Boro'gate, St Albans

"Boro'gate" was one of the large houses built around 1900 at the north end of St Peters Street, St Albans. It was on the south side of the Carlisle Road junction, and on the north side of the junction there was "The Hollies," occupied by Richard Gibbs (1834-1910), one time Mayor of St Albans, an alderman on the Herts County Council, joint founder with his father of the Herts Advertiser newspaper, and nephew of my ancestor, John Gibbs, of Aylesbury. Not far away, at the north end of St Peters Street was another, slightly smaller, house called "Calverton" which was built by my grandfather, Harry Finch Reynolds.

Barry's ancestor moved into the newly built house in 1906 and he has kindly provided a photograph and other information. In 1929 it became a boarding house for St Albans High School for Girls and in 1961 was sold. The site now holds the offices of the Trans-European Division of the Seventh-day Adventists.

Timeline 1905-1961

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all

Our usual Christmas dinner with a difference  (see what we had in 2011), and despite appearances we have not cut back on our usual feast. A few days ago I was busy shopping in preparation for three busy days cooking for family and friends- viz: (1) roast Aylesbury duck, (2) baked gammon and (3) roast lamb spread out over the Christmas and New Year period. The rest of the time was free  for relaxing or an even updating files on the computer.  Then a couple of days before Christmas I updated my diary to include attending a cremation of a good friend, an invite to an 18th birthday party, and two half days travelling. Then planned travel arrangements for Christmas Day visitor were changed - so I cooked the duck legs, etc., today - and will now be cooking the duck crown tomorrow, with all the extras. 

In fact I have a number of genealogy related updates to the Genealogy in Hertfordshire web site in the pipeline - but they will have to wait until the New Year.

Was William Hogg the last regular horse-drawn cabbie in Hertfordshire?

William Thomas Hogg of St Albans had worked at the cab rank in Harpenden for some years, but when all the other cabbies were switching to cars, friends had helped to provide him with a replacement horse and cab so that he could still provide a regular service at Harpenden Railway Station.

However old age caught up with him and in 1936, shortly after giving up the cab and his horse Robert, he died  (?Perhaps of a broken heart?).

More Information

Do you know of any other horse-drawn cabs that were still operation on a regular basis after 1936?

James Coles of Water End Farm

James William COLE (1851-1923)

David Cole writes: My grandfather Charles Percy COLE (1884-1966) was a member of the family of James William COLE (1851-1923) who inhabited Waterend House soon after your ancestor Dolphin Smith left there,  i.e. from around 1878 until at least 1907 when my grandfather emigrated to Canada.

I note the following facts:

1860's CDV by Avery of Hitchin (and more on his family)

Jan contacted me and and provided additional information on George Avery, photographer, of Hitchin including a link to a useful family tree. George took over the business of Samuel Debenham in 1863 and sold the business to Thomas Latchmore in 1870.

At the same time as updating the family information on the George Avery page I have added two early photographs from about 1863/4. One, which has the hand written Hitchin address on, is of the Rev John Henry Howlett (1779-1867) who died in Kent, and the back suggests that it may have been taken in Kent at the time George was moving to Hitchin in 1863.

I would be very interested to learn of other photographs taken by Samuel Debenham (in Hitchin, Bedford or Luton) or by George Avery (in Hitchin or Kent).

[I have not investigated the history of the Rev Howlett - comments will be welcome.]

Fehrenbach, Clock & Watchmakers of Bishop's Stortford

Following a query about this family of clock & watchmakers I have updated the Fehrenbach page on this Bishop's Stortford company by adding a picture of one of their clocks, details of a theft of clocks and jewelry, and two brief obituaries.

Holloways at Aldbury

The Back Holloway at Aldbury

As the result of a query from the National  Trust (who own a large part of the former Ashridge estate) I have added two new pictures of the holloways running up the escarpment from Aldbury Village, and provided higher resolution pictures online for others. Several of these relate to the unusual Franco Series of post cards.

