River Ver. St Albans

River Ver
The Ver flows south eastwards

Abbey Mill End
The road dates from the 1960s when detached houses were built with gardens sloping down to the north bank of the river. The road is accessed from Abbey Mill Lane is south of the Abbey Orchard.
2 Thatched house and Little Thatch
Site of the Abbey Conventual Buildings

Abbey Mill Lane
The lane leads down to the river and there are some 19th houses.
Fighting Cocks. Cock fighting used to take place in the bar there and it is said that the site is still in evidence. There are claims that it is the oldest inhabited licensed building  and it is also claimed that the  foundations incorporate part of the Palace of Offa, King of the Mercians and dating from around 793, It is said it was ‘built before the Flood’ and been on its present site since at least 1600. What you can see now dates from 1890.  It could originally have been the Abbey dovecote, built on the foundations of a gate house and perhaps moved from a different site after the dissolution. It may have been used as the Abbey fishing lodge, since it is near the river and in the 19^th was called The Fisherman for a while. . It is also said that there are secret tunnels underneath going to the Abbey. It became an inn at the dissolution and called The Round House. It is an octagonal, timber-framed house on a brick base and an original bread-oven is next to one of the fireplaces.
Abbey Mill. Excavation has shown that an oven and a barn preceded the mill here and Evidence of a barn granary, adjacent mill and fishponds and a grain processing oven, dating 1300-1450 were found. At first it was used to grind grain, but by 1381 it had been converted into a silk mill. The current building is 18^th and is in brick. A City of London based entrepreneur. Charles Woolams had built much of the mill in the later 18^th as a silk mill which opened for work in 1802.  It was owned and managed by successive family members and other mills opened Hertfordshire. The business was sold in 1906 but continued under other ownership until 1938.
York House and Salisbury House are the two surviving Mill buildings, and thought to be 18^th but could be later. They are big three storey building in red brick, both are now flats.
Abbey Mill Lodge House. At the mill entrance, Gothic
1-23 19^th cottages
8 19^th cottage set into the slope between the two arms of the lane
9 World War I street war memorial on the wall
10-14 Lake Cottage. This lies between two roads. It is a red brick cottage with blue brick patterning, dating from 1818.
25 early 19th house, with a painted ashlar façade
Abbey Mill House.  Dates from c.1830 with a stuccoed front
Abbey Orchard Entrance. The Abbey Orchard, is the site of the cloisters and other monastic buildings, and is crossed by well used footpaths.  There is a current project to plant fruit trees here. A tree is thought to have been planted 'half way down Abbey Orchard': in memory of Elsie Toms, who was a mayor of St Albans and wrote ‘The Story of St Albans’ in 1962.

Albert Street
The road was built in the late 19^th in a linear form roughly following the original burgage plots and subsequent inn yards.  Houses are 19^th and gaps between them reflect the sites of old inn yards. There was a bakery here connected with Sopwell Mill in the 1920s
61 Garibaldi Pub.  Back-street local, acquired by Fuller's in the 1980s. It is named after the Italian patriot of the 19^th.
Pearce’s Walk. 20^th infill housing.
Ryder Seed Mews. This 20th housing development is in an old inn yard area which was later a Postal Sorting Office land. For a while it had been part of the Ryder’s Seeds site.

Bardwell Road
Bardwell Court. 20^th local authority housing scheme,

Belmont Hill
Torrington House, 19^th red brick mansion. Behind a high brick wall.
Flats. These were built in the 1960s in the grounds of Torrington House
1-17 The Sycamores. This is a 20th housing scheme
Albany Gate. This is 20^th housing.
Swimming pool. This was built in the 1930s together with a rifle range which were both part of the sports area of St. Albans School. Now the site of Albany Gate
Belmont Works. This was on the site of what is now Albany Gate and was used by the British Cardboard Box Machine Co. The firm has not traded since 1989.

Centrium Court
A 4-storey office on the site of the former Mercers factory which was what was then Eyewood Road.

Cottonmill Lane
This was once called Green Lane but the name changed when a mill was built making cotton candle wicks.
St Peters School. The original schools were in Old London Road and have been converted into residential accommodation. It was then two schools, catering for children over and under seven and opened in 1851. Eventually in 1931 they became together St. Peter's Primary School and some older children went elsewhere. After the Second World War it became a County Primary School and moved to another building. They moved again to the present site in 1975
City of St. Albans. Cottonmill swimming pool. This baths was built in 1905 by George Ford with Mr Bushell, a builder. It closed to the public in the 1970s and taken over by a sub-aqua/canoe club. It is not open to the public. The Sub Aqua club plans to restore the building to its original condition
Cottonmill. The Cottonmill itself is said to have been sited alongside the current allotments and swimming pool. It was there from the late 18th to the late 19th century and Used for diamonds, cotton, candlewicks, wool and grain. It is also thought that thus could be the site of the 12^th Stankfield Mill.  There is also a suggestion that in the late 18^th there was a “Water House” here which provided piped-water to the town

De Tany Court
Richard de Tany was a local medieval benefactor
The former formal gardens of Holywell House were taken over as school playing fields. The playing fields were finally developed in the 1980’s as housing. This is a courtyard scheme
Remains of the “Holy Well” are in a small enclosed green space among the houses. Each of the four sides has a small staircase leading down to a central recess where there is a square well housing. There were all sorts of stories about a spring connected with the martyrdom of St. Albans and was often mentioned in historical documents from the 13^th onwards.  It is said that Sopwell Priory nearby had some connections to it. In the 17^th it became a feature in the garden of Holywell House when Lady Spencer arranged for a cover. Later the land was acquired by the St Albans School for Boys as a playing field and it was concreted and turfed over. In 1984 there were plans to build a hotel over the site and local residents set out to find the well.  A row with planners ensued. Eventually housing was built and the well preserved as a feature.  Nothing was found there earlier than the 19^th.

