Parkview - Harpenden's first housing estate, 1883

Panels at the exhibition on 7 December 2019

This is an overview of the exhibition, featuring contemporary photos of buildings in Milton Road, Shakespeare Road, Spenser Road and Cowper Road. In due course we hope to publish details of the individual sheets, with accompanying information about former residents and how the estate developed from 1883 to 1974 – when Kelly’s directories ceased to be published. Kelly’s directories were the main source for tracing occupants/owners, supplemented with information from the Local History archives.  However there are other sources, such as censuses, deeds, and people’s memories – particularly for updating the lists of residents and information about them, and we hope that current owners will continue to add to our knowledge about this area,

John Versey provided the information about Esterhazy – the spy who lived in Harpenden.

There are website pages on Elizabeth Bowen, John Frye Bourne, George Coburn, Hugh Fraser, Phillip Gregory, George Herring, Charles Hill, Hans Kalmus, MAFF Pathology Lab, Kate Richardson, Rosemary Military HospitalKatherine Warington, Dr Robert Warington, Harpenden Water Company

Panel A - John Frye Bourne's poster of Harpenden Common; Life on Parkview estate in the early days; extracts from 1898 and 1898 & 1924 OS maps showing the development of the Parkview estate
Panel B - Milton Road West - 2-10, including Percy Claridge and the artist Katherine Richardson.
Panel C - Milton Road West - 12-26, including Dr Robert Warington, Katherine Warington and the 'Radio Doctor' Charles Hill
Panel D - Milton Road West - 28-36, including Rosemary Military Hospital, MAFF, and John Frye Bourne
Panel E - introduction, including 1883 auction plan for the estate and information about the developers John Cumberland and John R Brown of Luton
Panel F - Milton Road East - 1 - 11, inclduding Dr Hugh Fraser, Ronald Fisher, Charles Williams and threat of demolitions
Panel G - Milton Road East 13-49, including Hans Kalmus, Milton House Hotel and George Herring
Panel H - Milton Road East 51-69, including WWII Yugoslav embassy and Spellthorne St Mary, and Spenser Road evens 14 - 26 and Harpenden Bowling Club.
Panel I - Spenser Road odds 1-23 and Spenser Road evens, 2 - 14 and no.9, including Elizabeth Bowen and her uncle Rev. Colley and aunt Miss Colley
Panel K - Shakespeare Road and Harpenden Water Company
Panel K - Cowper Road evens 2-118, including Claridge & Hall and Coburn brothers, builders
Panel L - Cowper Road odds - 1-69, includingWilliams Samwell's houses, Esterhazy's stables, John Lawson (Australian poet)
Panel - Esterhazy 1 - the spy buried in Harpenden
Panel - Esterhazy 2 - in Harpenden 1909 -1927

No Comments

Start the ball rolling by posting a comment on this page!

Add a comment about this page

Your email address will not be published.