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Sportspace - Hemel Hempstead
 
 
Thursday, 9th September 2010

 
MARLOWES VIEWS
MARLOWES, Hemel Hempstead's main shopping street pictured as it is today - much of it pedestrianised.
But Marlowes has changed much over the past 100 years and it is only for just under 50 years that it has been the main shopping street!
Until the 18th century Marlowes was little more than a muddy track which led to the town of Hemel Hempstead which was what today we call the Old Town.
It was the 19th century that saw Marlowes grow with a mixture of large houses and some shops and businesses.
The centre of trade was around the High Street with its shops and inns.
In the first half of the 20th century more shops and businesses did trade in Marlowes, but it was still the High Street which was the centre of things commercial.
The real change was with the decision to make Hemel Hempstead a new town in 1947.
By the mid 1950s many of the old shops in Marlowes had been knocked down and new ones were being built.
By 1960 most of the new town marlowes had been built, but changes continued and the Marlowes Shopping Centre was built 11 years ago.
Scroll down this page to look at pictures of changing Marlowes.

This early 20th century picture shows the Princess Cinema in Marlowes. It stood roughly where the Civic Centre is today.




This picture shows the top end of Marlowes, closes to the Old Town in the mid 20th century. The picture includes the old Post House and the whole area is now covered by the college and its grounds




This picture shows some of the shops in Marlowes in the first half of the 20th century.




This picture shows the Bennetts End Dairy in about 1930. It stood in Marlowes about opposite where the Gazette offices are today.




This is a picture (about 1949) of Marlowes being resurfaced just about outside the Gazette offices.




Marlowes in about 1950. The buildings on the other side of the road to the cyclist have all gone and have been replaced by the Full House pub (Former Odeon Cinema) and other new shops and Combe Street.




The Luxor cinema pictured in the 1950s just before it closed and was demolished. It stood next door to what is today, Woolworths.




The Post Office (pictured in the 1940s) in Marlowes survived well into the 1970s. It was demolished for a new block of buildings, one of which is today's Post Office




This is Marlowes in the 1960s. The footbridge was supposed to help shoppers at a time when traffic still flowed through the street, but it was little used.


The late 1960s and early 70s brought more changes. This picture shows Marlowes at the corner of Hillfield Road shortly before the Hamilton House office block was built




Marlowes 1971 and work starts to build the shops for Boots and Sainsbury (which closed last year)




Marlowes in the 1970s showing the site of what is today Marks and Spencers. It also shows the old BP building across the road.



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