Doggett’s Way
An early mayor of St. Albans was a John Doggett

Eywood Road
This road marked the line of Eywood Lane an ancient lane along the line of the borough boundary. It became a street in the early 20^th and has now been obliterated.
Thomas Mercer Ltd - Mercer Gauges were in Eywood Road which was on this site. They were established in 1854. Thomas Mercer came from Liverpool and was a chronometer maker in Clerkenwell. He set up a factory here in 1874 and died in 1900. The company closed in 1984

Griffiths Way
Abbey View.  Trading estate on the gas works site.  This includes contrasting brick details. A corner clock tower and a statue of a Roman centurion. The blocks are Abbot House and Brutus on the frontage and Claudius at the rear.
The St Alban's Gas and Water Company was formed in 1852 based on an existing private concern which had been operating since 1824. In 1870 the water and gas undertakings separated and the gas undertaking incorporated as the St Albans Gas Company. In 1930 it amalgamated with the Watford Gas and Coke Company. Construction works was undertaken in this works in 1864 – which is likely to mean that the works was moved here at that date and that there had been an earlier ‘gas house’ nearer the city centre.. Four gas holders were in use by 1903. The works closed in 1971 and the buildings were blown up in 1975. Two holders remain on site.

Grove Road
A crescent off Holywell Hill. It was built as a bypass round Holywell House but became redundant when the house was demolished.
Abbey Church of England Primary School. In 1848 the Abbey Parish opened a National School which expanded and the school was in Spicer Street.  The Abbey School remained there becoming a primary school in 1933. It moved to Grove Road in 1970 and is now a Church of England voluntary-aided primary school.
Old Bridle Lodge. This may be the one remaining house which was not cleared when the Duke of Marlborough diverted the road away from Holywell House and cleared the houses.

Hart Road
Built in the late 19^th in a linear form roughly following the original burgage plots and subsequent inn yards. Named after the White Hart Inn

Holywell Hill
The road runs straight down to the river Ver from the top of the town. It is predominantly, but not entirely, 18^th and 19^th but many of the 18th fronts conceal earlier structures.
23-25 White Hart Inn. 15th range of timber framed buildings. On the ground floor is a neo-classical reproduction shop front.
27 Comfort Hotel. Now in Ryder House which was Ryder’s seed business office block. In the 1890s, Samuel Ryder started to sell cheap packets of seeds through the post. He kept his stock in the garden shed of his house assisted by his wife and daughter and packets would be posted each Friday so that customers would receive them for their time off on Saturday afternoons. Eventually they opened a large packaging workshop on Holywell Hill, employing around 100 staff. He established a separate herb business, Heath and Heather, with his brother James in 1922. Ryder is famous for having founded the Ryder Cup, golfing trophy.
27A Café Rouge in the conservatory and seed hall built around 1930 by Percival C. Blow for Messrs’ Ryder and Sons, seed and bulb
merchants. It is in rendered brick, with a reinforced concrete and steel frame with a patent glazed roof and a small central dome. There are classical details and art deco type windows. It was built for Samuel Ryder the seed merchant, to display the firm’s merchandise. It is said this was the site of the Bull Inn which was there in the 16^th and said ‘to be the finest in England ‘which at the time of the dissolution was the property of the Charnel Brotherhood
32A 18th built in red and blue brick and 19th shop front on ground floor
34 building of around 1700. There is a Royal Insurance Company plaque on the first floor. There is a modern shop front on the ground floor.
36 corner of Sumpter Yard 18^th building
Abbey Court. A three storey block of flats with a brick and pebble dash front.  In the middle ages and later this site was used by a string of inns. The 'Mermaide' may have been here in in 1497 and next to it the Angel. In 1861 this may have been the site of a cottage hospital which became St. Albans and Mid-Herts Hospital and Dispensary. The building was then let to the Church School Co Ltd and it became the first building of the St Albans High School for Girls. It later became Russell House School
37 Crispin House, also known as The Old Hospice. This is also 2 Sopwell Lane. It was the Crown and Anchor Inn, probably built as an early guest-house for pilgrims visiting the shrine of St Alban. It was clearly the grandest inn in the street. It is a long galleried partly jettied, with exposed timber frame. It has its carriage entrance doors. The southern range once had an open gallery which provided access to the first floor rooms. It seems at one time to have been called the Crane later the Chequers and more recently the Crown & Anchor. It is now housing
38 18^th building
39 15th timber framed building, refaced with plaster. There is a ground floor carriageway
40 House built in 1785 Robert Taylor for Sir William Domville, later Lord Mayor of London. It is a big four-square brick house. There are wrought iron lamp holders. Inside are marble Adam fireplaces
41 Holywell Lodge. Diocesan Resource Centre. It has a 19^th front on an older house. There was once a Malthouse behind it which was owned by the St.Albans Brewery
42 this 17^th building was once the "The Trumpet"
44 & 46 originally this was a 17^th house with a modern shop front
47 Torrington House. 19th red brick house
48 this was once the Post Boy Inn.
52-54 this is now one house built around 1600 with a front of about 1820. There is a carriageway. Inside is panelling from 1700, Thick, oak plank floors and exposed beams. In one room is a plaster
ceiling with Caesar Augustus head. There is a timber framed rear extension. On the wall is a 1914-18 war memorial tablet
56 19th front on a building of around 1600.
58 range of buildings one of which is 16^th with a timber frame and on the other side a 17th section. It has three 19^th shop fronts.  It has been said that this building has the characteristic form of a 15th century Medieval Guildhall.
61-67, 71-75, 77 Waterworks Buildings. A new waterworks was established and its frontage office building which dates from 1911 has now been converted to a nursery school. Behind, to the east, are two Edwardian red brick blocks which are still in water company use. The water company dates from the 1860s with a site in the northern part of the City. Holywell Pumping Station.
68 Malvern House. 19^th building with a balcony, and porch.
70 Ivy House. 18^th house in red brick
76-106, Duke of Marlborough Pub
Holywell House, The manor house was originally called Hallywell and was recorded in 1571. It passed through the Jennings family and Sarah Jennings was born here in 1660. Sarah eventually bought the house and she stayed here with her husband, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough this was a large mansion belonging to the Spencer family and built before 1634. It stood across the current line of the Hill next to the river and Grove Road represented a bypass round it.  The Duke undertook extensive works to the grounds, with buildings and waterworks as well as greenhouses, orchards and so on. His successor was the Earl of Pembroke whose interest in cock fighting resulted in a path the Fighting Cocks. The last family resident was Georgiana, Dowager Countess Spencer, who lived there rom 1783, She had the gardens redesigned by Samuel Lapidge. It was demolished in 1837 when the road took its present route. A blue plaque marks where the house is believed to have stood.
Playing field. Holywell Meadows had been part of the grounds of Holywell House home of Lady Georgiana Spencer, who died in 1812 the house was demolished in 1836. In 1852 it was bought at auction by George Debenham and by 1883, the meadows had been reduced by developments to the north and west. In 1886 Charles Woollam bought the remainder and it was given to the Grammar School as a playing field. These were developed in the 1980’s as a residential development called De Tany Court

