Entente Cordiale

 These two words may have passed you by during this week, but those who were very much part of the national and local scene at the beginning of the twentieth century were fully aware of Entente Cordiale.

For centuries there had been deteriorating and then improving relationships between the governments of Britain and France; for much of the time those relationships were unsatisfactory.  So, for the new century extra efforts were made to patch up quarrels and carry out a range of "shaking hands".

Entente Cordiale did not result in formal signed and countersigned documents, but did ensure that better relationships were able to counter a growing German influence on the continent.  For both countries there were opportunities to show off national pride in traditional social, artistic and cultural demonstrations.  And St Albans played its part, so the acquisition of numbers of flags of both nations was essential for events taking place on or around 8th April 1904.

The opening ceremony at the cricket pavilion in Clarence Park in 1894.  Wet of course!
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

A view of the newly laid out recreation area of Clarence Park.  All three structures shown here
are still part of the park scene, although the current bandstand is a replaced structure.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

One venue which St Albans could show off with some pride was Clarence Park, largely completed and formally opened ten years earlier in the company of royal and national dignitaries, and of course the cream of county and St Albans society – given that the opening in 1894 took place on a working day, the pride of the populace and their attendance was largely missing, given their need to attend work places.

Three years after the park's opening a commemorative celebration of the city's teachers in
schools was held in Clarence Park.
OWNERSHIP OF IMAGE UNKNOWN

A number of celebratory and inaugural events took place in the years which followed, and it was natural therefore that Clarence Park was also selected as the venue for Entente Cordiale.  The Town Hall and Market Square were suddenly considered inadequate, almost as if the centre of St Albans was judged to be a poor relation site.

A dance routine forming an element of the Entente Cordiale celebration at Clarence Park in 1904
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

We have the briefest of descriptions of the event; we know there were speeches, dancing, singing, flag waving and dramatic scenes similar to those of later pageants.  In addition to the "full turn-out" of officialdom, the event was attended by "large crowds".  The use of this term must be treated with some caution, as much will depend on the numbers expected.  While the agreement was signed on 8th April, a Friday, it is not certain whether the event in the park was held on the same day.  It would be good to hope the following day would have been for the celebrations; more citizens and those from the surrounding districts would have been able to attend.  On that last point, however, the city council were luke-warm to the thought of residents of the rural council enjoying the park facilities without a grant on their behalf being transferred to the town!  An example of local entente cordiale did, however, gradually break out in the ensuing years!

An echo of Entente Cordiale in 1912 between scouts of France and Great Britain.  This friendship
photo-opportunity did not take place in St Albans.
OWNERSHIP UNKNOWN

It appears there were replays in various forms in the years following 1904 before the national and local focus was re-calibrated in 1914, where, we suppose, the Entente received its most demanding test of success and endurance.

Dellfield

 

The loop of Dellfield with its short spurs.  To the right is the cutting of the former Hatfield and
St Albans Railway (Alban Way).  Way up to the left is the parched grass of Cunningham Open
space.  London Road is beyond the top of the picture.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

Recently, this blog told the story of Cell Barnes Lane.  Its northern limit reached Cunningham Hill Farm and the location where the Lane joined Camp Lane, now Camp Road. Go further and we quickly reach a much-changed and complex land layout with the Dellfield residential area at its heart.

For once we can also make reference to the landscape photograph which has always been used as the masthead for the St Albans' Own East End website and this blog.  It was taken from the upper section of Cunningham Open Space, looking above the rooftops of Dellfield towards the city; the heavy tree screen and elevation shielding the view of Dellfield's homes.  Walking along Dellfield itself, and looking upwards towards the photographer, the difference in elevation is remarkably steep.

