This is 1977

Festalban 77 brochure

There have been many Carnivals in St Albans, but the first, managed by the Round Table, was in 1977.  The event came about in that year as a result of the Diocese celebrating the centenary of its formation.  The period of events was given the name FESTALBAN 77.

There was another major event in 1977, this time a national celebration: the Silver Jubilee of the accession of Queen Elizabeth II.  What with the diocesan and the national celebrations, 1977 and the years which followed, there are memories of street parties, carnival floats and decorated streets.  The carnival floats continued to be a feature of the St Albans Carnival scene until fairly recently.

The best decorated street award for
Cambridge Road in 1977.
COURTESY THE HERTS ADVERTISER

In conversations recently among present and former residents of some of the Camp estate streets – especially Cambridge Road – there have been several references to a plaque awarded to Cambridge Road, although the details of where it was sited and the reason for its presentation to the street, are mixed and rather vague.

It is now possible to shed more light on this award as a result of a little 'sleuthing' among the pages of the Herts Advertiser, when on October 21st 1977 – when the cover price was a modest six pence – there appeared an attractive photo, shown right, of the plaque with three smiling youngsters.  Do you know them; are they readers of this blog?  Sarah and David Gilder, and Caroline Mundye.

The plaque was sponsored by the Herts Advertiser for the best decorated Silver Jubilee larger street in St Albans; Dickens Close also won the award for smaller streets.

The plaque was presented to the road's organiser, Mrs Pat Newman.  It is thought that Mrs Newman was also instrumental in the formation of the Cambridge Road Residents' Association at about the same time.  Perhaps this event was the reason for the Association's formation.

There are recollections of the plaque being on show, but not specifically where or for how long.  So, we are left with three interesting questions:

Residents aboard the 'Jolly Cambridge' pirate ship, the theme of
Cambridge Road's carnival float.
COURTESY PAUL ELAND.

1.  Was the plaque fixed to the front of a house in Cambridge Road, and if so, which one?

2.  When was it removed?

3.  What happened to it, and where is it now?

Of course, if there are any surviving photographs of these street partying, float-building, plaque-awarding days forty-eight years ago, would you be willing to share them with the present generation of Fleetville and Camp residents?

This brings us back to a recurring topic: former shops in and around Cambridge Road.  Number 16 was a sweet shop.  Is there here a connection with the Newman's?

One for the Album

Those of you who read the blog post Going to the Shop recently will have been reminded that there were several shops at the Sutton Road end of Cambridge Road.

Cambridge Road

It was partly as a result of an interesting community project nearby that the photograph shown in that post came my way.  For the past year a small group of people who live, or have previously lived, in Cambridge Road and Camp View Road, came together to discover more about their roads and the interesting people who have lived there.  I have been taking an interest, not because I have ever lived in Cambridge Road, but because I walked the road almost every day when I was a child, on my way to and from my grandmother's house.

Juliet at her retirement,
from the Herts Advertiser

Just as I was beginning to recall vague details of people I knew of – including the shopkeepers of course – and recalling a particular person who lived in one of those pairs of semi-detached homes on the hill above Maxwell Road, I received an email about the very same person.  For me Miss Juliet Haddon was just someone I knew of who ran a photographer's studio in Victoria Street,  and who happened to live in Cambridge Road,.  But to Nicholas, who emailed me, Miss Haddon was his great aunt.  Her reputation for producing excellent photographic studies, and working closely with her subjects, was widely known and respected.  What Nicholas lacks is examples of her work.

Juliet Haddon

Juliet was born in Clapham, south London, the daughter of a skilled artist.  While living in Cambridge she trained with a firm of studio photographers and then set up her own studio when she moved to St Albans.  Miss Haddon created a studio in part of what is now Addiktion Cycles, number 101 Victoria Street.  There were always examples of her work displayed in the front window space.  She continued to run her business until the age of 75, when he finally decided to 'call it a day'.  The Herts Advertiser ran a feature article in 1976 to celebrate her significant career and her retirement.  Miss Gertrude Juliet Haddon died in 1986.