Keyfield Terrace
Keyfield was north of Sopwell Lane and on the south side of the boundary line at Tonman Ditch. It was here that the Duke of Warwick's forces camped before the First battle of St. Albans. After the dissolution traffic which wanted to access the town and its inns would go along this route and into the back of inn yards rather than up the steep main road.
4 White Hart Tap. One-bar, back-street local. The pub was twinned with the Bar No l in Belgrade. This originally was built at the end of the property belonging to the White Hart Inn as its back entrance. It was a beer house.
The Beehive. Small scale 19^th pub with front bays and mock half timbering. At right angles to the road where it kinks at the medieval borough boundary.

King Harry Lane
St Columba College. This Catholic boys' school opened in 1939, and was taken over by the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, New England Province, in 1955. It is now under lay management and there are sister schools in Zambia and close associations with Brothers’ schools in North America
Invergeldie.  This is now called Iona House and is part of the main buildings at St Columba College.

Lady Spencer Grove
This is an avenue of horse chestnuts and limes between Abbey Mill Lane and Holywell Hill and was Lady Spencer's favourite route through from the Spencer home in Holywell Hill to Verulamium and the Abbey. Lady Spencer undertook extensive tree planting and this walk is one of the few identified remains of her work.

Mercers Row
This was built in the 1980s and encroached into St Stephens Hill open space. It is a development of two storey houses in yellow brick arranged in pairs and blocks of four. It is named for the Mercer Chronometer Co whose factory was close by.

Mud Lane
This was once called Fullers Lane and land to the north was used as tentergrounds for bleached drying cloth. It has since been called Harley Street. Iron Age remains and those of Roman buildings have been discovered here. There was also a medieval settlement. The area was used as farmland up to the 20^th and some farm field boundaries are still visible between the College and the golf course. In the 20^th land was used for allotments and huts sited here were possibly for POW transit during the Second World War.
Mud Lane Pumping Station. Supplies drinking water from the chalk aquifer.
Abbey Theatre. The Company of Ten drama group, set up in 1934, opened a theatre in 1955 in a barn at Abbey Mill. In 1968, the Abbey Theatre, designed by local architects Michael Meacher and Partners, was built. Michael Redgrave laid the foundation stone and the theatre was opened by the Queen Mother. It is in a dark red/brown brick and has since been extended
Westminster Lodge water meadows. At the far end of the hedge round the running track, is a circle of North American trees round an English oak. These trees were planted to commemorate 75 years since the founding of Rotary International in Chicago in 1905.
Leisure Centre. Before 1973 a Council swimming pool and leisure centre had been constructed in a contemporary concrete and steel design, the service area disguised by zig-zag sections of wall and panels of hit and miss painted timber fencing and tree planting
St Albans Sea Cadets. In Second World War huts plus a utilitarian modern single storey building are currently used by air, army and sea cadets.
Westminster Lodge running track. The track opened in 1988 and the home straight was resurfaced in August 2001.
Westminster Lodge Sports Centre. This is now a replacement facility which opened in 2012.
Abbey View Golf Course. Nine hole course with a club oriented towards retired people and which has other social activities.

