Networking, Community Partnerships and Public Engagement

I have been to a conference in Bristol. It was called the Community Partner Summit and aimed to continue to build a Community Partner Network - a network between universities and those working in the community. I thought it would be useful so I elected to go. All expenses were paid, so I had nothing to lose but my time.

When I got there I wondered whether I had made the right decision as nothing appeared familiar and there were a lot of important and influential people there who seemed to know each other. I felt like a small fish in a big pond. It is ten years since I have been to a residential conference and all the old prejudices were coming to the fore. I am not a natural networker, so why am I here? Hope I don’t fall asleep. I expect they will play a lot of silly games.

I sat to one side of the room and when the conference started I found it very difficult to hear what was going on so that made me even more frustrated. Apparently the keynote speaker was brilliant and inspirational but that passed me by because I didn't catch a lot of what she was saying and by then her lovely Harlem accent was making me sleepy and I was drifting off…. She appeared to be talking about problems she was having relating to academia. What was the problem? We don’t have any have any trouble with our partners at the University of Hertfordshire (UH). I couldn't relate to it at all. Was I missing something?

After a tea break, it did get a lot better as we were told to make contact with other delegates and share our stories. I discovered there were other HLF All Our Stories grantees with very interesting projects and who felt a bit lost too and some other delegates were voicing my concerns too. I was not alone! I always find that the best bit about any conference is talking to other delegates and this was no exception.

The following day was much better and I began to sift through the jargon to understand what the conference was about: building a better working relationship between those working on community projects with academics in universities. In a nutshell, persuading academics in universities to share their research with those working for and with the community on the ground, and vice versa. Both sides would benefit working in a partnership. Apparently this is a big issue nationally and internationally.

Even when the penny dropped, I found it difficult to relate to this and then I became suspicious and began to question our relationship with UH. Sopwell Memories is in partnership with UH. We are a therefore a community partner. Was there something they haven’t told us? Should we be asking more of them? Are they being really nice to us just because we helped them get their research grant? At the end of their grant money, will they drop us like a hot potato? Are they feeding off our passion? You see, I am re-learning the jargon!

I still believe we have a good working relationship with Sarah, Julie and Paul at UH. Talking of which, we had a meeting of the team at UH last week where we held an overview workshop to discuss progress. It was really good and left me feeling re-energised and full of enthusiasm. Sarah Lloyd from UH had us outlining our Sopwell Memories highlights and challenges and it was amazing what came out. She also identified gaps which could be filled. The outcome is that there is to be another workshop where we all get round the table to decide which extracts to use on the website. There is a lot of work to do.

Was the conference worthwhile? I think so. It has taken me out of my comfort zone and made me question my role in the higher scheme of things. Will I attend another conference? I think I need to get a hearing aid first!

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Sandy Norman

So where exactly is Sopwell?

One of the aims of the project is to get people to appreciate the Sopwell area of St Albans. So as well as collecting memories from residents and ex-residents, we will be producing leaflets describing walks around the area, with the aim of introducing visitors to the many wonderful green spaces and to learn about its history.

The Sopwell Residents Association has been holding history walks for several years now and they are always popular.

So I thought this would be an easy task as I quickly put together five easy walks. But then it was pointed out to me that what I think is an easy route to follow may not be to a stranger to St Albans, let alone Sopwell. When it is all so familiar, it is difficult to write a route with the eyes of a stranger in mind.

Another niggle is that some people who live in St Albans are not familiar with and do not know where Sopwell is. They have heard of the Sopwell House Hotel and think that is where Sopwell is. (One of my original interviewees still tells me off for not putting ‘St Albans’ as well as Sopwell on the cover of my book). Hopefully, these walk leaflets and the book, and eventually the website containing Sopwell memories will hopefully go some way towards educating residents and visitors about Sopwell. 

Interestingly, most Albanians have heard of Cottonmill, which is just one part of Sopwell, maybe because they used to live there or they have seen it on the S4 and S5 buses, or from its reputation as being a bit of a rough area. Having interviewed many residents and ex-residents, I wondered why it had this reputation. Admittedly, children in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s were allowed free rein to roam around at will. I have heard many stories where during the school summer holidays, parents kicked them out in the morning and they weren’t expected back until evening meal time. They had a wonderful time roaming all over the green spaces, building sites, railways and the river. They got up to all sorts of innocent mischief. On the other hand, there were many reported stories of vandalism on the newly built estates and I think this reputation has been hard to shift. The anti-social behaviour was not because of a lack of community cohesion as, having interviewed many residents, I found that community spirit was strong. Everybody knew their neighbours and looked out for each other. There is still a lot of that around today. Perhaps the rough reputation has finally disappeared with the growing up and moving on of the young people. 

So where exactly is Sopwell? I quote from my book "Sopwell: a history and collection of memories": Sopwell is bordered by Old London Road, Holywell Hill (from Belmont Hill southwards), St Stephens Hill and Watling Street down to the Park Street roundabout, the North Orbital as far as the mainline railway bridge and encompasses the Cottonmill and St Julian’s estates, the area to the east of St Stephen’s church, New Barnes, Priory Park, the Verulam golf course and the Riverside Road Fisheries. 

So now you know. Now to get back to my walks…..

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Sandy Norman

Making progress

A couple of weeks ago, I was privileged to have been invited to the Eid festival organised by the newly formed Sopwell Community Trust.

Eid is a Muslim festival which marks the end of the month of Ramadan. There was lots going on which was very interesting if rather noisy at times. A lot of community spirit was present which was refreshing. I was hoping to make contact with the Asian community and try to persuade them to take part in sharing their memories.