The 1840 tithe map, to which has been added the names given to the fields at that time. Dellfield
is built on Dell Field and Up and Down Field; Breakspear estate replaces Twelve Acres and
Fifteen Acres; Springfield estate grew from Cunningham Hill Field and Spring Field.
COURTESY HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES & LOCAL STUDIES

The same landscape in 1875; still exclusively rural although two railways have now arrived.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

By 1937 the housing is more-or-less as we know it today.  Orchard estate, adjacent to London
Road is partly built (see below).  Only London Road estate on either side of Cell Barnes Lane
is still to come.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

In the mid 19th century much of the land was owned by Earl Verulam and tenanted by Frederick Gough from Cunningham Hill Farm.  The tithe map from 1840  names its fields, including Barn Field and Fox Croft, after which the roads Barn Croft Way and Foxcroft were given their names.  Cunningham Green Space was created from two fields: Barn Field and Four Acres. 

Against the steep hill leading to the hamlet at the crest of Camp Hill was a small broadly triangular arable space known as Dell Field.  It neatly described its form, as one side of a valley side, of which the Camp Hill was a part.  A footpath is still available from opposite the first Dellfield spur; it climbs the hill and crosses over to the former farm via Park Hill Close.  You will certainly appreciate the gradient! At one time a small chalk stream, rising in Marshalswick, flowing towards Fleetville and along where Campfield Road is now created, passed through this dell towards London Road towards River Ver.  The undulating landscape on which the Orchard estate was developed gives us a clue to the irregularity of the topography the stream would have navigated to find its way through this part of St Albans. But evidence of the stream's exact route is missing from maps as it was a watercourse not visible on the surface for several hundred years.

These flats stand at the beginning of the road named Dellfield on a small field called the Dell Field.
Behind them is a steep hill; you will know it if you have walked up Camp Hill.  Also behind
the flats was the St Albans Rubber Works and its associated football field, later to become a
dahlia field for Ernie Cooper of Hatfield Road.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

The road named Dellfield, designed in a long loop, was created c1930, within a long rectangular field which describes the landscape from which it was formed: Up and Down Field.  So, the Dellfield estate was not built on the the field of the same name; that was used to create the access road to reach the housing.  The residential flats built here in more recent times were making good use of the small field which, until then, had offered only a limited contribution to the area's housing.

The Camp Lane and its settlement are on the left, and the Rubber Works when it first arrived
on Corner Acres Field from London Road.  The foreground shows the chalk scarp which
demonstrates the nature of the topography the builders had to contend with
in creating the housing community.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

One short spur on the northwestern length of Dellfield's loop leads nowhere, of course, because the field's boundary coincided with the line of the branch railway from Hatfield, although the field boundary may have been in a slightly different location before the railway arrived.  On the other side of the railway (now Alban Way) Flora Grove was laid on the Breakspear estate.  Although no bridge was created between the two there is much circumstantial evidence of nearby residents making a pedestrian connection between the two estates by means of the railway cutting between the two spurs.

Beyond the Dellfield housing there had been an intention to provide a permanent pedestrian connection towards London Road via what remained of the Half Mile Bottom Field. A footpath was created between two of the houses on the road's southern loop, as evidenced by the 1937 map and the remaining kerb line.  However, the path itself has long since been absorbed into the plot of a neighbouring house.   Clearly, in the early years the route from hear to London Road was an informal but useful link, across what little remained of Half Mile Bottom Field next to London Road as the Midland Bridge strikes obliquely across that road. Doubtless Dellfield residents used the path to reach various work places, or  London Road Station, still open then.  

This field was Half Mile Bottom Field; the map symbols showing closely spaced parallel lines
next to London Road show how the road was cut into the chalk, and therefore the challenge of
turning this field into the Orchard estate – here it is partially complete.  The green line from the
end of Dellfield's loop shows how its early residents could reach London Road.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Looking towards London Road from above the southern end of the Dellfield loop.  This view
looks towards the Orchard estate.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

The remaining field was gradually built on during the 1930s, and the growing little Orchard estate eventually suffocated access to London Road, the path between the Dellfield homes was closed off.