Old London Road
Following the dissolution traffic heading for the town and its inns could not easily use Sopwell Lane and so used this road. It was also a route by which he steepest part of Holywell Hill could be avoided,

Orchard House Lane
At 64 Holywell hill – this is an unmade road which gave access to Orchard House
Orchard House. A 19^th house altered and extended.
Pickwick House. This is now divided into two. It is 15^th with much subsequent alterations. It is stucco, scored as ashlar, with some timber-framing.

Orchard Street
The name relates to the adjacent Abbey Orchard
2-34 19^th cottages said to have been built for silk mill workers

Pageant Street
Built in the late 19^th in a linear form roughly following the original burgage plots and subsequent inn yards. And named after the great pageant that took place in St Albans in 1907. There is said to be a folly arch in one of the gardens

Pondwicks Close
This short road dates from 1937. The name Pondwicks refers to the ponds which were here following canalisation of the Ver. “Pond Wicks” is shown here on a 1634 map. In the 20^th the area was divided into plots and a variety of house designs used for individual owners. They are generally in the Arts and Crafts style and architects included locals like Percival Blow

Sopwell Lane
The road parallel with the river and marked the southern boundary of the late medieval town. It had long burgage plots running back to the ditch on the east side. Traffic reaching the town and its inns Initially access to the inns in the medieval period came in via the lane but after the Dissolution the Abbey’s lands here were in private hand and this ceased,
104 The Hare and Hounds. 17^th or earlier timber framed and stucco building
Primitive Methodist Chapel. There were Primitive Methodists in St Albans in 1841 and lack of a meeting place was a problem and it was decided to open a chapel in 1844. They used it until 1875 and then moved out. The building was used as a mission hall for the Baptist church and an extension added by Percival Blow in the 20^th. In 1934, it was purchased by the St Albans City Band and they moved out in 200. .The building was sold in 2007 and is mow housing
Malthouse Court. Development by Meacher & Partners, 1966-7. It re-places a brewery malt house
37 Goat Inn.  A pub built on the old coaching route from London.  It is a 16th timber framed building with an overhanging upper storey. It had its old carriage arch with exposed timbers in the walls. Many extensions and alterations since the 16^th. When it was built it was a medieval H shaped hall house with an open hall set between wings. It was an inn by 1587
81 The White Lion pub. This is said to have been built in 1594. It is a timber framed building with a weather boarded back. Exposed beams inside.

St.Julian’s Road
Tonman’s Ditch – part of medieval boundary of St. Albans - here followed a footpath called Green Lane, a few yards of which survive behind this road.

St Stephen's Hill
The King Harry. 19^th pub first recorded in the mid 16^th which is a local landmark.
St Stephen's.  This small church was founded by Wulfsin, Abbot of St Albans and probably built in the 11^th or early 12^th in flint rubble and Roman brick and consecrated around 1101-18. It is built on the site of a Roman cemetery and is one of three churches originally built by Abbot Ursinus in 948 at the gateways to the town. Thus it stands on Watling Street south of the town. It has had extensions built in the successive centuries including a wooden belfry with a peal of six bells. This is now weatherboard and supported on steel arches since 1913. It was restored in 1861 by George Gilbert Scott who added the broach spire and again in the 20^th.  Parish rooms were added in 1989-91. The brass eagle lectern is a copy of one found, buried in a tomb in 1750. It is thought to have been stolen from Holyrood in 1544 and been buried during the Civil War.  There is an octagonal font dated 1350, carved with the figures of angels between shields and saints on it.
Churchyard. A Roman milestone.
St Stephen’s Hill. Open Space previously been vicarage gardens, many specimen trees within the space  
Vicarage. 19^th house
St. Albans Abbey Station. This is the terminus of the London Overground Line to Euston via Watford Junction. . The first railway came to the town in 1858, a branch line from the London and North Western Railway at Watford, terminating at St Albans Abbey Station at the foot of Holywell Hill. In 1865 another branch line, from the Great Northern Railway main line at Hatfield, was also brought to terminate at the station. Thus is the earliest railway station in St Albans. It was called St. Albans Abbey from 1924.  Until the mid 20^th this was a fully functioning station with two rail tracks, a ticket office, sidings, coal yard, cattle pens and a goods depot. The Hatfield line closed to passengers in 1951 and goods services were withdrawn from the end of 1968. In 1963 the station had been proposed as a Beeching cut but this was not implemented. However tracks were ripped up, services cut, and buildings demolished; only a single platform and track remains, and some gate piers at entrance, the most minimal presence of a railway station. The remains of the branch to Hatfield can be seen to the left of the single platform when looking down the line
4 Lodge. Single storey lodge house and arched gatehouse. Now a veterinary hospital and clinic.
Milepost between 10 and 12. This dates from about 1820. It is in triangular in cast iron d painted. It is inscribed ‘HATFIELD 6’,’WATFORD 7, READING 44’ and ‘ST ALBANS 1’.

Sumpter Yard
‘Sumpter’ means provisions and this was the main delivery area for the Abbey from the main road. In 1987 it ceased to be a public highway and was landscaped
Old Rectory. An 18th, red brick house
Deanery, designed by Grimthorpe in 1878 as a  rectory. A grand two storey brick building, with an arched entrance which faces onto the Abbey Orchard
Barn is one of two buildings used as offices,
Deanery garden – trees and lawns used for receptions
Cedar tree planted by Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough in 1803. Its shape was caused by vandalism when the tree was young.