I am sure there are residents, or former residents, of Cambridge Road, who knew her as a friend.  If you have any recollections of Juliet I would be delighted to know.  And if you have any photographs taken by her which you would be willing to share, Juliet's great nephew would be delighted to see them; I will pass them on.  The email address is, as usual: saoee@me.com

Running off another copy

There are former firms which operated in the East End of St Albans we know quite a lot about, especially those where, seemingly, everyone's mum, grandpa or aunt worked at one time or another.  Then there are companies we know little or nothing about.

Into this second category falls the printing company of Orford Smith.  This is not the same (Thomas)  Smith who came to Fleetville in 1897 and set up his works along Hatfield Road where Morrison's supermarket now trades.  Orford Smith found his plot in Fleetville – or some might call it Camp – two years earlier and thus became the district's earliest major factory.

Orford Smith had a large printing works constructed by Miskin's in Campfield Road.  And because it did not last long in his hands it is also the same building generations of St Albans people have known as the Salvation Army Printing Works, or the Campfield Press.

Orford Smith was fascinated by the new colour printing machines then becoming available (as was Thomas Smith of course, which is why he also brought his works to Fleetville).  Orford Smith's business, however, was a particular kind of colour printing for expensive products, such as reproductions of paintings and the colour plates for inserting into books.  In particular he was able to produce entire special issues of magazines which commemorated events of the day.

Of special importance were the souvenir issues of Illustrated London News (1842 to 2003).

Discovering the output of former printing works is often difficult.  So far I have tracked down just three products printed by Thomas Smith's machines, and to that I can now add one item from the Orford Smith works.  But what an item it is.  Illustrated London News published the souvenir issue celebrating Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.  Sixty pages, and only the advertisement pages were in black; the rest were pages of rich, glorious, pure colour, including gold and silver.

It was painstaking work and very expensive to produce, with up to sixteen passes for separate colours, with three different weights of high quality paper, before being bound into a book.  The result was nothing like one of today's Sunday supplements.  If an extra batch of copies was required the task was as time-consuming as preparing for the main print run.

If you chose to specialise in this high-end printing work, the risks were themselves high.  Very high.  We don't know whether it was this particular job which brought Smith's business crashing to the ground, or an accumulation of contracts, all of which may have cost a lot more than the agreed price.  But by 1899 the building was closed and a long recovery operation lay ahead for the administrators.  It was the result of this which brought the Salvation Army to St Albans.

So, let's enjoy three sample pages from the ILN's souvenir Diamond Jubilee supplement.  As we can see – some supplement!

Just Going to the Shop

Joseph Haynes at the shop, which is in his wife, Clara's, name.

It has been mentioned just once or twice in this blog devoted to the largest concentration of suburban retail in St Albans, that – even here – the individual corner shop was just as important to the East End as the rows of shops between the side roads along Hatfield Road.  The corner shops were possibly even more essential, given that in almost every case they were general groceries, which also sold a range of other goods which nearby householders might require at short notice.

Having swept all aside in the post second world war period, the major supermarkets are today  beginning to appreciate the value which customers once placed on the corner shop, as mini versions of the big stores once more come closer to where people actually live.

The premises today.

The reason for exploring corner shop culture yet again in the SAOEE blog series, is a photograph sent in from a member of the family who used to own one.  Although long-since closed it is still possible to see the evidence in the surviving fascia at 42 Camp View Road.  Here was the shop of Mr and Mrs J Haynes, and of course, Mr Haynes is standing in front of his business.

It seems that Mr Haynes' shop consisted of the main shop window section of two storeys, with the family living accommodation to the right, where can be seen part of the bay window.  At some point the side garden was brought into use for a single storey extension to the shop, although there was very little depth to this section, the plot boundary being steeply angled.  The quality of the building work connecting the extension to the main shop was, perhaps, not brilliant!

Shortly before WW2, the St Albans Co-operative Society secured the purchase of the space to the left of the shop – we can see a workshop on the site, as its owner, Mr J Mann was a coach builder here.  The Society built twin shops on the plot.  On the right, next to Mr Haynes, was a butchery; on the left was the Society's grocery.  Interestingly, the butchery's address was 44 Camp View Road, while the grocery became 2 Cambridge Road.  There were two doors from a single entrance.

Next door arrived the Co-op!

BUT – and this was significant – this was the time when Co-op shops became more popular.  It was also a critical time for retailing of all types.  For a time Mr Haynes' shop was taken over by Mr G Price.  But to have two small general shops next to each other was competitively challenging, and one trader had to give way.

