Category: St Albans

5         The amount of mini-scooters that will whizz around you per 100m travelled within AL1 between the hours of 3pm-4pm on a school day. Once your shins have been bashed 11 times or more in any seven-day period you are eligible for funding from the council for protective clothing, apparently.

494,777     Is the average price of a house in St Albans. Feeling smug? Just wait until you actually try to move to a property even 5 sq ft bigger than your house, that will wipe the smile. Your humble abode might be worth a silly % more than when you bought it…but so is everyone else’s.

7         Is the number of grown adults (as opposed to ungrown adults, who are technically called ‘children’, I suppose) you’ll see riding bikes on the pavement during the course of the average working week. Growing up, I was told that it was ‘illegal’ (even for teenager) to ride on the pavement and that, if spotted, a policeman on the beat would sternly tell you off and make you walk your bike. (No, this was not the 1950s.) Nowadays, adults ride their bikes on pavements safe in the knowledge that they’ll never be accosted by the boys in blue (or, as they are more commonly now known, the BoysAndGirlsInFlourescentReflectiveSafetyWorkwearWithPocketsAndEppaulettes). The chances of seeing a Bobby (or even a Roberta) on the beat in St Albans being slimmer than the likelihood of Weightwatchers holding their local group meetings in Dunkin’ Donuts. If an actual panda car did stop you while you were cycling among pedestrians, you’d have fair cause to argue that if the pavement is wide enough for the police vehicle then it’s big enough for you too. To be honest, 9 out of 10 times you see the police helicopter hovering above AL4 it’s because it’s tracking a middle-aged credit controller in Hush Puppies who is riding his bike too close to people’s front gates. Said ‘off-road’ cyclist will, of course, be wearing a helmet and, probably, a mini hat cam thingy as well. (Well, you never know when some pesky scooter-riding pre-schooler will come hurtling dangerously around that next corner, and you’ll need some video evidence for the ‘trauma’ claim.)

2         Is the number of local pubs I walked out of on a recent night out with a couple of mates without even having had a drink. I’m not actually that fussy when it comes to pubs; I like variety and I quite like going to different places, but there are two things I absolutely insist on in order to purchase a beer: 1. Beer actually being stocked 2. Someone being behind the bar to serve it. Is that too much to ask? Clearly, for a couple of local hostelries, yes. What sort of pub doesn’t serve draught beer (just the one – any sort at all – not asking for a cast [cask?] of thousands)? What sort of sales-based business doesn’t actually have people to sell the product? Whatever next – bakers who don’t sell bread and vegetarian butchers?

41      Is the number of seconds the average person in St Albans spends scanning the ‘Court Report’ section of the local paper in the hope of seeing a name they recognise (and, preferably, of someone they don’t really like – possibly that neighbour who spotted you in the 99p Store).  Discovering someone who’s been convicted of watching TV without a licence or, better still, caught trying to steal a joint of honey-glazed pork from Sainsbury’s, gives one a lovely warm glow inside, doesn’t it?

0.01 This is the percentage of friends of the average reader of this blog that will proudly admit to having voted Tory. Hmm, strange how that doesn’t quite stack up with a 25,000 majority. And they say it’s the politicians who are the dishonest ones…

N.B. AL3 WTF does not accept donations from any political party.  We’d love to, however, it’s just that no-one has ever offered.

93      Is the number of steps to climb in order to stand atop the Clock Tower and enjoy one of the best skyline views in the world: the Christopher Place Car Park roof.  The Clock Tower is definitely worth a visit.  Go soon as rumours abound that the council is considering making the steps a one-way route in order to ease congestion. In future, the only way down will be via zip wire. The zip wire is to be sponsored by the Starbucks store opposite and the descent will go through the (hopefully open) bi-fold doors and finish in front of a smiling barista. Or, if the glass bi-fold doors are closed, in front of a smiling no-win-no-fee barrister.

68      This is the percentage of 2014 residential conversions in St Albans that involved the fitting of bi-fold doors. Nothing says freedom and self-expression like a bi-fold door. These glass concertinas are much favoured by naturists, phlebotomists and people with shares in Windolene.

39      This is – genuinely – the percentage of respondents in an online poll who thought that Ye Olde Fighting Cocks should be renamed Ye Olde Clever Cocks. (I know, it’s the least believable of the whole blog, isn’t it.)  According to the front page of this week’s Review, a campaign group is urging the pub to change its name ‘to reflect compassion to animals’. Now, omnivorous AL3 WTF does not and never has condoned cock-fighting, but we’re wondering if the campaigners have taken a glance at the pub’s menu. If it’s animal compassion they’re after, might they be better to focus on ingredients:  “our game may contain shot”. Just a thought.

