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Field House
Field House in Townsend Road was built towards the end of the nineteenth century – and it has recently come to light that the architect was Mr E J Dodgshun FRIBA, whose design was published in The Builder of 9 September 1898. It was a private house until July 1948 when Mr Roland Walker (see Comment below) sold it to the National Children’s Home for £8,500. The NCH used it to supplement their existing accommodation at the Oval, but closed it in ab...
Heathfield Works
Pen drawing of Heathfield works, before it was destroyed by fire in 1916. Credit: LHS archives, BF 16.1 Harpenden Fire Station stands on the site of an industrial site on the west side of Leyton Road, behind the Silver Cup, known as Heathfield Works. An early C19 engraving shows the building when it was the residence of Thomas Reynolds. From 1805 to 1856 it was let to James Wyatt, a barrister. A number of enterprises have been associated with Hea...
The Silver Cup - a pub since 1838
The Silver Cup, with members of the Archer family, c.1890. Credit: scan from Bygone Harpenden published by H&DLHS 1980 The inn is seen in this photograph as it was at the end of the nineteenth century. It was built in 1838 by the Wheathampstead brewer John House. In 1839 a “Friendly Society” was established there. Members could claim a free pint of beer when they paid their quarterly subscriptions. The licencees were members of the Archer family ...
Bowers House
Daphne wrote this history of Bowers House based on her detailed transciption of wills, inventories, censuses and other sources studied by the WEA classes with Lionel Munby from 1970-73, and from classes in in vernacular architecture with Tony Baggs in 1975. It had been edited, to omit some detail about owners and occupiers, but these have now (February 2017) been added. Biographies of Dr Spackman and Dr Blake have been published as separate pages...
Harpenden Public Halls
Updated in November 2017. The Public Halls were built on land which had been part of the garden of Harpenden Hall. They were opened in 1938 to replace the old Public Hall (now known as Park Hall) in Leyton Road, which had been used for public events and proclamations since the late 1890s. Detail from news-cutting – The Public Halls when opened in 1938. Credit: LHS archives Credit: LHS archives The design was typically modern for the period, but h...
Harpenden Hall
This is not the original Manor of Harpenden. That distinction probably belongs to Harpendenbury, beside the river Ver in the north-west of the old parish of Wheathampstead and Harpenden. The earliest recorded name for the building is Blakesleys when, in the late 16th century it was occupied by members of the Cressey and Bardolf families, who also lived at Rothamsted Manor. During renovations to Harpenden Hall in 1997 an old fireplace was opened u...
Why are they the Baa Lamb Trees?
... Peter Davis An interesting history of the "Baa Lamb" trees and how they were originally named. ( My father worked at Bylands Motor Garage on the old A5 north of Redbourn just after the WW2 period.) It seems that Bylands garage would have been near to "Balams Farm"...
The Foresters Arms
The Foresters Arms at 59 High Street was nicknamed Cobwell Hall in the nineteenth century. This postcard from the late 1890s shows it standing on the current site, between Jessamine (Jasmine) cottage next to Lines Forge (demolished the the late 1950s, when Anvil House was built) and The Thatched Cottage (demolished c.1936, when Bowers Parade was extended). Cobweb Hall – The old Foresters Arms, between Jessamine Cottage and The Thatched cottage. C...
Harpenden Town Trail 1 - The High Street
Our new Town Trails are available from Harpenden Town Information Point, Town Hall, Leyton Road; Harpenden Library; St Albans Tourist Information Office; hotels and B&Bs; or contact us. They can also be downloaded. The first of our Town Trails, published in March 2013, features a selection of buildings along the High Street. There are more photos of the High Street in our Picture Gallery. To enlarge the pictures and view them as a sequence, click...
James Marshall - 1661-1722
James Marshall was a landowner and resident within the old ecclesiastical parish of Wheathampstead which included Harpenden. He died in 1722 at the age of 61 and was buried at Wheathampstead, where some 50 years ago a large new stone was erected on his grave, near the church door. His Will was dated 50th December 1719 and in accordance with his wishes a charitable trust was formed with income from his properties in the parish. It was his intentio...
The Dunkley Family (Harpenden Blacksmiths)
... Philippa Ashton I went to St George's School with a Josephine Dunckley in the late 1960s early 70s. Related presumably? ...
The Putterill family
Arthur Thomas Hunt Putterill (1856-1946) came to Harpenden in 1884 and was one of the first members of the Harpenden Corps of the Salvation Army when it was formed a year later – starting a long family association. He lived in Cravells Road and worked as a joiner. For many years from 1901 until 1912 he was a member of Harpenden Urban District Council. His elder son, Charles Frederick Putterill (1885-1970), known locally as Fred, followed in his f...