In a not unrelated issue, three of the original semi-detached houses in Aspasia Close were later demolished to provide sufficient space for a number of flatted homes.  It was only then that this spur of Dellfield was given the separate name of Aspasia Close, an extension of the collection of roads named after a genus of orchids in recognition of the former Sander orchid nursery in the locality.

This post has provided some clue to the human effort required to mould the landscape to our needs of the time, but the story would be incomplete if the wider story of Camp Road, and the forcing of the railway through this landscape, was not also explored; which we will do on another occasion.

Chain Bar Toll

 References to Turnpike toll gates can be found in the first volume of St Albans' Own East End and on its website, although information about some of them and their houses are rather sketchy, including what they actually looked like.  When travelling along the Hatfield Road from St Albans towards Hatfield travellers first encountered a gate at the Peacock PH opposite the present Marlborough Road.  This was the start of the St Albans to Hatfield section of the Reading & Hatfield Turnpike.  The price paid for travelling took you as far as Smallford at the crossroads (now a roundabout).  But on the way the traveller would have passed three toll points of interest to those travellers wishing to take themselves, animals or carts from a side road onto the turnpike Road and onwards towards St Albans.  All three were on the right: Camp Lane, The Rats' Castle and Colney Heath Lane; none was on the left.

Because the borough boundary just reached this point east of the town we are fortunate to
capture Hatfield Road curving between left and right; Camp Lane joins it from lower
right.  Ninedells Nursery was soon to be replaced by the Cavendish estate. The Granville
estate hasn't emerged either and the space at the top is still the Fete Field, predating
Clarence Park.  Town map 1878.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Close-up of the turnpike toll point (TP on the map above).  Soon after 1878 plans would be laid for
the Crown Hotel and the emergence of Stanhope Road.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The purpose of these little side road tolls, as they were termed, was to ensure payment was made before venturing onto the main road.  It would have been impractical for all side roads to be protected.  They were placed where traffic was busiest and there it would have been financially worthwhile charging for the shorter distances before a user reached the next main road gate.  After all, the cost of maintaining the main roads was borne by those using them, not by local authorities, before the 1880s.

The side road toll building we seem to know least about – no drawing, no painting, no photographic image, and no description – is the one where Camp Lane met Hatfield Road.  The nearest landmark was St Peter's Farm, part of which, today the Conservative Club occupies.  In fact I am not quite correct, for there are two known facts: tolls were collected only in the direction of St Albans; and it had three known names, the Chain Bar Toll, Hatfield Road Field toll, and the Fete Field toll.  Early 25 inch maps do mark the location with a tiny black square, but that square could represent anything.

This Ordnance Survey 25 inch map from 1897 covers the same area. Camp Lane had been made
up and renamed Camp Road; Stanhope Road has replaced the toll house opposite the Crown
Hotel; Clarence Park and Clarence Road is now on the scene, and the triangle of land, 
informally called The Green will shortly be built on.  The pond is not, however, shown.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

However, the National Library of Scotland collection of Ordnance Survey maps does include a small number of Town Maps, and right on the eastern edge of the borough, extending as far as St Peter's Farm at today's The Crown, and standing on its own, is the toll house; a bold rectangle with a smaller attachment at the back.  It is likely to have been a single storey structure; that assumption being on the basis that one of the toll keepers had accommodation at the cottage next to St Peter's Farm house.

Much change occurred during the twenty years since the 1878 town map was surveyed and the opening of Clarence Park in 1894. In the south-east corner was Ninedells Nursery soon to be sold to Frederick Sander for his housing and orchid nurseries.  A little drive enters from the Hatfield road onto the Ninedells; this became the line of Albion Road and Cecil Road as the new houses of the Cavendish estate were build.

The toll house was just to the right of the two white vehicles at the beginning of Stanhope Road.
Camp Road is shown joining Hatfield Road ahead.

