M25 Bricket Wood


Post to the west Bricket Wood
Post to the east Smug Oak Lane
Post to the south Bricket Wood


Blackboy Wood
Scouts Hall. This is round behind the shops near the pylon.  It is the 4th North Watford Scouts. (1st Bricket Wood)

Blackgreen Wood
There is now just a remnant of Blackgreen Wood which once stretched from Old Watford Road to Station Road. It is now a public open space in the ownership of the Parish Council. The original wood once covered the area of the village of Bricket Wood as is to be seen in the number of mature trees, primarily oak, within and around the village. In the 1930's the wood was sold and people from Watford and St. Albans bought five acre plots with no sanitation or lighting to built holiday chalets. Water came from wells.

Hunters Ride
Choristers Court. This was Victor Smith Court. Sheltered housing.

Lye Lane
Bricket Wood Sport and Country Club. This appears to be operating as a club hosting weddings and conferences. There are a number of buildings, many apparently built without planning consent. This is on what was a large sports ground attached to the club which appeared also to consist of a large cricket pitch dating from the 1920s.
Bricket Wood golf course. This site to the west of the road was given planning permission in 1995 but never built. Initially the developers were allowed to import waste to build a bank to shield the site from the M25 – but more and more waste kept coming in. Then the topsoil was a sold.
Bricket Wood Paintball Centre. This is on what was part of the sports club
Lye House, the sports grounds appear to have originally been the grounds of Lye House.
Caravan site, Travellers' site
Woodside Retreat.  In 1889 brothers Henry and William Gray bought up land and built Woodside Retreat Fairground. This attracted hordes of visitors to the area and a small village developed around the station. In 1929 Lady Yule bought it up and closed it down.
Horseshoe Business Park, This may or may not be on the site of Woodside Retreat
Recreation Ground
Bakery. Now an undertaker

M25

North Riding
Built by speculator R.Christmas

Oak Avenue  
Built by speculator R Christmas

Smug Oak Green
Site of Joyland fair built by R. Christmas and closed down by Lady Yule in 1929

South Riding
Built by speculator R.Christmas
St Luke’s Church. Built by speculator R.Christmas in the 1930s as a Village Hall and church. At first built it was a daughter church of Holy Trinity Frogmore but in 1981 became a Parish in its own right. The village hall has now expanded and hosts many events.

Station Road
The Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Centre  This is in the buildings of what was Smug Oak Farmhouse and opened in 1982 to provide an autism specific day service. The Centre is run by Dimensions supporting people with learning disabilities, autism or mental health problems.
Fox and Hounds. This pub closed in 2010 and is now a house
St Stephen Parish Centre is the old Smug Oak Farm dairy
Railway Cottages
The Gate Pub. This pub has recently reopened.
Congregational Church, Built in 1895 and in use until the 1960s when it was replaced by the United Reformed Church in West Riding. It is now a lawnmower shop.
Bricketwood Station. This opened in 1858 and lies between How Wood and Garston on London Overground Line to Euston via Watford Junction. London, Midland, and Scottish Railway, from Watford to St. Albans. Two funfairs situated nearby meant that hundreds of people passed through the station in the summer months. The station then had a crossing loop and a second platform that could accommodate long excursion trains.  However, the funfairs closed in 1929 and the traffic fell.
Bricket Wood Railway District Control Building. This is at the north-east end of the Bricket Wood Station car park, in the trees between the station and Railway Cottages. It is a protected railway control room for BR London Midland Region built in 1954 and was intended as the dispersed location for the London Euston control room. Built of reinforced concrete construction, it would appear to be the sole surviving example of this type in England

Sources
Bricket Wood Parish Council. Web site
Bricket Wood Residents Association. Web site
Historic England. Web site
St. Albans City Council. Web site
St.Luke's Church Bricket Wood. Web site
Wikipedia. As appropriate
4th North Watford Scouts.  Web site

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