Henry Tylston Hodgson - 1843-1918
Henry Tylston Hodgson JP A stone on the wall of the block of cottages, 8-11 Southdown Road bearing the initials of himself and his wife Charlotte (H&CH, 1870), is the only identification sign to commemorate the generosity to Harpenden of Mr Henry Tylston Hodgson. Mr Hodgson, who was Vice Chairman of the Midland Railway Company, bought ‘Welcombe‘, now the Harpenden House Hotel, soon after the Railway came through the centre of Harpenden in I868,...
Weston's Grocery Store
Bertie Weston, my Grandad, was born in 1888 and was one of twelve children, eleven boys and one girl. He leaves school at 13 and works at one of the Village Grocery stores as an assistant and delivery boy. On his return from France in 1919, he opens his own grocer’s shop at 102 Southdown Road. The shop is Weston’s grocers next to the Oggelsby garage at the foot of Walkers’ Road. It is here in the spacious rooms on the first and second floor that ...
Harpenden Evacuees 1939 - 1940
A refund. Credit: John Olley The Society has recently acquired a number of ‘chits’ which record payments to and from Harpenden householders (in the Crabtree Lane area) who took in evacuees in 1939-1940 and also a billeting secretary’s notebook. John Olley has used these records to tell the stories of the families involved – both hosts and visitors. We plan to add a schedule of host families and evacuees shortly. Reluctant Visitors During 1939 and...
George Hogg and Gung Ho
Logo of the Chinese Industrial Co-operatives What motivated George Hogg ** in China was a strong belief in the co-operative movement and what it could do to help the country’s development. He first heard of proposals to establish industrial co-operatives in China in the summer of 1938. China’s situation had become desperate: the advancing Japanese armies had destroyed its coastal industries, crippling the economy, and forcing the Nationalists to ...
Ellen Terry - the James Quilter Rumball connection
Mrs. George Frederick Watts (Ellen Terry) by Charles Dodgson, July 1865. * see note below In the article about Harpenden Hall Asylum, entitled ‘Insanity’ ,reference was made to the Harpenden home of James Quilter Rumball called ‘The Limes’. As noted in the article this address became 69 High Street, Harpenden. This address is also mentioned in ‘Ellen Terry: her years in Harpenden’. In 1867 they eloped to Hertfordshire, first to a cottage on Gusta...
Frank Owen Salisbury 1874 - 1962
Frank Salisbury Report of a talk by Nigel McMurray, author of Frank Owen Salisbury: Painter Laureate Francis Owen Salisbury was born in 1874 in a cottage next to his father’s bicycle repair shop and builders yard, situated near the present ‘Inn on the Green’ in Leyton Road, Harpenden. When he was 15, Frank was apprenticed to his brother Henry James, who managed a stained glass workshop in Alma Road, St. Albans. He gained a scholarship to the Roya...
Batford Springs: Harpenden's local nature reserve
Mr. Randall commenced by asking the question ‘when was the first nature reserve in the UK opened?’ Dates as far back as 1856 were proposed but the answer is 1912. Charles Rothschild, a noted entomologist and founder of The Wildlife Trust, bought 50 acres of fenland and turned it into a nature reserve. The Reserve at Batford Springs is now 17 years old. It lies within Harpenden and consists of some 12 acres beside the River Lea, surrounded by hous...
Lady Lawes-Wittewronge's bills - 1912-13
A friend of Harpenden Local History Society spotted a set of bills relating to Rothamsted Manor, bought them and donated them to the Society in July 2012. The originals have been scanned for our local history archives and deposited in the Rothamsted archives. A similar licence for a servant to Lady Lawes Wittewronge was briefly featured in a Channel 4 programme on Servants in autumn 2012. Licences were only required for male servants, and added t...
Travels recorded in Theodora Wilson's Journals
Setting up the exhibition Les Casey curated an exhibition featuring various aspects of Theodora’s Journals. The photographs and maps are drawn from his personal collection to illustrate some of the holidays and other travels recorded in the Journals between 1885 and 1937. Aysgarth, 1890, p 55 Aysgarth church Aysgarth bridge and mill Theodora wrote about staying with the Stows at Lawns Villa, Aysgarth in August and September 1890: “Everywhere wh...
Barnfield Tennis Club
... John Seabrook I remember this fire very well. I was Chief Reporter of the Free Press at the time but I don't think this is my report; not quite my style! The Fowler quoted throughout is Leslie, who was a very active Harpenden citizen at the time. He was Chairman of Harpenden Council in 1956. Mr Robert L Desbrow and Mr Colin Birchmore were also well known in the district. ...
Memories of old Harpenden around 1900
Batchelors’ Row, Church Green Miss Steabben had returned to Harpenden just after her childhood home, Ivy Cottage in Rothamsted Avenue and her father’s butcher’s shop on Church Green, had been pulled down, together with the cottages alongside, known as Batchelors’ Row, to make way for the shops, flats and garages which were due to be built on the site. Miss Steabben was one of the three daughters of Mr and Mrs Walter Steabben who first came to Har...
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