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Sportspace - Hemel Hempstead
 
 
Thursday, 9th September 2010

 
Part 19

Home shopping: Mr Smith's front room shop in Bennetts End
AS the year of 1952 drew into autumn the new town focus switched from the growth in Adeyfield to the birth of Bennetts End.
The first residents moved in during the summer and by the end of November around 300 houses were occupied - but with no facilities and no bus service the views of the new residents were mixed.
Mrs Houghton of Bennetts End Road, who had moved in with her husband and 18-month-old daughter from a Willesden council flat, told the Gazette: “I can assure you, given suitable accommodation we would definitely go back to London. We appreciate the garden, but we don’t like coming out from London to these poor facilities. We just can’t get used to it.”
Mrs Evans of Candlefield Road, however, was happier. The house was “perfect,” but she was concerned about the poor facilities and lack of transport.
At that time the only “facility” the residents had was one shop, and that was the converted sitting room of a house in Candlefield Road. The shop was run by Mr Smith, who had come from Finchley and three assistants. He stocked provisions, hardware, confectionery, cigarettes and postage stamps. Mr Smith hoped to have one of the new neighbourhood shops - when they were built.

One street being built in Bennetts End was causing great interest among architects around the country. The idea of interspersing two-storey houses with three storey ones to prevent “monotony” was what was causing the interest. The designer was Mr Jellicoe, the first planner of the new town, and Long John, along with the Water Gardens in the town centre, were two of his ideas to survive through the various plans.
By early December the development corporation had provided a builders hut in Candlefield Road for residents to meet in and from December 17 the 314 bus operated an hourly service from the top of Candlefield Road to the town centre.
For New Year 1953, a party was organised for the children of Bennetts End. Coach company Ronsway donated a double-decker bus which collected the children and took them to the party at Maylands School in Adeyfield. There Mrs Dell and the school catering staff had spent hours making gallons of jelly and blancmange.
There was community singing for the youngsters accompanied by a four-piece band from Bennetts End, lead by Mr Skinner.
Local dignitaries, including local MP Lady Davidson, who had been invited to the party pitched in and helped with the washing up!

With no schools in the neighbour-hood, children had to be ferried to Adeyfield and other parts of the town for their education and early in 1953 many Bennetts End parents threatened to keep their children at home unless adequate transport was provided.
At a hastily convened meeting of parents from Bennetts End at Belswains School a resolution moved by Mr Tony Graham - another who was to go on and become a long serving councillor and community helper - was passed calling for transport to be provided and for immediate action to provide schools in Bennetts End.

The transport, in the form of a bus, was provided, but it was to be over a year before the first school - apart from Belswains, which served other areas as well - was finally opened.
That was to be Hobbs Hill and it’s interesting to note that in January 1953 Mr R. I. Well, who was a master at Hemel Hempstead Secondary Modern in Crabtree Lane, and vice chairman of Hemel Hempstead FC, was appointed headmaster of Hobbs Hill. He was to take up the job in the summer, but until the school was built it would operate from Adeyfield secondary school.
By July the school had been open for a term and 300 parents and children came by bus and foot, and a few by car, from Bennetts End to the school’s first open evening.
An important move for the neighbour-hood and its ability “to be heard” came on Wednesday, February 18, when the Bennetts End Residents Association was formed. Mr G. Aberdour was elected chairman and S. Wallet vice chairman.

Mr Wallet had these words for residents: “Let’s make Bennetts End a place in which it will really be worth living. At present it is rather deadly.” Subscriptions were fixed at 2/6d a year.
It’s interesting, given that Bennetts End has returned Labour councillors for many years, that in July 1953 the Candlefield hut was packed to capacity when MP Lady Davidson met residents who had expressed an interest in the Conservative Party.
By the autumn of 1953 the development corporation came up with a bigger meeting place for residents when they moved three huts which had been used by the Home Guard and army cadets from the town centre to Peascroft Road, next to the new shops which were being built.

On Saturday, September 19 this new temporary Bennetts End Hall was officially opened by Henry Wells, chairman of the development corporation.
The hall had been decorated “under the enthusiasm of Mr R. G. Foreman and his band of helpers.” One of them, a Mr Clegg, even gave up his holiday to help.
The first public meeting in the new hall was a couple of weeks later when residents met to consider a questionnaire on the needs of the new town. The number one need, they agreed, was a new hospital.
Bennetts End now had a hall that could cater for 300, but the only shop was still Mr Smith’s sitting room and it wasn’t until Monday, November 30 that the first two shops - J. D. Smith and Son grocery store and A.R. Barnett hardware - finally opened for business. The following day Walker Brothers fruiterers and greengrocers opened, and soon after came R. W. Patterson (chemist), E. M. Crockett (newsagents), Ludlows (sweets and tobacco) and J. Ford (drapery.)
Getting to Bennetts End was made easier from Saturday, November 21, 1953 when the new St Albans Road (Road 5) was opened. It was 0.87 miles long, cost more than £65 a yard to lay and left the old St Albans Road - now to be known as St Albans Hill - just south of the Brickmakers Arms off licence, joining Wood Lane, which itself joined the Plough crossroads.

It was the first ‘Class 1’ road to be built in Herts since the beginning of the war. It was a single carriageway, but the plan was to convert it in time to the dual carriageway we know today. After the opening a procession of cars, led by Mr J.W. Henderson who had designed the new road, drove along it, and that week’s Gazette wondered whether it would prove to be a “highway to prosperity.” View older pages
 
 

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