The pond has now been replaced by the first two shops on the left, opposite Albion Road, formerly 
a track access to Ninedells Nursery.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

The access to the Ninedells Nursery extended to include the present day Cecil Road.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

Clarence Road was designed to meet the former toll house junction.  A form of roundabout
enabled vehicles to use a road directly in front of the hotel to access the new Stanhope Road.  So,
not a proper roundabout!
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

In the north-west a track left the Hatfield road, crossing the Fete Field diagonally towards the farm barns.  Much of this field quickly became the recreation field of Clarence Park, but the location of the track can still be located along the park's Hatfield Road boundary, opposite the Granville Road junction.

From inside the recreation section of Clarence Park the former entrance from Hatfield Road,
opposite Granville Road, can still be located; the gate and ramp down to the path was still
open until the 1960s.  Although this image was taken some ten years ago the foliage is still
not as dense as other sections of the tree screen along the road.

The largest single change is the laying of Clarence Road, designed to leave Hatfield Road from the bend at what was intended to be a form of roundabout, and the pond shown on the town map has now been replaced by the first two shops, 41 and 43 Hatfield Road.

An early newspaper report described the development which took place in Hatfield Road Field (the south-west sector of the town map). It stated that the shop, now Chilli Raj, which was built as a general store and post office, replaced a former toll house.  The map evidence shows this not to be quite true.  Its location appears to be on the line of Stanhope Road, which would have been a few years before the building of the little post office.  Standing along the approach roads in turn leading to The Crown junction it is still possible to follow the various map lines edging the roads and tracks shown on the 1878 Town Map.

New Road

 I thought I would spread my posts about East End streets around a wide area of St Albans' East End, and although I will return to Camp and Fleetville later, today you are in for a treat if you live in or around Marshalswick.

I know what you are thinking: you have no knowledge of a street known as New Road.  Which is fine because there is no such named road today.  Mind you, there is no such road as Woodlands Avenue or Kingshill Crescent, but that's another story.

Unfortunately I could find no suitable map for a period before 1875.  The green coloured drive, 
both light and darker, was the private drive to Marshalls Wick House until 1855. John R
Marten had the orange coloured road (now Marshalswick Lane) but initially called New Road.
In 1855 the light green section and New Road became a publicly available road.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Delve back two hundred years or so, and if you were a member of the Marten family living in a fine house north of Sandpit Lane – which also no longer exists – you might have been worried by nuisance passers by; that is, an ordinary member of the public wishing to take a cart, or make a walk, northwards and knowing the Marten family have a driveway leaving Sandpit Lane towards the front of their Marshalls Wick House, they might use it until they reached The House, but then join the continuation of that same drive towards the top of Deadwoman's Hill (more on that shortly), they would avoid toll payments on the turnpike roads leading to and from St Albans.

Ahead is the southern end of the former New Road, the drive to the former Marshalls Wick House

now Marshals Drive, on the left, and Jersey Lane to the right. The original South Lodge is

just beyond the Jersey Lane junction on the right.

COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

The original North Lodge, now partly hidden by undergrowth. From its windows on the other
side users of The Drive could be seen on their way to or from Sandridge Road or 
Deadwoman's Hill.  From 1855 onwards users of the New Road were visible from this
side of North Lodge.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREETVIEW

By the 1840s John Robert Marten considered The Public making use of his private drive a nuisance, or perhaps an irritation to his family's  right to a private life.  He had clearly considered it to be a problem which he saw he had a responsibility to solve; permitting public use of the first section of the drive but then arranging for a diversionary route further from The House which the public could use.  The Martens owned much of the land on which he would create his diversion, but needed to acquire a strip of land nearer to the higher Sandridge Road (Deadwoman's Hill) end.  I am sure there is an explanation to the strange road name, which today is the steeper part of the hill from the railway bridge towards Sandridge.  It was this name which was used in one of the earliest issues of the Herts Advertiser to announce the building of the new road (New Road)!