The Causeway
This is the northern part of a deep ditch, part of the defence work for the late Iron Age and Roman settlement, which runs from King Harry Lane northwards

Thorpe Road
The road connects Sopwell Lane with Belmont Hill.
Printers Court. 20th block of flats,

Trevelyan Place
8-13 Trevelyan House. This was previously Westminster Lodge and used by the YHA as national offices, it is now flats. It is a red brick building with decorated chimneys and a central roof turret. Westminster Lodge was built by an Isaac Newton, one of a prominent local family, in the mid 19^th; including stables and a coach house but was bankrupt and moved away in 1888. In 1940 the London printing firm of J Evershed & Co which h had been bombed out of their works at Bow, and acquired the house for their head offices and stayed there until 1955. It was then taken over by the Youth Hostel Association, who renamed it in memory of their founder President, Dr George Trevelyan. Since they moved out private housing has been built around and the house itself is also housing.

Verulamium Park
In 1961 the Council bought an area of farmland east of the Roman town adjoining the south bank of the river from Lord Verulam to protect it from residential development pressure. It became a public park and various leisure developments followed towards the southern boundary.
Lake. A main feature of the park is the ornamental lake which was built in 1929 as a project to help the unemployed of St Albans during the depression. The lake is fed by the river Ver.
Heron Island. Island built in the lake and is a designated home for herons.

Watling Street
The line of Roman Watling Street continues in a straight line from here across parkland to pick the road up again at St., Michaels Lodge. Late in the 10^th Abbot Ulsinus blocked Watling Street at St Stephens’s travellers to enter the town and the Abbey. To bypass the town it was necessary to go down St Stephens Hill to the valley bottom and then up Holywell Hill and in a loop round the Abbey to rejoin the Roman road at St Michael’s. This continued as a route for pilgrims throughout the medieval period
2 St Stephen’s House. An 18^th red brick house set at an angle away from its neighbours.
8 Watling Cottage.  Arts and Crafts details by Kinnear Tarte.
Barn, 17th.
Coach house. This is on the corner and is a single storey red brick building now housing

Westminster Court
Built in the grounds of what was Westminster Lodge
This replaced St Stephen’s Hill House in the 1960s

Sources
British History On Line. St.Albans. Web site.
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Chelsea Speleological Society. News letter
English Heritage. Web site
Goulder. London
Graces Guide. Web site
Herefordshire churches,
Legear. Underground Kent
Lidos in the United Kingdom. Web site
London Drinker
London Transport Country Walks,
Mee. Hertfordshire
Megalithic Portal. Web site
Meluenkamp and Wheatley. Follies
My Primitive Methodists, Web site
National Archives. Web site
Parks and Gardens. Web site
Pevsner and Cherry. Hertfordshire
River Ver. Mills. Web site.
Salbani. Web site
Sopwell Residents Association. Web site
St Albans City Council. Web site
St.Albans History. Web site
St.Albans Nostalgia. Web site
St Albans Sub Aqua Club. We site.
St. Peter’s School. Web site
Walk-Talk. Web site
Well wishing in St. Albans. Web site
Whitelaw.   Hidden Hertfordshire

River Ver. Verulamium

River Ver
The River Ver flows south-eastwards.

Blacksmiths Lane
It is possible that there was a blacksmith working here up to the 1950s. The road is said to have a ‘planned Victorian layout’ with some listed buildings. The Old Forge is adjacent,

Bluehouse Hill
The extension of the hill from St. Michael’s Church to Batchworth Roundabout dates from the 1960s.
St. Michael’s Lodge.  19^th house at the entrance to the Gorhambury Estate.
Foundations of a Roman town house, a secret shrine and a row of Roman shops are associated with the site of the Roman theatre

Branch Road
Branch Road dates from 1826 when an existing lane was rerouted.
Kingsbury Lodge. The Lodge was built as the manager’s house for Kingsbury Brewery in the 19th. The house has high double gables and flint panels set within painted brick walls. The garden wall is also brick and flint plus yew hedging
St Michael’s Memorial Hall. This was designed by Percival Blow in 1925 and is set back from the road. It is in plain, red brick,
3 house from 1831 in brick and flint
Kingsbury Manor. This is the former farm house and it is behind a 17th-18th red brick wall. Kingsbury was a manor here connected to monastic foundation which controlled the fish ponds and maybe a defence structure. The site of the house is outside the Roman walls and the Roman road to Colchester lies underneath it. It is also thought that the site of a Roman bridge over the Ver may lie beneath the front garden. The house looks very different from the front to the back and was thus built in many phases and is probably a rebuilding of previous houses since it postdates the adjacent barn. At the back the original house appears now as an extension but it is a hall house dating from about 1419.  The hall was altered in the 16^th making it two stories and later still panelling was inserted. In the 17^th a new house was built alongside and in the 18^th they were joined together and constant changes and renovation continue.
Kingsbury Barn.  A monastic aisled barn - tithe barn dating from the 1374.  One aisle destroyed. It is built on the site of a Roman building, alongside the Roman Road to Colchester – which was diverted in the middle ages to go round the site. It is one of a number of barns built by St Albans Abbey, under Cellarer/ Abbot John Moote maybe as a way of upgrading the farm after The Black Death. It was part of the Kingsbury Manor farmyard used for processing animal feed for estate farm on the Gorhambury Estate.  After when the Manor was sold in the 1960 it was used by Express Dairies. It was sold to a developer but following local objections it has now been restored.
Barn. This is 18th and weather boarded
Express Dairy. This is the front of an early modern building from the 1930’s converted to housing. This had been Kingsbury Dairy leased bit Express Dairies in the 1950s.  They continued here, became Dairy Crest, but sold the site in 2004.

