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Sportspace - Hemel Hempstead
 
 
Thursday, 9th September 2010

 
Part 17

Minister of Housing and Local Government Harold Macmillan laid the foundation stone of the Rotax (now Lucas) factory in January,1952. The factory was needed to help the country re-arm after the war, but could later be converted for more peaceful purposes.
THE year Her Majesty the Queen visited Hemel Hempstead may be thought of as the year that Hemel Hempstead new town was universally recognised as ‘being on the map.’
In fact, 1952 was a year in which opposition to the new town was at its most vehement - even compared to the first days of 1947.
It began with the tragic case of the widow who died of a ‘broken heart’ because the new town took her home. In consecutive weeks of front page editorials the Gazette told the story of the widow who had been forced to leave her home in the town centre’s Bridge Street after it was compulsorily purchased by the development corporation.
Mrs Lily Stone had lived in the house for 54 years. She was moved to Broadfield Road in Adeyfield but suffered a heart attack and then a stroke and died about three months after the move
It was a heartbreaking story of mental torture, said the paper. She was a ‘human sacrifice to the Metropolitan Moloch which reaches its covetous fingers out over the green countryside seeking whom or what it may devour.’

There was a real feeling in the area that with the new Conservative Government of Winston Churchill the new town plan would be squashed and the council or an elected body would take over a “natural development” of the town.
In January the council passed a resolution asking the Minister of Housing and Local Government - one Harold Macmillan - to meet a delegation from the council to discuss the issue.
At the end of the month the delegation met Mr Macmillan and put forward a case that the number of people coming to the new town should be reduced from 40,000 to 20,000.
Mr Macmillan rejected this because “the problem of London housing is one which must be met.”
In the autumn of that year a resolution from the Hemel Hempstead Constituency Conservatives was debated at the Tory party conference in Scarborough. Mr R. J. Aitchison from the constituency put forward the resolution that the government should appoint a committee to look into the problems of the new towns, particularly on bringing the development corporations under greater control.
Mr Macmillan replied the government were concerned and were already engaged in just such an enquiry. He felt a formal committee was not needed.

Back in Hemel Hempstead itself, the town centre was the real battleground. In February 1952, the Salvation Army, threatened with the compulsory purchase of its Citadel in Marlowes by the end of the month, decided on a policy of “passive resistance,” until a suitable alternative was offered.
Major E. Evans and Major A. E. Tovey, who had been a member of the local corps for 13 years, were instrumental in this policy and it certainly seemed to work. They were still there in November and the development corporation promised the Citadel would not be demolished until a new one was built.
Hope that the Queen’s visit would cool town tempers disappeared within days as demolition work began on the demolition of Bridge Street. Hemel Hempstead Alderman Daniels said: “In view of the present acute shortage of houses, it is scandalous that good class residential property should be torn down.”

Although some of the houses were not to come down for some time, most of the families had already left, and two local families who had been waiting list for some years moved in as squatters. Mr and Mrs Robert Sturt were one of the families - they had two small children and had moved out of a condemned building in Piccotts End. Later in the year the families were found other accommodation by the development corporation.
During the first week in August, work began on demolishing the first property in Marlowes - Brooklyn House. Many other premises between the house and the corner of Bridge Street were to come down during the next few months. Included was Mr R. B. Dixon’s tobacconist and confectionery shop.
The Dixons were continuing to trade until the end, having been there for 17 years, and when they did shut they were planning to retire to London.
This was all preparation work for the central Marlowes re-development and plans unveiled in 1952 for the first time looked similar to Marlowes we know today although plans for the market square included a multi-storey hotel where, in the end, the Great Harry pub was built.
Sometimes it was very small things that gave the anti-new town ranks ammunition.
When London Transport extended the route of the 302 Watford to Hemel Hempstead bus to take in the new town area of Adeyfield it sounded like good news..until the bus arrived and the name of Hemel Hempstead had been replaced by Adeyfield on its indicator board!.
‘Hemel Hempstead Obliterated’ read the Gazette headline and a formal protest was forwarded to London Transport by the council.
But there was plenty of new town support and the ‘new townies’ themselves were beginning to have an impact on the life of the town.

For instance, they helped make Hemel Hempstead a holiday hotspot. Visiting their relatives ‘out in the country’ was very popular that summer - so many people came that the Hemel Hempstead Food Office issued 6,000 emergency ration cards and many local traders reported that trade had not dropped as it usually did in August.
The tourists were fascinated by the “quaint” buildings in the High Street and the Georgian basketshop at the end of the High Street was packed with customers.
Looking back, some of the wisest words of the year came from the Mayor, Alderman Herbert Christopher who said at his annual reception: “Let’s hear no more of this old town, new town business. We all belong to Hemel Hempstead.” View older pages
 
 

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