Auction of cottages on Leyton Road, behind the Silver Cup

Recent donation of document dated 1877

Cover of Auction notice, 1877

In 2016 we received an anonymous donation of a fragile document – a notice of the auction on 11 October 1877 of four cottages in Leyton Road, behind the Silver Cup Inn, along with “a valuable piece of building land (now used as a Garden)”, adjoining the Silver Cup and fronting the Turnpike Road from Harpenden to St Albans – now known as St Albans Road – the A1081.

The description of these properties matches the plan for the auction (for which we do not have the details) for the sale of Heathfield Works, at the time when Fields Hat Factory moved to Grove Road in Bowling Alley, and the factory was purchased by Abbot and Anderson, manufacturers of oil skins. This plan indicates an auction date of 31 August 1883, and shows the cottages, in the ownership of the late Mr J T Wells. One of them was occupied by Mrs Constable, who died in 1912 at the age of 102 (see the Particulars).

The site of the Heathfield works was redeveloped in the early 2000s as a gated estate (Coopers Mews) behind the cottages marked as in the ownership of Mr Henry Lines senior, which still stand on Leyton Road.

Comments about this page

  • I am very interested in this article as I lived in one of the cottages during the sixties. My then husband worked for Abbott Anderson and the cottage came with the job. We had an outside toilet (shared until a second was built) and a tin bath. My children’s prams had to be kept in a shed. Oh lovely days!

    By Rita Chapman (18/04/2017)

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