Camlet Way
The name refers to the Roman road which ran through St. Albans on its route between Colchester and Silchester.
Houses built in the 1970s on a green field site in a mock Georgian style.

Fishpool Street
The street was once the main North West coach route to Chester out of St Albans and follows the high ground on the north bank of the Ver. The western end of the road is part of the Roman street pattern. Its name relates to the nearby medieval fishponds and the road is documented from 1250 part then known as Salipath referring to willow trees.
Fishpool was a great pool which stretched from St. Michaels to Holywell. Aelfric, the seventh abbot, drained it meaning that local livelihoods were lost as well as the fish.
120 This was once the Cock and Flowerpot Inn and is now housing
122 Bank House, wide and square proportioned red brick Georgian frontage. The large plot behind which has recently been used for two new houses
137 a 16^th Wealden style house with an 18^th front.
142-148 three 17^th houses.
145 The Blue Anchor.  Late 18th and one of a number of inns dating from the road as a coaching route
150 17^th house with an 18^th front
152-158 17^th timber framed buildings with traces of jetted fronts
160 17^th house with an 18^th red brick facade
162 & 164 17^th house rebuilt in the 19^th in red brick
166 & 168 16th timber framed house. Plastered, with traces of pargetting, 166 has a Tudor arch with decoration.
170 17^th house with a 19^th front
172 17^th house with a 19^th rebuilding
174 – 176 19^th houses probably by George Smith, with flint walls and red brick dressings.
194 this was the Unicorn Pub and is now housing
196 - 198 Black Lion. Pub in red and blue brick of around 1700. The name refers to the badge of Queen Phillipa who was the consort of Edward III. It is one of a number of inns dating from the road as a coaching route but has now been converted to housing.
St Michael's Manor House. This is a late 17^th building which may include an older building which can be traced to 1530 but on medieval foundations, which can be traced back to the 11th. It is said some of the original flooring are still in the cellars... Inside is some 19^th plaster decoration and some dated 1586. The house was built by John Gape in 1585, a tanner and prominent city figure. It was owned by his descendants up until it was purchased by the current owners. It has a large garden extending to the park and the river. It was converted into a hotel in the early 1960s by the Newling Ward family.

Gorhambury Drive
The entrance to the Gorhambury Estate and the drive to the house
Roman Theatre. This is the site of one of the few true Roman theatres in Britain. It was built around AD130 and seems to be associated with two temples. It has banked seating for 2000 facing the stage, with a re-erected stage column. An extension was built around AD 180. It was identified in 1847 and excavated in the 1930s. It is on a privately owned site but open to the public

Kingsbury Avenue
Kingsbury.  In Saxon times this was a royal fortified settlement and a potential rival to the new town being built by the abbey. After the pond was drained the area declined and Canute let the Abbey demolish some buildings and the site was finally cleared under Stephen.  Kingsbury remained outside St. Albans’ boundaries until the 19^th

Kingsbury Mews
This is housing built on the site of the Express Dairies which was part of Kingsbury Farm. In 2004 Express Dairies they left and the land was sold to Henry Developments who built 16 homes here.

Mount Pleasant
Gonnerston. Built 1963 as a layout of yellow brick houses, on a slope in groups of three or four. They have small enclosed gardens and open courts in front by Herbert, Cox & Gear.

Roman Wall
The ruins of the city wall reach to 12ft, are preserved and listed. This section runs from Bluehouse Hill to Goreham Block in woodland.

