Help Sitemap Home Skip Navigation Contact Us Disability Statement

Sportspace - Hemel Hempstead
 
 
Monday, 6th September 2010

 
Part 25 Halfway There

Moving in to Apsley Grammar
THE new town as originally envisaged in 1947 reached its halfway stage in 1955.
4,732 houses had been built, 2,000 were under construction and the population had risen from 21,200 in 1947 to 38,700. Construction and acquisition of land and property had cost £15 million, and on the commercial side, 114 shops had been completed and 84 were under construction.
But although much had been done, there was continuing concern from many quarters that the provision of vital facilities such as schools, hospitals and social infrastructure - community centres, playing fields, bus services - was nowhere near keeping pace with the new houses.
January 1955 saw West Herts Hospital’s management committee expressing grave concern that the money that had been allocated for the badly needed provision of a new out-patients department had been allocated elsewhere by the North West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board.
Since 1947 the annual number of out- patients being treated at the hospital had risen by 30,000.
The provision of school places and facilities had been another constant topic, but 1955 was a year which for once saw more provision than protest.
Adeyfield School was developing a fine reputation and held its first open evening in July, with over 500 parents attending.

Hemel Hempstead was still regarded as being ‘in the country’ and the school’s rural studies department attracted much attention. It had a rabbit, six dozen chickens and hoped to add a pig to its farm in the near future.
That summer it also was announced that Boxmoor House was to become a school for “problem boys.” It had been a remand home, but a Herts County Council official explained there was an urgent need for accommodation for maladjusted children and he added: “Some people would call them little devils.”
But the major school development of that year was in Bennetts End with the opening of the new Apsley Grammar and Bennetts End Secondary schools - now combined as Longdean School.
Apsley Grammar in Rumballs Road opened first, on September 8, with 124 pupils on the roll.
Only the central portion of the building was ready and for a time pupils would “borrow” some of the technical rooms from the nearby Bennetts End Secondary School, which opened the following week.
Headmaster of Apsley Grammar was Mr V. J. Wrigley from the King Edward Vll School in Sheffield and the senior mistress was Miss N. E. Evans.

Mr Wrigley was to become a long serving and much respected head who stayed with the school until the 1980s. The school colours were dark blue and dark red and the school crest was a demi lion.
His opposite number at Bennetts End Secondary School was Mr Cyril Fowler, who came from Nottingham.
He too went on to become a long serving head, and also a long-serving councillor. Again it was more than a year before the formal opening ceremony, performed by Prof Albert Richardson who was president of the Royal Academy.
The new school year of 1955 also saw the second primary school in Adeyfield open. Broadfield School was designed to cater for 320 juniors and 240 infants and the places were already badly needed. Headmaster of the junior school was Mr W. M. Davies from Flamstead and head of the infants was Miss D. G. Jarman from Queen Street primary school in Hemel Hempstead.

New places of worship also opened their doors in 1955. In January the new Methodist Church hall opened in Barnacres. It was the first in any new town area and cost a total of £7,300, including furnishings.
In February a temporary hall in Chaulden provided Hemel Hempstead’s first Presbyterian church and the first minister was Rev Kenneth Bell.
Then in June a silver key opened the door to the new £3,570 Baptist Church in Belmont Road.
July saw an opening of a different kind when the Minister for War Anthony Head flew in by helicopter to open Hemel Hempstead’s new drill hall - the present TA centre in Queensway.
It was only the second time ever that a helicopter had landed in the town and the crowds got an extra long view of it flying overhead as the Minister’s pilot couldn’t find Jarman Fields, where he was supposed to touch down.

The drill hall was on the site of the old Handpost Farm, which itself had been home to Hemel Hempstead’s annual Statty Fair.
The new building had cost £45,000 and replaced the old drill hall in Bury Road. It would be HQ for the Territorial Army and Unit 162 Independent Infantry Brigade (group Provost Unit RMP.)
With all the new beginnings, there were two sad ends.
Warners End Farmhouse burned down in January 1955. Thick fog hid the blaze for 12 hours before the fire brigade were called and there was little they could do. The house had been unoccupied for six months, after being acquired by the development corporation.

And in September fire destroyed Cattsdell House in Highfield which until a month earlier had been a children’s home. A man was charged with causing the blaze. View older pages
 
 

Sister Newspapers:
Press Complaints Commission

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Press Complaints Commission’s Code of Practice. If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the PCC by clicking here.