To ensure The Public kept to the public road he had two lodges built.  One close to Deadwoman's Hill – we know it now as North Lodge – and the other where the Drive joins a lane.  This is called South Lodge.

Mr Marten may have used casual or permanent labourers from his farms on the estate, but I am not certain how the construction was managed.  Neither am I aware of any later reconstruction taking place if the standard of work was not sufficiently good. We are informed the work was completed in about a year between 1854 and 1855, and from the lane as it remained in the 1950s the road probably allowed for two carts to pass.

The 1939 map shows the long lines of housing along Marshalswick Lane and Marshals Drive.
The green line identifies the former Drive to the House, part of which had recently been
re-aligned to form the modern Marshals Drive.
    COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Today we know this road as Marshalswick Lane, of course, but it hasn't always been so.  The first occasion it was committed to a map it was named The New Road, although I am not now able to trace that map.  I am uncertain whether the name included the short section between Sandpit Lane and what we know today as Jersey Lane, or whether originally it was accepted to be the outer end of The Drive.  Where roads are long and the road name is only printed once, that printing is usually somewhere around the middle of the length.  We are left to decide for ourselves where a road name begins or ends.

How long New Road remained under this name is uncertain, but it received its present label by the 1897 ordnance survey.  Maps have also appeared without a name, probably indicating the cartographer remained uncertain.

But it strikes me as odd that the South Lodge was constructed so as to be to the east of the New Road rather than to the west of it.  For it certainly was not between The Drive and the New Road.  We may never know any subsequent implication from making that decision.

I will be meeting members of Marshalswick North Residents' Association on 11th April at 7.30pm, where New Road might be mentioned!  I will feature any relevant topics which we discuss at the Marshalswick Community Centre in a blog shortly after.

Cell Barnes Lane

Updated 15 March 2024

 Lanes give the impression of  being narrow rural roads, often bordered by hedging and maybe trees – or if not, fencing. In addition, they come with unexpected single or double bends, some providing a clue to earlier deviations.  An occasional cottage, barn or farm entrance might also turn up.

Camp Road and Camp Hill are near the top of this 1875 map.  Cell Barnes
Lane follows the green line past Cunningham Hill Farm towards the 
bottom right edge, to be continued on the extract below.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Cell Barnes Lane continues toward Little Cell Barnes on the map surveyed
in 1875.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

At Camp Road's Camp Hill exists a T junction which is the beginning of Cell Barnes Lane.  It begins close to the former Cunningham Hill Farm, meandering gently downhill and finishing at the former Little Cell Barnes, although it continues at the charmingly named Nightingale Lane and once fed into the eastern side (or end) of London Colney; although today the four lane bypass gets in the way!

BY THE 1897 survey the first two properties, twin cottages lie to the side of the double bend,
very close to today's Drakes Drive.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

By 1937 the Springfield houses are completed, wrapping around Camp Road into Cell Barnes Lane.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The complex of paths, lanes and other diversions north of Cunningham Hill Farm is a puzzle all by itself, which I will explore on another occasion, but until the post World War One period only two attached cottages appeared along the Lane in the 1880s.  Before that time it was  just the above mentioned farms.  The cottages were at a double bend in the Lane, and there are folk still around who recall the double bend as posing regular risks to cyclists, motorists and pedestrians from unseen lane users beyond.

The first major incursion of homes along the Lane occurred in the 1920s when a St Albans City Council post-war housing scheme (Homes for Heroes) was progressed in the mid decade  and named Springfield, after the field on which the homes were built.  Today a few of them have been demolished and replaced by the more modern houses on the Wingate Way estate. Spare ground before that development had been used as a cycle speedway track by various clubs in the district.

Programme produced by the St Albans EAC Hawkes Cycle Speedway club, with a photo
taken at the Cell Barnes Lane track (on the left page).
COURTESY BILL GADSBY

Little Cell Barnes cottages near what was the double bend, now between the two
roundabouts in Drakes Drive.