St. Michael’s Street
St. Michael’s ford over the river Ver.
St.Michael’s Bridge. 18th red brick bridge of three arches with a stone
parapet and square piers at each end and sloping approach ramps. It was erected by the Turnpike Trust in 1765
6 plus outbuilding to Kingsbury Mill
8 17^th building timber framed and plastered
10 Rose & Crown Pub. Probably 18^th building, but could be older. An old coaching inn with timbering and a small garden
11 Oaken House. 17^th timber framed house
14 17^th timber framed building jettied front removed
Old forge. This is next to 14 and on the corner of Blacksmiths Lane. It is a 17^th timber framed built with a furnace and chimney
16 The Six Bells Pub.  This was a coaching inn. It is thought that a 1543 entry in a local Estate refers to the pub. The building is 16th and in 1756 provided two beds for travellers and stabling for nine horses. It was named the Six Bells in the late 18^th thought to reflect the bells in the nearby church. An archaeological dig found worked flints left by Mesolithic hunter gatherers in 6,000 - 4,000 B.C and fired clay moulds used in the production of Iron Age Celtic coins. The main find however was the remains of a Roman Bath House burnt down by the followers of Queen Boadicea in A.D. 60/61. The flint and brick public bath house had been built by the Romans near the "Colchester Gate”. Only a small part of the cold room is known but these included fragments of painted plaster including one with a picture of a tortoiseshell lyre and some plaster was stippled to imitate marble.
17 17^th building with a weatherboard extension
18 St Germains. House built around 1800 with a jetted front taken from a much earlier building. It lies across the Roman road. The farmland on which some of the local area was built was called St. Germans. There had been a local oratory to St. Germain sited in this area.  Outbuildings include a former staff cottage. In the garden is a well of which nothing is visible but is believed to be Roman.
Outbuilding to no 18, an 18^th building with weather boarded front and barge boards.
19 - 21 timber framed 17^th building
29 17th house. Detached brick outbuilding known as The Old Bake House
37 outbuilding at Darrowfield House
St. Germain's Barn. 18^th building with 20th weatherboarding over timber frame on a brick plinth. Inside is a threshing floor. It stood in the foldyard of St Germain's Farm
Jessamine Cottage. 19^th house built on a church plan and similar to that on school nearby with flint walls
Darrowfield House. This was the Dower House of Gorhambury. It is in an 18^th Queen Anne style in chequered brick - red and blue diapered patterned brickwork. It is sometimes known as "New House“.  The gates are in an Italian style.  The railings includes a GR post box and there are two deciduous trees on the frontage
Grebe House. Hertfordshire and Middlesex Wildlife Trust. This is a timber framed building salvaged from Watford and relocated here in the 20th;
Roman Museum. This has a 1930s frontage which echoes the local flint walling and it has panels of knapped flint. It was extended in the 1990s in a neo Roman style and tree is also a visitors’ building of 2004 faced in white concrete embedded with crushed and whole shells, which protects and interprets Roman hypocaust and mosaic
The Waffle House. Kingsbury Mill now a restaurant, Mill buildings – this is a watermill known as the Malt Mill or St Michaels Mill and now Kingsbury Mill; it was once part of Kingsbury Farm. It is a brick and timber-framed building with an 18th front of three white weather boarded gables of different sizes. The origins of the buildings, which were on the Gorehambury Estate, are thought to be 16^th. There was previously a malt mill belonging to St. Albans Abbey with origins which may go back to Domesday, since it is recorded in 1194. It is a two-storey mill, with bin floor in the loft. There is an internal undershot iron waterwheel, 12-foot diameter by 6 feet wide, iron pit wheel and wallower, and wooden great spur wheel. There are three pairs of stones. The machinery includes a bean kibbler and an oat crusher. Milling ceased in 1936. It is said there is a museum of farm machinery and a gift shop on site.
St Michael’s Church of England Primary School. 19^th single storey school with flint walls.  It was founded in 1811 by the 2nd Earl of Verulam to provide an education for local poor children. It became a Church School in 1876 and, following the 1944 Education Act, became Voluntary Aided. The school has two sites in St Michael’s Street, Top School and Lower School.
St Michael’s Court, a set of narrow cottages set in an L shape away from the road, originally very small cottages for the working class.
St Michaels Vicarage. Thus was replaced in the late 1920s to a design by Percival Blow, in a vernacular style
St.Michael. The church was founded in the mid 10^th by Wulfsin, the then abbot of St Albans one of three built on the approaches to the new town built away from the Roman site. It is in flint and Roman brick taken from the Roman ruins. This points to this being an early building - although the walls thick for an Anglo-Saxon church. It has been said it was built on the site of the Roman forum. The nave and chancel are 11^th; the aisles 12^th; chapel and clerestory are 13th when there was some rebuilding because of structural problems and there was once a 13^th tower. In the 15^th there were anchorites associated with the church and a squint may have been for them. The church was restored by George Gilbert Scott in 1866 and in the 1890s and much was removed including the box pews, 3 with their own fireplaces. Scott. It was remodelled again to designs by Edward Beckett, Lord Grimthorpe, a barrister and amateur architect, with a new vestry and a new tower built a new tower, embattled with a turret, a clock, and six bells   . It was restored again in 1934-5 by J C Rogers, and a vestry added in 1938. Inside it is plastered and painted and there is part a Doom painting showing the newly awakened dead rising from their coffins but mostly destroyed during the 19th restoration. There is a 15^th door with original wrought iron strap work hinges and a, heavily carved late Elizabethan or early Jacobean hexagonal pulpit, with tester, book board and hourglass. There is a 17th altar with matching chairs and the Royal arms of 1660. There are several brasses, and a monument to Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor, d.1626, as a seated figure possibly sculpted by Nichols Stone. There was at one time a Museum here with Roman relics - jewellery, pottery, and a Mithraic token, household implements. There are traditional wooden church gates and Cedar trees in the church yard
Workhouse. In 1820, St Michaels had a parish workhouse opposite the east end of the church

Verulamium Park
(This square relates only to the northern section of the park)
The park covers about half of the area of the Roman town. In the middle ages chapels were sited here and the much of the area became St Germain’s farm. The land was bought by the City Council from the Earl of Verulam in 1929 for use as a park.
Toddlers Splash Park. This is on the site of the old paddling pool and has been built over the original pool to protect the buried roman remains. It opened in 2005.
The Inn on the Park
Lake. There are two lakes which were built in the early 1930s. They both have concrete edging and are no more than 1m deep. On the larger lake semi-aquatic vegetation is limited to the northern end. The lakes are fed by the River Ver through a sluice which does not let water to pass if the river is low.
River Ver. The Ver is canalised alongside the lakes which leads to a low flow level.
Boating Lake. Used for model boats
Site of St. Mary Magdalene Chapel.
Bell Meadow. This area was acquired by the City Council in 1934. It may once have been connected to the Six Bells Pub.

