Alive but not quite kicking

The Sopwell Memories website is alive!

We had our “soft” launch at the Sopwell Residents Association AGM last Wednesday, where I gave a brief demo of its capabilities. 

The main launch - hopefully with press coverage - will be in August, as part of the month long display in St Albans Museum in Hatfield Road. 

I am really pleased with the work that we have put into it and I am sure, once people find out about it, they will be too. So the thing to do is to tell all your friends and family who may have an interest in the history and memories of Sopwell and St Albans. 

I have posted on the Sopwell Project page on Facebook and we had a couple of comments fairly quickly. It has been favourably received, so that is good. 

At present, the website is not yet being picked up by Google search so, to access it, please type the following URL in your browser: www.sopwellmemories.org.uk (or simply click on the link).

We are sure that the website will be of interest to:

• anyone interested in history of the area
• anyone interested in genealogy
• primary and secondary school teachers setting projects
• students researching local topics
• anyone looking for old unpublished images of the area

and I am sure there will be many more reasons to use it.

Try it out and see what you think and by all means, let us know. This is the soft launch so if there are any glitches we can iron them out by August.

--
Sandy Norman

Freak weather in Sopwell

We all know about the flooding in Sopwell which happens every few years or so in the Ver Valley, but did you know about lightning strikes and a waterspout?

Not once, but twice, a house in Nuns Lane got hit by a thunderbolt. The first time happened in the early 1950s. I have recorded interviews from two different people who reported that they had seen a red flash across the skies which hit a roof in Nuns Lane and set it alight. The house in question apparently belonged to a Mr and Mrs Tichner who lived at the top of the lane – I think that means the Cottonmill Lane end. Fortunately no-one was hurt. The second thunderbolt struck many years later. Does anyone else remember these thunderbolts? What was the number of the house? Apparently, it was opposite no 22 Nuns Lane. Can anyone confirm this?

I have recently taken out a subscription to the British Newspaper Archive for a month to see if I could find any gems about Sopwell and came across this item from 1859.

On Thursday afternoon week, a most singular phenomenon appeared coming in a southward direction from Park Street towards the town. It consisted apparently of a dense mass of aqueous vapour or air, attended with a most fearful rushing noise, taking a tree up by the roots on Sopwell farm for some distance, whirling the birds in the air along its progress, and doing mischief to some cottages; it passed through the vale across the river Ver at Holywell Hill, where it came into contact with the Willow tree growing over the Holy Well in the meadow; this it broke asunder in its way rolling up the lead, and taking the tiles off the houses, damaging trees, and passing on to Hill Street in a direction towards Redbourn. The alarm amongst the inhabitants was great, and many had great difficulty in maintaining respiration, the current of air was so great. We have not heard of anyone being injured. It was probably what is known as a waterspout on land. 

Herts Guardian, 2nd August 1859

Now that is freaky! I also found it interesting that there was a willow tree growing over the Holy Well and that people knew where it was then.

--
Sandy Norman

   

  

What happened "In the Olden Days"?

For the past few weeks, we have been part of a project at St Peter’s school to teach schoolchildren about local history. Letters were sent to parents encouraging them – or friends, neighbours and relatives - to come along to speak to the children. Each class took part with one or two people coming in to be interviewed. The older children had been taught how to use the recording equipment beforehand and they did very well.

There were two days of interviewing and I sat in on several sessions. There was no shortage of questions. All the children were fascinated by the fact that there were not many cars on the roads “in the olden days” and so children could play on the streets and wander far and wide. They were also amazed that we did not have televisions or computers. The children in Year 5 asked very good questions such as what was school like and what was it like in the war. It was so nice to see their enthusiasm. Years 1 and 2 interviews inevitably degenerated to repeating the same questions or asking questions about pets! However, I think it has been a success as an awareness raising exercise and we will definitely be able to use some of the material on the website.

Talking of which, the website is ready for beta testing and I have let the committee and the history team loose on it. I only have a few comments so far, but these are mostly positive. I have now uploaded 93 posts and I still have plenty more to do. Just today, I recorded another interview and collected several more original photographs. 

The project finishes in August and we are going to showcase it for the whole of the month of August in the city museum in Hatfield Road. More on that in a later post.

--
Sandy Norman
 
 

Sopwell skyline features

Sopwell residents have been out visiting tall structures which dominate our skyline. The gasholders near Homebase and the Cedar of Lebanon in St Stephen’s field. One about to disappear and the other very much alive.

A few of us had the privilege to be invited by National Grid and the demolition contractors, Brown and Mason, to see the progress of the demolition of the gasholders - no longer called gasometers it seems. After quite a long induction on health and safety, we were kitted out with protective gear to go out to watch the metal being cut away piece by piece by oxyacetylene welders. Our guide explained how the demolition contractors worked from the top down, removing panels section by section, layer by layer. The metal is sent off daily for scrap. One of the gasholders is almost gone and the other has a large hole cut away in its side which exposed the three telescopic layers. The work should be finished by April when the site will probably be used for retail. It certainly isn’t suitable for housing. The whole experience was very interesting and it was good to capture these moments of history for the project. The skyline is going to look so different when they have gone.

And now to our other feature, the cedar tree. We met with David Alderman of The Tree Council. It was a mixture of good and bad news. It is not as old as we think. It’s a mere 250 or so years old in his estimation. Cedars of this type are very fast growing so that is why we thought it was a lot older. Apparently, when cedars first came to Britain in the 17th century, they were not that hardy and were all wiped out by 1743 when there was a terrific storm. People planted a hardier species after that and ours is one of them. David described it as a cluster tree, multi-stemmed, and so it looks big with all the branches off the several trunks, a bit like a hedge. On the other hand he said it was a fine specimen: a champion category 3 tree no less! It is big in volume and David described it as classic. He was pleased with its condition: there was only one branch which looked damaged and this had a hole in it which was likely to have been made by a woodpecker.

So for the record, the measurements of the St Stephen’s cedar are: height: 19m, girth: 8.3m at 0.4m, crown spread west-east 30.8m and crown spread north-south 29.4m. David dated it as being planted c1750 but we shouldn’t be too disappointed as it was still a very fine specimen and, out of 2,000 they have recorded, it is in the Top 50 for Britain. Regarding its status as the largest cedar in Hertfordshire, this is all dependent upon whether a tree survives at Beechwood Park School, Markyate. Until this is confirmed our tree at our slightly reduced girth of 8.3m at 0.4m is second largest. It is still something to be proud of.

Regarding the Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn story, David said that this may have started by the Victorians who liked to exaggerate rumours. However, quite often trees were planted to commemorate an event so it could have been planted because of the visit by the pair of them to St Stephens. Or, it could just have been planted to replace one of the less hardy cedars – the dates are right. We will never know the true story, but the pair of them were around our area and they may well have done some canoodling under a tree in the vicinity. Henry used to hunt there and Anne was known to have visited Sopwell Nunnery.

RIP the gasholders. Long live the cedar.

--

Sandy Norman