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Sportspace - Hemel Hempstead
 
 
Thursday, 9th September 2010

 
PART 7

The mayor lays a brick of the first New Town house
The end of 1948 brought the Hemel Hempstead Development Corporation its first tenant - the Hemel Hempstead Engineering Company.
The corporation, which had taken over former Ministry of Supply buildings at Cupid Green (off Pennine Way) agreed to lease them to the long-established local company which had its base at the rear of Hemel Hempstead High Street and, as mentioned earlier in the series, badly needed a new home so it could expand
Alderman H. Christopher, head of the engineering company said the site was ideal and they would have railway sidings (from the Nicky Line) for transport. Considerable work would be needed and in the end it was not until June 1950 that the company actually moved.
Despite this positive move and with work getting under way to prepare the site for the first new town houses in the winter of 1948 there was still a strong body of opinion that the new town idea would be abandoned.
A prominent reason put forward for this idea was that the town’s water supply could never cope with a new town. In May of that year the reservoirs were empty by mid-day three days running and later in the summer the Gazette reported on the plight of a Mrs Fox and other residents of Hammerfield (Boxmoor) whose water supply was regularly cut off between 2pm and 11pm, forcing them to carry buckets of water to their homes from the new housing development in Anchor Lane (being built by the council) where there was some water.

Later that summer Hemel Hempstead Borough Council got the government’s permission to borrow £112,000 for a new water supply system - a 21” main from Piccotts End to Adeyfield, but warned a reservoir would need to be constructed at Adeyfield if the new town plan went ahead.
By the following summer the water crisis was over and the credit went to the borough engineer Mr A. H. Turner. It had been his plan to work a years old borehole at Piccotts End and only a few yards away two new boreholes had been sunk to serve the new town.
There was only one hiccup, when test pumping was first carried out it dried up the watercress beds in the town belonging to Mr Williams and Mr Burgess causing £2,000 damage to the crop.

There were other more personal ‘shortages’ affecting life in as the new town planning carried on. A large number of houses in the town had no fixed bath and early in 1949 the town council mounted a publicity campaign to draw people’s attention to the facilities of the public slipper baths which were just off Marlowes near where the civic centre is today.
Clothing was still rationed, but the Gazette pointed out ex-wartime parachutes could still be bought to make clothes with. September 1948 brought a cigarette shortage when supplies were cut by five-per-cent, but again, the Gazette came to the rescue by pointing out residents could grow their own tobacco and telling them, with the help of an un-named local grower how. A year later it was reported many readers had had a go, but had been disappointed with the results, mainly because they hadn’t left the tobacco long enough to mature!

There was still food shortage and rationing too, but this lack of nourishment didn’t stop youngsters at Hemel Hempstead School breaking nine records at their 1948 sports day, three of them coming from Barbara Foster. This led Alderman Jarman who presented the prizes to comment on “what could be done largely on corned beef”.

The huts where workmen who came from London to build the new town lived until houses were ready

Despite all the doubts and shortages work can really have been said to have started on the new town when on Saturday, April 23, 1949 the Mayor of Hemel Hempstead, Councillor A. L. Selden laid a stone to mark the start of work on the first new town house. This was in Adeyfield as at the corner of what was to become Longlands and Homefield Road.
Performing the ceremony, which was covered by BBC radio and photographed for television, the mayor referred to the “mixed feelings” there had been and were over the new town - only half the members of the council attended the ceremony.

The first four hoiuses in Longlands/Homefield Road and nearly finished
But he pointed out that no great accomplishment was ever achieved without some form of revolution and added: “Even the votes for women caused quite a stir and a sensation and I would liken the new town in similar fashion as something that takes getting used to, and we should get used to it in a kindly manner.”

On the same day as the stone-laying, the development corporation held an exhibition at Greenhills to show models of the houses to be built in the first stage of Adeyfield. These included what the Gazette described as a “sensation” a 10-storey skyscraper block of flats.
Less than two months later Lord Reith, chairman of the development corporation opened Belswains School in Oliver Road. Although the school had been planned before the new town revelation to serve the Belswains Farm Estate (part 4) it would go on to become a first school for many new town children, especially from the Bennetts End area.
There was one other bit of new town news causing much comment early in 1949 - the Labour government’s proposals to nationalise pubs in new towns!

Local publicans were horrified. Joe Davison of the Sebright Arms said the personal touch would be lost and George Hishon of the White Hart thought it would turn pubs into soulless places like the “post office.”
The Gazette reports didn’t make it quite clear why the Labour government wanted to takeover the pubs, but having gone quiet, the issue did rear up again in 1951. There was a public meeting and the council voted to oppose the move to nationalise the town’s pubs and a deputation, including Charles Kirk, the town clerk, travelled up to London to press their case for the pubs with Home Secretary Chuter Ede. We don’t know if it was a ‘beer and sandwiches meeting’ but eventually, nothing came of the idea.
The Conservatives came to power in 1951 and although the controversial plans were shelved the new town did have an adverse effect on local pubs. Because of the uncertainty over new town plans the brewers and landlords were reluctant to spend money on pub buildings that might in the end be knocked down for development.
A survey by the council’s sanitary inspector early in 1949 revealed that 44 of the 57 pubs he visited had insufficient and inadequate loos.

This series on the history of Hemel Hempstead New Town is sponsored by the town's premier league shopping centre of today - The Marlowes Centre.
To find out more about the centre and all the shops and facilities it has to offer, just click on the picture.
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