Verulam Road
Kingsbury Brewery. Three storey brewery buildings built around a large central yard in brick and knapped flint. It had been opened here around 1827 by Francis Searancke and had previously been in Fishpool Street.  It closed in 1898 when it was owned by Bingham and Cox, had 52 pubs and was sold to Benskins and brewing moved to Watford

Sources
Archaeology and History. Web site
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Go Historic. Web site
London Transport. Country Walks.
Pevsner and Cherry. Hertfordshire
Roman Theatre. Web site.
Six Bells web site
Society of St, Michaels and Kingsbury, Web site
St.Albans City Council. Web site
St.Albans History. Web site
St.Albans Museums. Web site
St.Michael’s Manor. Web site
St Michaels Primary School. Web site
Waffle House. Web site

River Ver Prae

River Ver
The Ver flows south eastwards

Post to the north Shafford

Gorehambury Drive
Maynes Farm. The Farmhouse is 17^th but was refronted in the 19^th when the axis of house was changed. It is in red brick but the side nearest the farmyard includes some flint. In front of the house is a 17^th red brick wall and this encloses the garden and includes some iron railings. Barn, 17^th timber framed and weather boarded building. Another weather boarded barn is 15^th or earlier and with an almost intact aisled construction. Farmhouse and barns have recently been renovated.
Devils ditch.  This runs south west from the farm buildings back to Gorhambury Drive. This fifteen metre wide ditch may have marked a boundary– even running between the Ver and the Lea. The name associating it with the devil seems to date from the Reformation.

Churchyard Meadow.
St Mary de Pre nunnery for women, which lay in 'churchyard meadow' west of the Roman town. Traces are visible on aerial photographs. What may have been the church survived as a barn until the 19th and it is likely that remains still survive below ground -  some of which were found when a gas pipeline was laid..  The nunnery originated from 1194 and was a home for leprous women.  By the early 16^th leprosy was dying out and there were various concerns about the institution, and eventually it closed with no inmates.

Watling Street (Redbourne Road)
The line of Roman Watling Street, leaves Redbourn Road at Bow Bridge and later meets Gorhambury Drive.
The St Albans & South Mimms Turnpike Trust are said to have had a gate here at the boundary of Redbourn Parish.
Bow Bridge. Takes Watling Street over the Ver
Milestone – this says “London 22.. St Albans 1 ½. Redbourn 2 ½
Old Pondyards. This 17^th house was probably built as a lodge and storehouse in connection with the Fish Ponds of Gorehambury but soon after became only housing. It is a tall square red brick building.
Fish Ponds. Swamp and poplar plantation on the site of the Gorhambury estate ponds.
Pre Mill. This was derelict mill was most recently a saw mill. This is however a medieval mill site. In the 16th the mill pumped water to Gorhambury House. There may have been an earlier mill here – a Ditchmill is mentioned in the 12th which could have been there. There is a sluice in the river associated with the mill.
Pre Mill House. Red brick square-plan house of around 1800
The Garden House. This is a ‘carvery’ in what was previously Pre Hotel. This was The Prae, a 19^th country house in stuccoed and painted brick and with a long veranda
Willow plantation

Sources
British History online. St.Michaels. Web site
British Listed Buildings. Web site.
Dyer. Discovering Prehistoric England
Garden Hotel. Web site
Pastscape. Web site
River Ver. Web site
St.Albans City Council. Web site

River Ver - Shafford

River Ver
The Ver flows southwards, dividing into two for some of the route

Post to the north Prae

Watling Street/Redbourn Road
This is Telford’s Holyhead road. Watling Street originally went through Verulamium and the Telford Road joins it here.
Roman Road - Telford re-aligned Watling Street for the Holyhead Road in the 19^th. The point where it joins can be seen on the west side of the road slightly north of the river crossing is a small gate across a footpath
North of the river crossing the road was administered by the Dunstable and Shafford House turnpike from 1821 – their northern limit was the Black Bull Inn at Dunstable. They were abolished in 1877,
Shafford Farm. The Farmhouse is 17^th with a timber frame cased in
red brick in the 19^th.  The farm and the surrounding estate are part of the Childwickbury Estate
Barn. 16^th building which could be earlier but, altered and possibly moved in the 19^th. It is weather boarded with a corrugated iron roof and a painted brick base. There is a 19^th cart entrance on one side and a stable wing. There is also a smaller barn which probably began as a granary. It is 17^th with a stable range added in the 19^th. There is a sack hoist with a weather boarded gable.
Shafford Cottages
Shafford Mill, converted to housing in the 1980s.  It is a 19^th building in brown stock brick.  It was used as a corn mill
Shafford Stud. This was built in the 1920s. Maple, of the furniture store, had a Shire horse stud here.
Shafford House
Bow Bridge Pumping Station. This is pumping water from deep aquifers.
Watercress Hall – this was on the other side of Watling Street from Hogg End Lane where a field entrance and path remain. Watercress was said to be grown on this stretch of the Ver to this point

Sources
Affinity. Web site
British Listed Buildings. Web site
National Archives. Web site
Sabre Wiki. Web site