River Gade - Rickmansworth Road

River Gade
The Gade flows southwards while looping east and west

Post to the north Cassiobury Park
Post to the west Rousebarn

Cassiobury Park
In 1908 Watford Urban District Council bought 50 acres of the grounds of Cassiobury House for £16,000 and a further 25 acres in 1913 for £7,000.
Bowls – This is leased to the Watford Bowls Club
Tea Pavilion. This was upgraded in 2003, and is leased to Cha Cha Cha Ltd. It is thought that it was built in the 1920s although it may have also been a day nursery. It was partly rebuilt in 2001 following a fire.
Tennis. The courts and a building are used by a Tennis Club
Watercress Beds. These ceased operation in the 1970s
Croquet Lawn. The lawn and a building are used by a Croquet Club
Bandstand. In the 1970s this was moved to outside the town hall.
Nature Reserve alongside the Gade and stretching south of the Cassiobury Park Avenue. The nature reserve is made up of parkland, scrubland, grassland, swamp and water-cress beds. There are muntjac and foxes as well as birds and bats.

Cassiobury Park Avenue
Watford Station. The station was opened in 1925 and is the terminus of the Metropolitan Line from Croxley. It was built by the Metropolitan Railway and London North East Railway Joint as a branch terminus. It was designed by the Met's architect, Charles W Clark in red brick in an Arts and Crafts style, in keeping with Metroland. The intention was for the railway to continue to Watford High Street with a tunnel under Cassiobury Park. There was opposition to the scheme which fell through and the station remains the terminus of the line, and is about a mile from the town centre. It is known locally as "Watford Met". Internally the station is largely unaltered and remains with period tiling and paneling.  The station has never been busy and for years, the Metropolitan Railway operated a bus service from the High Street but patronage remained low.
Sidings, goods and engine shed were south east of the line. Closed 1966. Housing now on site.

Fullerian Crescent
New houses in a gated estate on part of Watford Grammar School for Boys playing field. The name refers to the school’s founder, Elizabeth Fuller.  They are built in a crescent around the site of a swimming bath.

Gade Avenue
Car Park for Cassiobury Park
Railway Bridge

King George’s Avenue
Astra Chemicals. 1950

Linden Avenue
Development on the station goods yard

Manhattan Avenue
Development on the station goods yard

Metropolitan Station Approach
Blue Box storage company in older factory buildings,

Observer Drive
Housing. This is named for the Watford Observer whose printing works moved here in 1961 joined by the editorial and advertising departments in 1973. It left in 2002.

Rickmansworth Road

Watford Grammar School for Boys originated in Watford Free School founded in 1704 by Mrs. Elizabeth Fuller. In the 1880s this changed to an endowed school with the support of the Brewers Company. In 1912 with assistance from the County Council the school purchased part of Cassiobury Park facing Rickmansworth Road to build a new school. In 1944, the schools fully entered the maintained sector as voluntary controlled grammar schools and became purely secondary schools. They became comprehensive in 1975, and continued to expand.  There is a long neo-Georgian main block and adjacent Master's House. It has a new gym and a new music block, 'The Clarendon Muse', which is partly owned by Hertfordshire School of Music;
Petrol station on site of Silverdale a laundry 1940
Saville Perfumery Ltd. Scent works 1940
193 Newboro Works. Button factory also Masterradio, and other firms on the site which is now Chestnut Close. Some original buildings remain.
94 Fleet Laboratories. Pharmaceutical firm. On site since before the Second World War
Cassio Quarter. new housing on the site of Croxley Green Fire and Ambulance Station

River Gade
Little Meadow Bridge
Watercress Bridge
Pooh Bridge
Crowfoot Bridge
Kingfisher Bridge
Little Kingfisher Bridge
Ford Bridge

Shepherds Lane
Cassiobury Park grounds maintenance depot and Shepherd’s Road entrance
Park Keepers Cottages

Sheraton Mews
Dates to 1981
67 Cassiobridge Lodge. Picturesque timbered lodge to Cassiobury Park built in the early 19th. It is entirely clad in small split logs set in patterns of squares and lozenges and applied in short vertical lengths to the bargeboards.

Swiss Avenue
Names for the Swiss Cottage, garden building. Swiss Cottage. This was in the south eastern section of Cassiobury Park, now a nature reserve. It was a wooden garden building which burned down in the 1940s

Sources
British Listed Buildings. Web site
Day. London Underground
Hertfordshire Churches,
Lasdun. Engish Gardens
London Transport Country Walks 1 and 3
London Wildlife. Web site
Walford. Village London
Watford Council. Web site
Watford Station. Wikipedia Web site

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