NOTE: I have a large collection of Hertfordshire post cards - many of which have not yet appeared online. While plans are being considered as to the best way to continue the web site on a reduced scale (see earlier post) I have decided that over Christmas and the New Year period I will be posting additional post card images. If you would like to see more pictures of a particular town or village let me know and I will try and digitize any relevant post cards I hold.

First steps in Mothballing parts of the Hertfordshire Genealogy web site.

Following my recent post about the future of the site I have identified the following ares where mothballing can immediately be applied. In most cases this will have little immediate effect on what you can do - as the "restrictions" have effectively been in place for most of this year because the time I have been able to spend on running the site has been limited.

Area Mothballed		Nature and extent of "mothballing"
Answers to Questions Re: updates to old queries		All answers were made using resources given at the date given, which in some cases maybe before the censuses became available online. Answers given more than 2 years ago should be considered to be "mothballed" in that they do not refer to the latest sources. Users interested in these pages should check the more recent sources for themselves before asking any supplementary questions. However additional information, based on your own research, is always welcome.
Books on Hertfordshire Re: Reviews of new books		The vast majority of books reviewed on this web site form part of my personal library of Hertfordshire material. There is already a good coverage of the better known older books. There are no funds (beyond my own pension) to extend the library to include recently published or further second-hand material. As such it is impossible to cover the torrent of new books, booklets, etc., produced by individual historians, local history societies and other organisations unless review copies are supplied.
A Guide to Old Hertfordshire		This map interface was set up some time ago as an alternative to the Places menu. However user statistics at the time suggested that place pages were more likely to be accessed via the menus, via Find It, or directly through search engines such as google. The current system works for towns and villages, and will continue to be available. It will not be extended to cover hamlets and major buildings.
Key Web Sites Re: Links to external web sites		This web site contains a very large number of links to external web sites, and in some cases descriptive pages. Current resources do not allow these links and pages to be regularly checked and updated - and many pages on this site may contain an old description of the external web site. Please notify me of any external links which no longer work.
Men at Work Re: No requests for action from users		Over the years a number of updates have been started, sometimes on an experimental basis, and as no one expressed interest in the work being completed the original "Men at Work" warning is still in place. This includes cases where a book page has been started with a message to say a review will be provided on request. All such instances are being mothballed until such time as there is a clear user-driven interest in the update being completed.
Tutorial		I started to set up this tutorial many years ago, but work stopped when it was found that the demand for an online tutorial was insufficient to justify the time completing the exercise. It is now out of date as the external web sites it refers to have changed. However as it contains extensive information on the Lewin family of St Albans, and examples of how useful a family bible can be, it has been decided to keep it online

Recent statistics, etc., will be looked at over the next few months to identify when the work load of running and maintaining the site can be minimized.

Your comments on which parts of the web site you find most useful will play an important role in deciding which areas of the site will get the most favourable treatment and which will end up being mothballed.

The Future of the Genealogy in Hertfordshire Web Site

Lucy

For me today is a rather special anniversary. Thirty years ago this morning my eldest daughter Lucy went shopping in nearby Aylesbury. About three hours later a policeman called to say that a young lady carrying my daughter's bank book had died. The resulting post-traumatic stress led to my abandoning some very interesting research and taking early retirement from a university career. I have decided to take this anniversary to reviewing what I can do with what is left of my twilight years. 

This decision clearly affects the future of the Genealogy in Hertfordshire web site, including the Guide to Old Hertfordshire, the associated newsletter, and the private reference library of Hertfordshire material I set up to help me answer questions.

So first to review the history of the site and the current situation. 

Picture of the Hoy family of Barkway - Can you help?

Margaret write: My father Leonard Andrews was grandson of Edwin Andrews and Martha Hoy.  This photo he claimed was the Hoy family and taken around 1910/1914 I would guess by the age of my grandfather who is standing at the back next to my grandmother I think!  Perhaps someone who recognise the garden it was obviously quite large with anise seat around a tree. If anyone recognises this as a garden in Barkway this would be interesting.

Let me know if you can throw any light on who is in the picture and who any of the people are. The 1911 census shows that Alfred Hoy (35, farm labourer), his wife Frances (28) and son Ernest (1, born at Royston) were living at Newsells, Barkway.