An early aerial photo of part of the London Road estate taken in the 1950s.
Cell Barnes Lane is shown diagonally from top right
to lower left.  Drakes Drive curves gently across the lower portion of the photograph.
COURTESY THE HERTS ADVERTISER

The next arrival in the 1930s was a major piece of infrastructure – the electricity grid was developing.  A new power station had been built at Hoddesdon and one of its circuits provided, via overhead lines, a supply to St Albans, with a substation in what was then open ground along Cell Barnes Lane.  Today it is opposite the Cunningham Schools. A field northwest of the sub-station and acquired by the council became the default location of circus visits once they could no longer make use of land at the Breakspear estate (the Gaol Field). The earliest maps show a copse of trees and a pond adjacent to Cell Barnes Lane.  This was lost on the expansion of the sub-station.

The site of the two schools, infant and junior, are both post-war and partly occupy an earlier sports field rented by O W Peak, the factory which made coats in Hatfield Road.  A pavilion occupied the site which mainly served tennis courts used by the firm's employees.

St Luke's Church's permanent home.

Electricity for St Albans arrives at the Cell Barnes Lane sub-station, originally coming from a new power station at Hoddesdon in east Herts.

Almost all of the former farm land between Cell Barnes Lane and Camp Road was acquired by the council and held in reserve for future housing – the London Road Estate.  Meanwhile it became one of the city's largest allotment grounds, the hedges on both sides of the Lane being rich in blackberries and sloes. Much of the land to the southeast of Cell Barnes Lane had, until the houses arrived, been row upon row of chicken coops belonging to Little Cell Barnes.

When housebuilding began in earnest from the 1950s it included the laying of Drakes Drive and a re-arrangement of Cell Barnes Lane at the double bend which provided the opportunity for introducing new junctions, eventually becoming little roundabouts.

Alongside the housebuilding grew the inevitable parade of shops, the Cornerstone Church, a branch library (the only one of the three on the east side of the city still remaining being at Marshalswick).  And we should not forget the permeant building of St Luke's Church, having moved from its temporary location in Camp Road and originally being a daughter church of St Paul's in Blandford Road.

This, and the one below, are the same extracts but current surveys.
BOTH COURTESY OPEN STREET MAP CONTRIBUTORS

So, during the period of just over one hundred years a quiet rural lane has become a busy residential road – with a pedestrian crossing and a bus route thrown in.

Camp

 Last week's blog was about Camp Field, which became Campfield Road, and given that a query was raised by a reader about the origin of the word Camp as a place name, and therefore its connection with Campfield, Camp Hill, Camp Lane and Camp Road, it seems logical to investigate the name of the district itself – Camp.  Where does this name come from and what was its earliest reference?

To justify the name given to the former Camp PH the artist portrayed a camp 
scene with a Roman official in the foreground.  This told the wrong story!

Well, however confusing and uncertain, the name certainly had nothing to do with the Romans.  Erroneously, it has been suggested St Albans began as a Roman city, or Verulamium was formed out of camps set up in much the same way as large infrastructure projects today still require worker encampments.  The former Camp public house hanging sign sported a picture of a Roman soldier, and a modern building on Camp Hill was awarded the name of a Centurion.  To be clear, Camp as a district had nothing to do with the Romans.

An element of civil life in feudal England had for centuries been the maintenance of local militias.  If you have heard of the County Lord Lieutenant one of his (and it was naturally his until modern times) responsibilities was to enhance the militias within his county.  It required an Act of Parliament (the Militia Act 1757) as the Union developed, and as a result required more formal training and places where such training could be carried out.

The militias were not in any way the same as the regular army; they were volunteers, although early muster rolls included lists of local men eligible for active training and service, being called up "when required."  So the degree of voluntary participation undoubtedly varies. The infrequency of their need meant that training was inefficiently – and infrequently – carried out.

