St Albans' Own East End

Due to open in October 2022 in a new shop unit is TREK BIKES. See also panel titled Montague Close. With the increased popularity of cycling of all kinds it is unsurprising that this business has been added to those of BC Cycles adjacent to Grimsdyke Lodge and St Albans Cycles at St Brelade's Place. All now offer a wide range of repair, maintenance, service and insurance options – owning a bike is not the cheap option it used to be!
Photo courtesy VIC FOSTER.

History has recorded, through the recollections of living in Fleetville during the Second World War, the existence of tunnel shelters under the Community Centre and below the grass sward of the recreation ground.

Only one memory referred to brick street shelters in the road space of Royal Road, and that was not specific.

The publication of a series of RAF aerial photos in a flyover during 1946, now shows what appears to be a line of six such shelters on the left side of the roadway outside what used to be the wartime nursery and today is the community centre.

A larger version of the photograph appears on the Wartime East End page.

A detached house built for a general practitioner in the pre National Health days, was transformed into flats, and a small house was built in the garden. In a further extension of over development came recently when a truck arrived with another floor which was lifted onto the now-removed original roof. I'm not sure what nearby residents think of the addition, but it is certainly very different from the original Fleet House.

Cape Road and Burleigh Road lead to the former branch railway (now Alban Way). When the early houses gave out the space beyond was utilised by W G Bennett, builders. During and after the Second World War the site was occupied by Kia-Ora Motors before becoming Pratts building suppliers, and then PSR building materials.

Now, proposals for 37 new houses and flats by developer Cresswick have been given planning approval. There has been some concern that the number of units is very tight for the footprint, and there is also a very limited amount of space for car parking.

You might have imagined the Cape road new homes you had heard about would now be completed, marketed and occupied. After all, most of us pass the site by as we walk, ride or motor along Hatfield Road. But building developments do sometimes falter, and the part completed estate on the former PSR Building supplies site adjacent to Alban Way came to a pause and the development, partly finished, is up for sale.
We can see what it it will look like when complete, but for now all we can do is to inspect Watling Real Estate, website, for plans, architect's images and a downloadable brochure.

Fleetville Diaries, the local history people, hosted a magnificent celebration of two related families: descendants of Frederick Sander, the "Orchid King", and descendants of Henry Moon whose exquisite paintings of the orchids Sander bred were published in four massive tomes.

Final approvals have now been given to the Campfield Road site which once housed the city's first electricity works (1908), of which the locally listed frontage remains. The proposals, which had progressed through several iterations, include adaptations to the frontage building, and new blocks of 1, 2 and 3 bedroom flats on the former generating plant ground to the rear.

The site has Sphere Industry on the east side and is surrounded by the former Herts Advertiser HQ (now Phoenix House), Apex House, Centurian Court and Baker's Close.

Peter has a copy of this photograph of a very casual-looking group, and he suspects this was a cricket team raised from the residents of Tyttenhanger Green, or perhaps from staff working at Hill End Hospital. Cell Barnes Hospital is discounted as the date of the picture is c1930, a few years before the opening of Cell Barnes Colony. One man has tentatively been identified as Henry Eames (front row centre).

The ladder roads in Fleetville are surprisingly far from the same, although they were largely the estate of one man in the pre World War One period. There is a mix of narrow detached, semi-detached and small terraces. There is a sense in there being no typical streetscape in the formerly named Slade Building Estate. But they are certainly popular residences.

Did you miss the opportunity to grab a copy of either or both volumes of the first editions of St Albans' Own East End? Perhaps you borrowed a copy from a library, or hoped a friend or relative might offer you a copy as a birthday or Christmas gift? Or maybe you've made much of your patience and are sitting it out in hope.

Coaches everywhere take parties, groups and individuals to a variety of venues and destinations; even to and from employment, school and college. Even the most basic of daily school journeys use vehicles with a plush spec normally reserved for travel overseas.

Plush sixty years ago would have meant a vehicle such as this. Do you recall travelling in such a vehicle?

Highfield Park Trust has now celebrated its 25th anniversary, taking on the role of managing the former parkland of Hill End and Cell Barnes hospitals in 1996. Tim Abbott, Chair of HPT, stated, " In one sense 25 years is a long time, but in another it really isn't. We have done well but we must keep developing in order to reach our full potential."