Pictures of Heath Farm, Bernards Heath, St Albans

In June I visited Jim, who lives in one of the modern houses that were built on the site of Heath Farm, which was the Reynolds Family home for about 60 years from 1871. He had some very interesting photographs which he has allowed me to copy, and I had planned to spend the summer writing up the history of the farm from some extensive notes I prepared in the 1990s. However other matters mean that I am going to have less time to spend on family history over the next few months - so I have put the pictures, with brief comments on line. If anyone can add to the history of the farm and the dairy, particularly after 1926, I would be very interested to hear from you. The new pictures are on the following pages.

Heath Farm in 1911 - This page shows views of the Aldenham Harriers meet at the farm, and Jim had two pictures, almost certainly taken on the same occasion which show one of the barns, and the row of lime trees, far more clearly.

Heath Farm circa 1960 - A series of photographs taken not long before the farm house and remaining buildings were demolished.

Heath Farm Dairy - An interior photograph of the dairy, delivery carts and van, and milk churns, etc.

Hawkswick - A typical Victorian Gentleman's Residence

Hawksbury, St Michaels, St Albans circa 1900

Hawkswick, St Michaels parish, St Albans, was built around 1870 and was the home of four well-to-do businessmen and a Countess, and their live-in domestic staff. It is a good example of the kind of country home that successful businessmen were building or living in, within an hour's train journey into London. After the First World War, followed by the 1920's depression, such houses became uneconomical, which may be the reason why Hawkswick was demolished in 1931. The owners, or later tenants, were:

George Fernley Whittingstall,   c1870 - 1873

George Checkland,   1873 - 1879

John Sherriff Hill,   1881- 1897

Dowger Countess of Limerick,   1898-1900

Walter Reynolds,  1900 - 1924

I have updated the biographical information about the families who lived there, including additional press coverage. Further information about the house, with an emphasis on its description based on  several surviving sales brochures is available in Christine Aitken's excellent book on Childwickbury - which I have just reviewed. Christine and I used very different sources, and as a result our two accounts nicely complement each other.

St Michaels

St Albans

In addition I have taken the opportunity to restructure the pages on the parish of St Michael, part of which was in the borough of St Albans and the rest (including Childwickbury, Hawksbury and Gorhambury) were in the rural part of the parish.

St Albans Athletic Sports, 1893 - rescuing an old picture

The Original - click for partial restoration

St Albans

Some years ago I posted the extensive list of names mention in the newspaper account of the Whit Monday Sports at St Albans, 1893. My interest was that the sports were the last to be held on the Home Meadow of Heath Farm, Bernards Heath, where my great grandfather, Jacob Reynolds, was the farmer.

As a result I was kindly provided with a very faded picture which not only showed the committee  but listed their names (G. C. Barnes, A. F. Blanks, Jonah Constable, A. H. Debenham, E. P. Debenham, F. W. Freshwater, R. Freshwater, Tom Griffiths, T. Marks, F. Matthews, C. W. Miskin, L. J. Myers, F. E. Reynolds, J. Reynolds, Jacob Reynolds, J. W. Sharpe, Horace Slade).  I have been able to improve it to the point where about half the faces are recognisable - but a complete reconstruction where everyone is recognisable is probably impractical. 

Who was Karaktus, of Crown Publishing Co, of St Albans?

Karaktus, Card No 27, Crown Publishing Co, St Albans, 1909

Post Cards

St Albans

My great grandfather, Jacob Reynolds, was a major milk producer in the St Albans area and employed a number of delivery milkmen who went round the city supplying milk at the door. I was amused to see the following post card - especially when I discovered that it had been published in St Albans. So I decided to investigate and found a whole series of comic post cards by Karaktus from 1908-1909. I also came across a mystery - the company that published it appears to have only existed for a couple of years - and no-one knows who Karaktus was. See KARAKTUS, Crown Publishing Ltd, St Albans, 1908/9 for many more examples of his work - and some other comic post cards published by Crown Publishing. And please tell me if you have any information that could help to identify him.

News Items on my Great Great Grandfather, Francis Reynolds.

As part of my writing a review on the British Newspaper Archives I decided that the case of my ancestor Francis Evered Reynolds was worthy of attention. What I knew was that he appears to have abandoned his family and was involved in some way with horse racing. I successfully discovered that he effectively went bankrupt in 1843 but that one of the horses he trained won a race at Swaffhan in 1861. However I suspect that there are other racing references in the Archive which I could not identify.

Severn Generations on one farm at Sandridge.

This picture is from the Woodland Trust web site. Almost all the fields, and two large wooded areas are part of Heartwood Forest, a major project to restore a large area of fields to native woodland in Hertfordshire. For a mere £15 you can dedicate a tree to be planted in what will be an 850 acre forest. I already have a page about the new forest but three areas in the picture are of particular interest to my ancestors, in addition to most of Heartwood Forest area having been farmed by a relative in Victorian times.

In the top left is a farm (highlighted) with a spinney in front of it and a light coloured field beyond. The Farm is Hammonds Farm which was farmed by my ancestors, William Cox (1760-1802), Thomas Cox (1794-1874), Henry Cox (1826-1882), Jacob Reynolds (1835-1926) and Harry Finch Reynolds (1865-1947). My father Gerald Finch Reynolds (1907-1977) worked on the farm, and helped to plant the spinney (in part I suspect, as cover for foxes) probably around 1930. When he married in 1937 he built a house, Eylotts, on the light coloured field, which had been the poultry farm area of Hammonds Farm. I was born there (well technically in a nursing home in St Albans) but the farm was sold in 1939. So after 7 generations who had lived at least part of their lives on the farm the family moved away from the area.