The current slopes of Cunningham open space, formerly referred to as Springfield. Here were
gathered volunteers and militia men for ad hoc training exercises during short and isolated periods
of the 18th and 19th centuries; the last such period being in 1915.

In St Albans, Earl Verulam offered land for training purposes; fields on sloping ground adjacent to Cunningham Hill (which is also part of the same topographical feature as Camp Hill, where you climb it from Campfeld Road and the former stream, mentioned in last week's blog. The Camp field itself can still be walked, and viewed from behind Dexter Court where the expanse of Cunningham open space offers views down to London Road.  We are left to imagine how many men were gathered at any one time and for how long, and whether  inhabitants from nearby hamlets were given the opportunity to watch the entertainment.

Men attending training in the 18th and 19th centuries invariably travelled from a wide area and collected at the top of the hill.  It is possible that one or two cottages along the top of the hill were in use by farm labourers working at the nearby farm, and they may have been in use since the early eighteenth century. 

The 1766 Dury an Andrews map is believed to be the earliest to name the location of a 
building named Camp House; the Camp itself being west and south of Cunningham, here
named Garrycomb Hill.
COURTESY HALS

By 1822 a small hamlet had grown.
COURTESY HALS

However, the earliest reference to the word Camp in print was a single building named Camp House standing at the junction with Cell Barnes Lane and Camp Hill on the 1766 Dury & Andrews map.  It is sometimes suggested that Camp House was a public house or beer house.  However, no evidence for this use or name has surfaced, so we are left with the possibility that it was just a solitary house or cottage, which may have provided intermittent refreshment of some kind at times when training camps were organised.  The last known camp used for military training was in 1915, although by that stage many such camps were set up around St Albans.

Images of activity came late, with photos taken during World War One.  Perhaps there were
drawings or paintings from earlier times.

Such training was fairly regular in later militia and yeomanry periods and the location of these camps would have been well known.  Towns occasionally have local names which include the term Camp, either with a prefix or on its own. St Albans does not stand alone.

The need for food required the training field and nearby slopes leading down to London Road
to be utilised as allotments.
COURTESY THE HERTS ADVERTISER

All Ordnance Survey maps from 1822 onward name this little hamlet at the top of the Hill The Camp – note, it was not named A Camp; it was quite specific as this was THE location in the town where the training took place and was therefore The Camp site.

Once the land was available once more it was released for use as an agricultural show ground and during the Second World War for community allotments.  But it has never been utilised for any other kinds of camps – of the leisure variety for example, or for scouts and guides.

But the long lane which began at Hatfield Road and finished at Hill End Lane had a long history as Camp Lane, meaning quite literally the lane which leads to The Camp.

Camp Field

Portion of a scene painted by John Buckingham (1800-1881) near the Camp Field at the foot of
Camp Hill.   Today the Campfield Road/Dellfield road junction is nearby.
COURTESY ST ALBANS MUSEUMS

 Few of us with knowledge of the east side of St Albans will need a reminder of the location of today's blog.  Leaving Hatfield Road at The Crown, descend Camp Road and pass under the Blue Bridge.  At the very lowest ground and before climbing Camp Hill, turn left. This is  Campfield Road.  A small branch railway line arrived in the 1860s (the original reason for the bridge, although it wasn't blue then - in fact not the same bridge at all! The railway separated the growing Hatfield Road to the north from the dairy fields and hamlet of Camp Hill to the south.  The artist John Buckingham, painting in the mid 19th century, portrayed this junction very effectively; the road ahead is Camp Hill. 

OS maps surveyed in 1875, 1897 and 1922.
Field number 427 in 1875 was Camp Field. Between it and field 429 was a footpath between
Camp Hill (The Camp) and the Hatfield road.  The two square buildings on the south side
of Campfield Road (1922) are the Electricity Works and Sphere Works.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

On the low-lying land, where Campfield Road is today, there had been a small chalk stream, the same one which had flowed from Marshalswick towards Fleetville before turning across the gently sloping Camp Field towards River Ver.  It is doubtful if much remained of the stream even in the 1860s, but it might have provided one reason a portion of the reason may have eventually been sold out of farming for development.

