing developments between WW1 and WW2, and in a dozen other places.  They are the lungs of our busy lives, quiet oases (usually) where we can relax and think.  Long live allotments.

Sandridge parish of St Leonard is making preparations to celebrate its 900th anniversary in 2014 (before the 1100s it was part of the vast parish of St Peter).  I notice that the event now has its own website – www.sandridge900.com   You may like to keep an eye on it for further details of the ways the parish intends to celebrate.  After all, it's not every day that you get to celebrate your 900th birthday!

If you are reading this on Sunday 21st July before 8pm, you are just in time.  If not, there are always the ever-useful TV catch-up services.  Tonight there is finally a programme on Channel 4 about the plane which most people forget.  For once it is not the Spitfire which has caught the programmers' attention, but our very own 'wooden wonder' the Mosquito (Mozzie), designed and built by the de Havilland Aircraft Company, Hatfield.




And while on the topic of forthcoming events, the Magna Carta is coming to St Albans.  Although it sounds like a blockbuster movie,  the Cathedral is hosting this rare event, and if we book in advance, we get our own personal few minutes with the revered document.  I can't help feeling the emotion would have been completely different if the exhibition had been held in or around 1086.

Keeping it Central

Everyone has seen them and most of us have stood in front of the rotating camera which produced them.  I am referring to those panorama pictures, usually associated with secondary schools.  Not easy to handle once you get the photo in your hands, it often ends up permanently rolled into a scroll and deposited in a remote cupboard.

But the panoramas contain reminders of our friends and it inevitable that we try to reproduce them on internet sites.  But the only effective solution is to scan or re-photograph the original image in sections.  It is in this form that I have received a collection of five overlapping images of the girls and teachers of Central Girls' School when their new buildings first opened in 1931.  The quality of the original photograph was so good that it was possible to create a small portrait of a single pupil without losing too much definition.  Unfortunately, for internet purposes, I have to lose some of that quality in order to preserve the bandwidth.  But it marks a milestone in the collection of images sent to the website.  I wonder how many other panoramas are out there, waiting to be seen and appreciated once more.

A new page appears on the website from today.  Not so long ago there was a feature about the history of Camp Hill settlement.  The additional information which subsequently appeared there now has its own page, and has been extended.  It deals with the vexed subject of avoiding the payment of tolls at the former Camp Road Toll on the Reading and Hatfield Turnpike (Hatfield Road today) at the Crown Junction.  You can read about the avoiding route which can still be followed through the Breakspear estate and Dellfield towards Cunningham Hill Farm.

It is always fascinating to dip into other local history websites from other areas, and at the Conference for Community Archives this week we were introduced to a number of groups who are taking different approaches to recording and exploring in their own areas.  But, on the whole, the exploring and recording are not being undertaken by young people, if the past three annual conferences are anything to measure by.  This year, however, a major award was picked up by two Essex teenagers doing their own exploring and recording in the area around Canvey.  They weren't only keen and dedicated, they were also prepared to put others in the shade, ready to make a presentation to around one hundred delegates three, four or even five times their ages.  Just visit www.beyondthepoint.co.uk.  The second photo on their front page shows the pair receiving their award from Nick Barratt (Who Do You Think You Are?) a few days ago.

Centenary for the rec

No, you didn't miss last weekend's blog; the words didn't just evaporate, never to be seen again.  Last weekend was spent entirely in the open air, and at two local events.  Fleetville Diaries and St Albans' Own East End met many local east enders in the summer sunshine.

A story from the Laid to Rest: Baker's Dozen walk.
Photo courtesy Frank Brittain.

Around twenty-five people joined us at Hatfield Road cemetery on Saturday, where we led a guided walk.  Beginning with the rather confused and messy beginning and laying out of the cemetery, where there appeared to be a scrum-like queue for burials from Abbey parish, where alternative land had long since been exhausted.  We moved around the extensive and beautiful grounds, pausing every so often to listen to the life story of an artist, an architect, stationmaster, butcher or nurseryman.  How could we miss out that of seed man and quiet golf cup hero, Samuel Ryder?  Finally, there was a scouting story, where this part of Hertfordshire was revealed as the exemplar for how the organisation developed.

Hatfield Road Cemetery remains a surprisingly "remote" place, even though the busy Hatfield Road passes its gates.  Few of us have ventured in, and many is the time I have heard guests on our walks there admit that, though they have lived in the district for a long time, they have never taken the opportunity to spend a little time here.  Now, perhaps, 25 people will make a return call; and Fleetville Diaries will be making a return call with its second guided walk, Pioneers, on September 28th at 2pm.  Book now by emailing bloom_liz@yahoo.co.uk

Sunday was another gloriously sunny summer day for Larks on the Rec, a community fun day on Fleetville's Woollam-donated recreation ground.  I mention in passing the reference to Charles Woollam, who was a well-known benefactor in this city in the early years of the last century.  At the Woollam  playing fields along Harpenden Road the sign stands out clearly.  But at Fleetville there is no reference at all to the man who gave us the open space in which we can enjoy ourselves.

Back to Sunday.  Music drifted across the field, the aroma of cooked food as well.  Children played their games, families soaked up the sun at informal picnics – and in the centre of it all (well, the centre of one side!) the Fleetville Diaries/St Albans' Own East End marquee gave visitors a chance to view the latest exhibitions, pick up leaflets or try one or more of the activities (intended for the children but enjoyed by all).  Such was the level of interest that I realised at the end of the afternoon I had not left the marquee since midday, and had enjoyed many chats with those who had called in at the tent.  Such was the wonderfully warm weather, and the atmosphere,  I think most Larkers would have remained on the rec until mid evening, but all events have to end sometime.

How many other special events, I wonder, have taken place on the rec since it was first seeded in 1913?  Of course there have been thousands of football games and hundreds of sports days, but what else?

This is a space which we all take for granted.  One man dug into his pockets and purchased it for us to enjoy.  IT IS, ABOVE ALL, A SPACE WHICH CELEBRATES ITS CENTENARY THIS YEAR.  Thank you, Charles.