The small wood highlighted to the right is the site of the former Sandridge Rifle Range, which extended into the fields in front of it - the trees surrounding the butts. The two fields in front are part of Heartwood Forest and when I visited this summer were full of very young trees, although most were still not higher than the grass..

By the track from Sandridge Village towards Hammonds Farm
The newly planted part of Heartwood Forest is on the left, Range Wood is straight ahead.

Because of my connections with the area the village of Sandridge is of particular interest and many of my ancestors are buried in St Leonard's churchyard - containing the grave of my earliest traced Cox ancestor, Jonathan Cox (1688-1750). If I could link him, and the two intervening generations, to Hammonds Farm this would make 10 generations who lived on one farm.

The Cox Graves in Sandridge Churchyard
The engraved top of the brick vault is now virtually unreadable but originally read
Here Lyeth Inter'd Mrs. Eliz. Cox, Wife of Jonathan Cox, Gent. of St Julians in the Parish of St Stephens
who departed this life January 12, 1740, in the 55th year of her age.
Here Lyeth the Body of Jonathan Cox Gent. Husband of the above Elizabeth Cox who died
Decebr. the 31, 1750. Aged Sixty Two
When the above inscription was recorded, in about 1878, a Jonathan Cox, father and son,
 farmed the land which now forms most of Heartwood Forest.
The other alter grave contains William Cox (1760-1802) and many members of his family
 over several generations. Several of the other stones are also relatives

Ephemera: How much is that old receipt worth?

The following two receipts recently appeared for sale on ebay - the wording under each is the title on the adverts - retaining the listing errors.

1888 HERTFORDSHIRE, ST. ALBANS, FREDERICK NORMAN, TAILOR'S ACCOUNT BILLHEAD.

1879 ST. ALBANS, BERNARDS HEATH, J. RAYNORLDS, CHEMICAL MAURES, LINSEED BILLHEAD

The auctions opened at £0.99 for each item, and proxy bids were placed. Two bids were placed on the Norman advert, and there were three bidders for the Reynolds advert.

How much do you think they are worth?

Chinese Whispers and Family Traditions

Chinese Whispers is a game where a verbal message is passed along a line, one person whispering to the next, and often the message that come out of the far end of the line is significantly different to the original message. This can happen over the generations with family traditions so be careful you do not drop a brick - by repeating the "old" story without checking.

I have just come up with a good modern example from my own family of how a story can change.

A Sampler made by my Great Great Grandmother

The Sampler made in 1806 by Frances Finch, of Swaffham, Norfolk

205 Years ago my Great Great Grandmother was nine years old - and hard at work with needle and. thread to produce a lovely sampler. The colours have faded a bit but it shows a high degree of skill. I recently found it in a cupboard, where it was stored to keep the light off it, and it reminded me that I had somewhat overlooked my own ancestors recently. So I have posted a short biography of Frances Reynolds, nee Finch, and will be making a New Years resolution to try and produce a page on an additional ancestor at leat once a month during 2012.

Right Name, Wrong Body - a REYNOLDS example

Ann is planning to come to Hertfordshire to investigate her REYNOLDS, Ridge & Colney Heath, 19th century ancestors and wants some general advice. In replying I found a new Real Name, Wrong Body? example with the following baptisms in the St Albans area:

William, son of George and Ann Reynolds, at St Stephen, 7 March 1819

William, son of William and Sarah Reynolds, at Ridge, 10 June 1821

William, son of Joseph and Elizabeth Reynolds, at St Peter, 14 April 1822

William, son of John and Dinah Reynolds, at Hatfield, 19 May 1822

There are possible links with the 2004 answer for Lynda (REYNOLDS, St Albans Area, 19th century) and  the 2009 answer for Ruth (REYNOLDS, Tyttenhanger Green, Prior to 1916).

Meeting my Great Great Great Great Grandfather

This is turning out to be a busy month - with an Australian visitor staying with us for much of the time, an old school reunion, our 50th wedding anniversary celebrations still to come, and, more sadly, a family funeral. A few days ago we took our Australian friend to see Norwich Cathedral and on the way we broke our journey at a small Cambridgeshire village, Chippenham, just outside Newmarket.

When I started seriously researching my ancestors in 1977 one of the my first discoveries was an impressive row of Reynolds graves. and, after a quick check to confirm they were still there using google's satellite view I decided I would photograph them in detail for this blog and also resume a much delayed activity of posting information of my own ancestors on this web site.

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 The group consists of seven graves, the biggest, a solid alter tomb, holding the remains of my great great great great grandfather, William Reynolds, who died in  1807. Five of his children are buried on either side and between them they illustrate the different styles of grave stones used by the well-to-do in the early 19th century. The slab in the foreground, which was originally surrounded by iron railings, is that of my great great great grandfather, Philip Reynolds. At the far end of the row there is a rather ostentatious Victorian column marking the grave of two of William's grandchildren. 

While the graves are not in Hertfordshire they are of interest to this site because the family forms part of a complex network, already described on page 3 of Who is related to Who? Elsewhere in the churchyard is the Kent alter tomb, and the inscription tells us that Augusta Kent died in Harpenden, Hertfordshire.  Augusta was Philip Reynolds' niece while one of her husband's relatives married a daughter of my great great grandfather, Jacob Reynolds in St Albans in 1904. 

William Reynolds, Philip Reynolds and Lewis Kent were all tenants of La Hogue Hall Farm in the 19th century. By the time we had discovered that the farm is being run by a young couple with a farm shop and a pleasant restaurant, we only had time to make a quick stop - but hope to see more of the place later. I wonder what my 4x great grandfather would think of it if he could see it now.