1930s homes line around half of Campfield Road as well as Valerie Close, Roland Street and one
side of Sutton Road.

We note that the Campfield Road of today is quite lengthy from Camp Lane (now Camp Road) to Sutton Road.  The eastern section is largely semi-detached homes built c1930 by Mr W Stephens for the rental market.  Before that date the field at the eastern end was used by the Oakley family to graze dairy cattle, and for the first decade of the 20th century was utilised as Fleetville's first recreation ground, mainly for the use of of local football teams.  Along the boundary between the upper and lower fields ran a footpath from the oldest section of Camp Hill, downhill towards the stream bed and gently up the opposing slope towards Hatfield Road – opposite where today the western boundary of Fleetville Recreation Ground.

The Miskin built structure as designed for George Orford Smith, including its manager's house
before the site was extended for the Salvation Army's Campfield Press.

The main workshop of the Musical Instrument Works.
COURTESY SALVATION ARMY ARCHIVE

Meanwhile, at the lower end the sale of the water meadow was completed in 1895 to Mr George Orford Smith, who had a sizeable and specialist printing works – thus becoming the first such works in the Fleetville area and relegating T E Smith to second comer by two years.  Orford Smith's works were designed and built by Christopher Miskin & Sons, and included a manager's house.  The company specialised as a fine-art printer, producing high-quality multi-pass colour expensive work for clients, including Illustrated London News.

The modified front building of the 1908 Electricity Works for the nearly completed new
residential development.

However, the works remained in business for only five years, and in 1900 an equally expensive winding up process took place and the buildings were sold on to the Salvation Army which moved its printing, and shortly after its musical instrument works, from the East End; that is, London's East End.  The road, or rather track into the field, was called Campfields.  The road's first iteration was barely longer than the works itself.  However, the Salvation Army also acquired additional land, and so it was that the buildings for the city's electricity works was acquired from the Salvation Army's William Booth in 1908.  The administrative building of the works still stands and is now being converted into residential accommodation to be known as The Old Electricity Works.  New buildings for the development have been constructed at the rear on the site of the former generating furnaces.

Advertising by Engineering & Lighting Equipment Ltd
COURTESY GRACES GUIDE TO HISTORY OF INDUSTRY

ELECO's contract along Victoria Embankment.

The next site to be developed, and appropriately next to the electricity works, was an engineering company, Engineering & Lighting Company Ltd (ELECO) which had begun its life in the Lower Lea Valley.  It specialised in the manufacture of electric street lighting.  One of its earliest products was the globe lighting columns along the Victoria Embankment beside the Thames.  It is probable this product prompted the works to be named Sphere Works.  The company also acquired a site opposite, adjacent to the printing works, using land previously occupied by the Salvation Army's tennis courts.

The former Herts Advertiser building, now Phoenix House

After a century publishing a newspaper in the centre of the city the Herts Advertiser moved out to the suburbs, and to a site known to all today as Phoenix House.  In the 1960s the local news was published from here, and although the address is Camp Road, Phoenix lies along Campfield Road leaning against the hill which is Camp Hill.

On both sides of Campfield Road were temporary land uses during the Second World War; on the east side shelters were driven into the hillside; and on the west there were quarters for the Home Guard, and additional temporary buildings; de Havilland Aircraft Company occupied much of the Salvation Army Musical Instrument Works – later taken over by Boosey & Hawkes.

So, Camp Fields, or Campfield Road, a street of two halves; homes on the east and businesses on the west.  Although nothing original remains on the railway side apart from a section of boundary wall, there is plenty of activity in the many industrial and business units which trade from here.  And even more trade on the Sphere Trading Estate opposite.