Last updated on March 11th, 2021.
January 3rd. New item on Your Turn page.
January 11th. New blog post: "How Safe Was Hatfield Road?" Below.
January 12th. New item on Your Turn page.
January 24th. New blog post: "St John's and Lane End".
January 31st. New blog post: "Behind the Cinema". Below.
February 2nd. February newsletter. Below.
February 7th. New blog post: "Park View". Below.
February 26th. New blog post: "Cycling and Walking …"
March 1st. Updated image details on Oakwood School page
March 2nd. New blog post: "A Look on the South Side". Below.
March 2nd. Updated image details on Beaumont School page.
March 11th. Certain pages may not open at present.
On the corner of Coopers Green Lane and what used to be called Manor Road.
Welcome to the latest news
from our own East End
AFTER 120 YEARS …
Twenty pages of topics about the East End for you to explore.
The Bakery and More
From the Co-op Bakery almost to the Rats' Castle, including Spendwise. Not everyone will remember.
Above image courtesy St Albans Museums.
This is the section east of the Midland Railway, but there is more: 6.5 km in total.
The little drive to the left of the new development taking place opposite Sutton Road is probably the oldest driveway in Fleetville and originally led to a farrier's workshop which was part of the former farm. It has never been given a name as it was on private land. From the 1920s until the 1970s laundry vans could regularly be seen entering and leaving Hatfield Road – the premises was a steam laundry, and later a dry-clean establishment.
These are scouts training in the wilds of Tyttenhanger Green, probably in the grounds of Highfield Hall. In full costume they are rehearsing for a show presented annually in the thirties at the football ground, Clarence Park. Initially titled Searchlight Tattoo, in later years it included fireworks displays presented by Brock's Crystal Palace Fireworks. Wouldn't you just love to have been present?
Here is Fleetville's football team in 1976/77, taken at the district's 6 a-side tournament played at Nicholas Breakspear field. It was forwarded by John Bishop as a colour image, but to improve the contrast we've changed it to monochrome. See Fleetville School page.
There have been many community football teams in our East End, including teams based on the streets of Fleetville, some going back to the district's very beginnings. Here is a newly discovered photograph from the early 1950s; two more from the same source have been transferred to Sopwell Memories as they are Cottonmill teams from the 1940s. A larger version of the photo below is on the Groups Gallery page.
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.
At the end of September the County Council announced is would not give consent for Brett Associations to dig for sand and gravel at Ellenbrook Fields, already reserved as a future countryside park. The authority gave several reasons, including unwarranted disturbance to nearby residents, large numbers of lorry movements, disturbance of underground water flows and risks associated with a known chemical called a bromate plume. This refusal was a huge relief for residents living in Smallford, Ellenbrook and Nast Hyde. But there is no certainty yet about the future.
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).
When laid out Princes Road was short, connecting Tess Road (now Woodstock Road south) and Woodstock Road (now Woodstock Road north). Offered to the City Council by Earl Spencer for use as a cemetery but turned down, it was developed into thirty-two homes in c1901.
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.
In 1899 Henry Hawkins retired from the Bar after a lifetime of notable legal cases, and his life ended eight years later. Though he did not live in St Albans Earl Spencer named a road which linked two of his estates after Mr Hawkins.
The fourth full cinema on this site, and the third building, currently the only remaining full-time film theatre in the city. Visit the Odyssey to witness today's comfort.
First opened on the site of a former brewery operation in Chequer Street, the Chequers was the only cinema in the centre of St Albans.
The only cinema east of the Midland Railway and therefore in the East End, the Gaumont (formerly called the Grand Palace) was in the otherwise residential Stanhope Road.
Now number 155 Camp Road the above house was once a general store and post office, first opened by Thomas Gear in the first decade of the 20th century. Mr G Trottman then took over. Are there any photographs of number 155 as a shop?
The residents' association for the formative Marshalswick estate around The Ridgeway west, purchased a number of flowering almond trees for planting in the roadside verges during the Festival of Britain year, 1951. Apparently 112 were acquired. Was there a significance to this number, or was it simply the number that could be accommodated or afforded along the roads which were planted?
Mr Belcher, a teacher of Fleetville School, took a group of children to Port Eynon, on the Gower, in June 1955. If you were in that group, please well us all about your trip. We know that the return journey was delayed by a rail strike, and it seems likely there was much confusion in the attempt to keep the school and the parents informed.
© 2021 St Albans' Own East End Mike Neighbour