I met lots of interesting people but only one guy agreed to be interviewed. I have since listened to his stories which were really interesting. His family once owned the first Indian restaurant in Hertfordshire, the Koh-I-Noor in George Street, St Albans.

In my last post, I suggested that we might have the oldest cedar of Lebanon tree in England, but, apparently, there is one planted in 1646 by a Dr Edward Pocock in the grounds of his rectory near Wantage in Oxfordshire, which claims this title. We are not giving up. Maybe they don’t know about ours.

Two of us decided to measure the girth of our cedar tree in St Stephen’s Field to see how much it had grown in 100 years. The measurements in 1914 were in Imperial but we had to do it in metric as our tape was in metric. It didn't help that the tape we had borrowed was very rusty and broke off at 10cm! However we managed.

As in 1914, we took three readings: one at approximately 1ft (0.30480m); one at approximately 3ft (0.91440m); and the last one at approximately 6ft (1.82880m) from the ground. The results were not very conclusive because, apart from the first measurement (1ft up), the tree did not appear to have grown! We think this may have been because a hundred years ago there were some branches lower down and their tape, or whatever they used to measure, must have included them. We also measured the spread of the branches and that did not appear to have changed much either.

The next stage is to write to Kew gardens with our results and ask them for advice. I wonder if they still have the letter about our cedar written by the vicar of St Stephen’s back in 1914.

Part of the Memories Project grant includes some money to produce leaflets describing walks around Sopwell. We have chosen five routes which cover the green spaces and the history of the area. The aim is to encourage walkers to learn about the history of Sopwell as well as to enjoy the environment. (Of course we will also be encouraging them to buy the book!)

I thought that producing these leaflets would be a simple task – not so! There is a lot of work involved which is progressing slowly as we want to make sure the directions are clear. We are drawing our own maps and we have a couple of guinea pigs, who are unfamiliar with the area, lined up to test the routes. When we are happy with the routes and the text, and we are sure people won’t get lost, we will be approaching our designer.

While we were out testing one of the walks, we crossed the field and walked towards the North Orbital to look at Flint Cottages. I knew of them but had never seen them. There are two cottages which were once used by workers on Hedges farm. Some time ago, I received a letter from someone whose grandparents, Jack and Sara Stratton, lived there. Jack was head cattleman for over twenty years. He and his family lived at No. 1 Flint Cottages from the 1920s through to his retirement in the early 1940s.

Sara Stratton, 1 Flint Cottages (early 1920s)

We are very pleased with the video of the launch of the Sopwell Memories Project which is ready at last and is now on our YouTube channel. It includes some good stories about the Sopwell area.

We are still collecting lots of new and interesting stories from residents and are in the process of transcribing and selecting the best bits to include on the website. I have been given some training on editing these audio files using Audacity software. It is so comforting to be able to take out the ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ and irrelevant bits – usually me talking – and to listen to the stories without interruption. I must get practising.

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Sandy Norman

Have we got the oldest cedar tree in England?

I have spent several enjoyable hours poring over the almanac of St Stephen’s Church. The vicar kindly let me loose on a lot of old material including this almanac started in 1914 which chronicles everything that has happened in St Stephen's parish and the church since the church records were kept. It has really fascinating material which I intend to put up on the website when it gets going. (It's under development as we speak.)

So about our lovely cedar tree in St Stephen's field:

I have discovered that back in 1914 the then vicar wrote a letter to Kew Gardens giving the measurements of the famous cedar of Lebanon - then in what was the churchyard. It was pretty big at that time and that’s a century ago. From the reply it looked like they could not identify a larger specimen and so said that it was probably the largest of its kind in England – no mention of the other parts of the UK. It will be interesting to see how much it has grown in that time. We did measure the girth about 5 years ago when we did our tree hugging exercise and we estimated that it was about 9m – or seven adult hugs.

Back in 1914, the tree measured 26¼ft at 3ft from the ground (approx 8m) so it has grown about a metre in 100 years. We still have no accurate estimate of its age. Kew reckons that the previous oldest cedar tree cut down at Wilton House, measured 36ft at 5ft from the ground in 1874 and from its rings it was estimated that it dated from 1638. In order for our tree to fit the legend of King Henry canoodling with Anne Boleyn under it, it has got to be another hundred or so years older that the Wilton House one. Maybe we will never know until it dies and the rings can be counted - and we don’t want that to happen!

The almanac also gives details of what the original Vicarage and the garden looked like. The vicarage had twelve bedrooms/dressing rooms, several reception rooms, cellar and rooms for servants. Outside were small ‘home farm’ buildings viz: three brick cowsheds and pigsty; a cottage for the gardener/chauffeur of five rooms; stabling for 4 horses; two coach houses (or garages) large & small; four large coal and wood sheds ; and a dairy. It was demolished in the 1970s because it was vandalised by youths who took advantage of the generosity of the then incumbent, Rev Hart-Synnot. It must have been a wonderful house and garden in its day.

Here is a lovely description of the garden and grounds. “The Vicarage garden and grounds (of about 2¼ acres) are of great natural beauty. They include an orchard walled on two sides and adjoining the churchyard, a large lawn on the Eastside of the house and a small lawn on the West on Watling Street side, a large walled kitchen garden, a glade at the south side of the large lawn, two shrubberies with trees, a pleasant little wood with fine trees opening from the bottom of the large lawn. There is an ancient and picturesque well with the wheels and cogs of wood. It has not been used since the town water became available.” And there were tennis courts. What a lovely picture of what we have lost. At least the cedar is still standing! 

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Sandy Norman