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View of the Alban Way cycle and footpath. Formerly the Hatfield to St Albans railway line. Photographed looking east.
©Barry Lawson
The gates were locked and barred so I have no clue of the nature of the works.
©Jack Hill
The School Field with a long line of Poplar Trees, where I spent many a happy lunch hour in that long summer of 1976...
©Dave Skinner
Dist:0.1km<br/>First opened in 1938 and celebrating it's 70th Birthday in 2008. The school was built on the site of Beaumonts Farm. Never any cars there in my day.
©Dave Skinner
Dist:0.1km<br/>The old woodwork rooms, leading up to the Bike Sheds ! The main hall is just on the left and the boy's toilet entrance can be seen on the right.
©Dave Skinner
Dist:0.2km<br/>Entrance to the Science Block. In my day the taller building in the middle was the Sixth Form Common and Dining Room. I seem to recall that before that someone told me it had been the Gym. The two lower blocks on each end were the girls (left) and boys (right) cloakrooms.
©Dave Skinner
Dist:0.2km<br/>The bent bars on the gate show they have poor drivers. Not sure of the status of the school
©Jack Hill
Dist:0.5km<br/>The Great Northern Railway opened this station on their St Albans to Hatfield line in 1899 to serve the then new Hertfordshire County Mental Hospital. The station had a couple of sidings on its south side where a mobile home park is now, while a longer siding ran from a point west of the station into the hospital itself in order to deliver coal and other goods. The station closed along with passenger facilities on the rest of the line in 1951. This is the same view as Barry's [[111442]]. Photographs published elsewhere on the internet indicate that the railings arrived between 2004 and 2006, no doubt to alleviate some perceived health and safety risk. Meanwhile the platform edge remains unprotected to the unwary pedestrian... The railway trackbed now forms the Alban Way and a section of National Cycle Network Route 61.
©Nigel Cox
Dist:0.6km<br/>This pond is on the right hand side of the drive as you approach the college buildings. A little later in Spring it will be surrounded by flowering daffodils.
©Andy Parrett
Dist:0.7km<br/>The church at TL175068 has been converted into an arts centre / theatre sort of thing.
©Rob Hinkley
Dist:0.8km<br/>This the trackbed of the former Hatfield and St Albans Railway. The railway was completed in 1865 and was taken over by the Great Northern Railway in 1883. It was a very early casualty of British Railways' days being closed to passenger traffic in 1951. Freight services lingered on until 1964. The trackbed is now used as the Alban Way and also now forms a section of National Cycle Network Route 61. The bridge carries Colney Heath Lane over the old railway trackbed.
©Nigel Cox
Dist:0.8km<br/>Photo taken at 7.42am. This building, along with an estate of 315 acres was purchased by Hertfordshire County Council in 1920 for £34,214 and opened as an Agricultural Institute the following year. The present flat roof replaced twin gables after a fire on 5th Feb. 1926.
©Andy Parrett
Dist:0.8km<br/>The Rats Castle is on Hatfield Road at its junction with Sutton Road from which this image was taken. The Rats Castle is not a unique name for a pub, a Google search revealing another in Guildford, and a restaurant in Faringdon in Oxfordhshire. The alignment of the gable end walls in the photo appears to show some distortion in the photograph, but this is the true arrangement, the flank wall visible to the right being parallel with the Hatfield Road frontage out of sight around the corner in the distance.
©Nigel Cox
Dist:0.8km<br/>Now "Smallford Campus" of an enlarged F.E. College, this was formerly the "Mansion" building of Hertfordshire College of Agriculture and Horticulture
©Andy Parrett
Dist:0.8km<br/>The main admin building of Oaklands College Smallford campus - just East of St Albans
©Rob Hinkley

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