Today the street frontage looks very different.  Two properties have been made out of the accommodation, and in order to provide separate entrances the bay window is replaced by a door.  Would we now know whether there was ever a shop here?  Well, the clue is in that fascia.

Note: there were other shops in and around Cambridge Road, for which we have  regrettably seen no photographic record.  Perhaps there is the odd picture around; if you have one, do please contact saoee@me.com

Friday evening at the Trestle

What did you do last Friday evening?  If not an impertinent question, you might have stayed at home or made a visit to the cinema.  Of course you may have been working a night shift.

Former chapel, now Trestle Arts Base

Forty people or so made a visit to a place in St Albans' East End which many have heard of but fewer know much about.  The Trestle Arts Base is at Highfield, surrounded by new houses and is close to the open spaces managed by Highfield Park Trust.  The former chapel of Hill End Hospital has now been brilliantly converted into flexible spaces for arts activities, performance, including mask work, and exploration opportunities in the performing arts for children, young people and adults.  We will return to Trestle in a later blog, but in the meantime do visit www.trestle.org.uk

Former Hill End (centre), Cell Barnes (top left)
Ashley Road industry and Camp (top right)

The purpose of Friday evening's function was to enlighten residents who live locally on what lies under their feet, especially if they live at Highfield itself.  A talk was the centre-piece of the evening, held in the Apex Room at Trestle.  Originally titled A Place Called Hill End and renamed Highfield: What Lies Beneath for this event, the talk explored the history of mental care and different ways in which society has managed it during the past two centuries.  Hill End was one of those huge sprawling Victorian edifices which always struggled with increasing patient numbers and earned an enviable reputation for developing care and treatment strategies; even giving life to a daughter hospital nearby called Cell Barnes.

Friday's visitors were able to pinpoint various hospital facilities, now demolished, in relation to the current homes on the site, and understand more about the layout and names of some of its roads.

The ticket revenue for the event will support Highfield Park Trust and the upkeep of the beautiful former hospital grounds and new open spaces.

Surviving Hill End ward block

More talks

A number of groups and organisations ask for talks about the East side of St Albans, which is Mike's speciality subject, following the publication of his two books, St Albans' Own East End.  A programme of talks is being arranged for 2016, and organisations are invited to book a date for their members.  During 2016 all of the donations collected at the talks will be in aid of that final million for the new Museum project by Renaissance St Albans.

Groups have a range of subjects to choose from:

The 'Mike' talk at Trestle last Friday.

A Crown Story

Nurseries and malting, treadwheels and commuting, a fete field and a park.

Beaumonts: a story of two manors

One missing manor, then another, a Cromwell Connection, a take-over, then everyone wants to live here.

Camp: the place on the hill

No better place to live than near a stream or two, and watch the militias at play.

Fleetville: a game of consequences

There was no planning or order here; no-one in control; but there were opportunities as well as penalties.

Flicks at Fleetville (about 25 minutes)

St Albans’ fourth cinema; the one no-one’s even heard of.

The Chalk Rooms of London Colney

How a village managed to educate its children.

A Place Called Hill End

The story of a missing community that came to a place and called it Hill End.

East to Smallford (for second half of 2016)

The connections between land, people, road and rail from Oaklands to  Hatfield.

Paying the Price

The fogotten story of the Reading and Hatfield Turnpike Road.

St Albans’ Own East End: an overview

The parish which became the backbone of two books.

Letting photographs tell the story (for second half of 2016)

What stories are revealed from the surviving photographs of St Albans’ East End?

Letting ‘Herts Ad’ photographs tell the story (2)

What stories are revealed from the Herts Advertiser Re-photographing Project?

For further inquiries please email saoee@me.com

Houses of a public kind

Historically there have been as many public houses in a single street in the city centre as were established throughout East End of St Albans – and one or two I have included below because they are or were on what are the undrawn boundaries of the eastern districts.

King William IV, Baton, Bunch of Cherries (Speckled Hen), Plough, Rats' Castle, Crown, Camp, Mile House, Comet, Three Horseshoes, Blackberry Jack.

Mile House (though it was on the southern side of London Road, it was still considered a local for many living on the London Road estate, or Mile House estate) morphed into apartments many years ago, and Camp closed earlier this year, again, for development into apartments.

If a local pub closes, as recorded in this blog previously, there is often a substantial journey to make to the next one which remains open.  Such was the case with the Camp; the Plough at Tyttenhanger, Rats' Castle or Crown may mean resorting to the car.  But that means of transport always requires one member of the party – assuming you are not visiting on your own – to not consume an alcoholic drink.

So we might ask the question, why are many pubs closing?  Of course they have been doing so for a long time, and several of those who opened in the East End of St Albans were enabled to open in the first place because their owners were able to transfer licences from unprofitable city centre locations.

Not all pubs are under threat of course; whether a typical drinking house or a "new style" establishment, pubs can and do thrive in all sorts of locations.  Companies have discovered that going out for a drink or a meal is big business. Family pubs are the new thriving hotspots.  Of course, those who simply want an old-fashioned drinker will sometimes shudder at the thought of their local being converted to a family oriented restaurant, where children are also catered for, including a play garden or an indoor den.  Such a conversion is not always possible given that new demands must be made on limited space.

The Camp PH did have plenty of space, and good car parking too.  So it is not easy to understand why its owners, McMullen's, appeared not to take the bait.  Perhaps it was not especially interested in changing its business model.

The latest news, of course, comes from the Quadrant.  This is a busy, often congested, quarter, developed as the high-density zone of the new Marshalswick estate.  Its pub was originally intended to be constructed opening onto Marshalswick Lane, but many residents living on that road in c1960 objected.  The site in The Ridgeway is quite spacious, and has the benefit of being able to borrow parking during its most busy hours.  The whispers about possible closure (actually not whispers given that a planning application has been lodged) are generally considered disappointing news, and if its owners are really struggling to attract customers, a family-centred establishment with brilliant marketing would surely make sense, given the large residential and retail zone it is a part of.

The acid test is the ability of the local community to persuade its owners.  I wonder how long we will have to wait.  You could contact Punch Taverns and let them know how you feel.  www.punchtaverns.com  The company lives in Burton on Trent.  Good luck.

Here we go again

It is in the nature of these things that we pick the junk mail from the hall mat and throw away, not only the double glazing and pizza leaflets, but a vital item of information for us, our family and our neighbours.

This time some residents of Smallford may have missed attending a consultation meeting at the St Albans Rugby Club HQ  because they did not know about ...

... proposals by Brett Aggregates to open up the ground at the ends of their gardens for yet another gravel extraction site, on  land at the western end of the former aerodrome formerly belonging to de Havilland Aircraft Company and later Hawker Siddeley and British Aerospace.

Parts of the huge site have already been developed for business, residential, university and retail.  But a large swathe is reserved as open space.  Indeed, Ellenbrook Fields is a pleasant zone of recovering open land following the removal of the concrete air strip.

We must have sensed that below the surface there were useful minerals, which one day would be removed.  After all, the district does have a track record for supplying aggregates to the world, and to the east and south of St Albans we have experienced gravel extraction at Colney Street and Harperbury Lane, London Colney, Coursers Lane, Roehyde, Colney Heath, Oak Farm, Beech Farm and other sites.  So the news of proposed workings at the former Popefield Farm should not come as a surprise.

No-one would deny that aggregates are needed for the construction industry and for roads – and that there will be plenty of new homes coming to the districts between St Albans and Hatfield in the next ten years.  Some residents, of course, don't want the homes or the workings, and of the extra traffic that will come in their wake – the same fears which are attached to the proposed freight depot at Hedges Farm, Park Street. The narrow and already-busy single-carriageway Hatfield Road will indeed be busier and noisier than today.

Since the days of the St Albans Sand and Gravel Company after World War Two, when the call was for gravel to rebuild London, there have been proliferations of holes in the ground, and in recent years its successor company, Lafarge, has sought to close exhausted sites and return land to former or new open space uses – with the singular exception of the contaminated Butterwick (although that company may not have been responsible).  Where have we been in those sixty years?  We have continued with our lives and lived with the industry around us.  Today we look back and realise that, taken in the round, the result hasn't been too bad.

It is the prospect which is difficult to contemplate.  Thirty-two years is a long while to wait until the Popefield site is restored and the community park formed for our enjoyment.  Well, I will be well into  my second century by then, but it will be something for a younger generation to look forward to.

But all of this depends on whether planning consent is given!