At the time of going to press, a spokesman for the newly named Slug and Pellet was not available; neither was comment forthcoming from the relaunched Mare and Mounds. No-one was able to respond to our request to The Three Horseshoes to explain why the poor horse’s fourth hoof was never shod.

Smallford derives its name not from the fact that the Ford Ka was designed here, but because this is where the creator of baby milk brand SMA, Lloyd Lilywhite, discovered in 1978 that his breast-milk substitute enabled babies to see in 4D. Over time, the company name changed to Lloyd Lilywhite’s SMA 4D which, in turn, became SMALL 4D and then SMALLFORD. Today a local by-law ensures that all newborns in Smallford receive 12 months’ free supply of SMA. Many top London marketing agencies recruit their graphic designers from Smallford, often sponsoring them through nursery so as to secure the pick of this visionary bunch at an early age.

The Camp: Previous residents include: Dale Winton, Graham Norton, Louie Spence, Alan Carr, Julian Clary and Larry Grayson.

Marshalswick. When the Californian Gold Rush was at its height, American law-enforcers sent their fast-track recruits to St Albans for its world-renowned centre of police training. The recruits’ lodging block stood where the garages behind The Quadrant are now located. It was a risky job being a US Marshal in the Wild West and mortality rates were high. Whenever word reached the training centre that one of its graduate marshals had perished upholding the law in frontierland, a candle would be lit at the south facing bullet-proof windows of the training block. Tradition was that the candle would burn for five hours, be extinguished and then left in the window as a permanent memorial. Over the years, the strong summer sun magnified through the re-enforced windows would decay the wax, leaving the wicks draping limply over the window-ledge; hence the area became known as Marshalswick. The training centre is long gone, but today sales of Jo Malone candles are higher in the AL4 postcode than anywhere else in Hertfordshire.

London Colney gained its capital prefix so that 17th century overseas visitors wouldn’t confuse the area with Barcelona Colney, Copacabana Colney, Coney Island or Beirut.

Park Street. This is where, in 1816, Nathan Colin Prius invented the car park. Rather cumbersomely, his first venture was called Nathan Colin Prius’ Car Park Off-Street. Business was somewhat quiet for the first 70 years until the subsequent invention of the automobile. Realising that he was onto something, Prius set up Britain’s first franchise business and the initials NCP became synonymous nationwide with extortionate charges and terrible service. As the result of an accident around the time of the Boer War when an executive from Aquascutum crashed his motorcycle into the original entrance sign, the words ‘Car’ and ‘Off’ perished and, by default, the area became known as Park Street.

As viewers of Mastermind will know, Llimnottoc is the name of the chemical solution painted on the back of glass to make a mirror.  After being discovered by a German chemist working at a St Albans glass-cutting business to the south-east of the city, and written about in the book Hier Kommt Der Mirror Mann, Harper Collins (Berlin) 1867, Llimnottoc brought fame and prosperity to the city. A lazy apprentice one day idly wrote the word Llimnottoc in sand in the factory yard as his colleague stood leaning against an upright mirror placed after the letter ‘c’. And that’s how Cottonmill got its name.

The truth around the origin of New Greens is somewhat complex.  The name reflects that this part of the city is a hub of musical and entertainment talent. Hughie Green (compere of 1970s talent show Opportunity Knocks) was from the area, as was Derek Hobson host of New Faces. In tribute to these two iconic talent shows, the area became knows as New Greens (‘Hughie Faces’ being the second choice). It remains St Albans’ creative quarter, and buskers, jugglers, stilt-walkers and fire-eaters can be seen performing on street corners most evenings. In recognition of New Greens as the birthplace of the modern-day talent show, the next series of X-Factor is to be filmed exclusively in New Greens Hall on High Oaks.

As every Year 9 child knows, the name Jersey Farm originates from top secret work undertaken during World War II at the Home Office Centre for Applied Science and Technology on Woodcock Hill. Attempts to grow military knitwear made of bomb-proof Kevlar failed, but later endeavours to make sweaters out of goal stanchions and crossbars did give rise to the 1940s term ‘goalposts for jumpers’.

The name Fleetville originates from the 1740s when the area’s docks were famous the world over for building the ships of the Royal Navy. Before setting off for the West Indies, new vessels would load up with supplies from the ship’s chandlers located on the current Morrisons site. (Readers might recall that a Safeway supermarket previously stood here for over 250 years. The name ‘safeway’ itself originating from the farewell that the shop girl on the mead counter would shout to sailors to wish them safe passage as their ships disappeared into the sunset.) Fleetville’s docks have long dried up, but the fact that Morrisons has the best fresh fish counter in the city is testament to the area’s nautical roots.

Before Wheathampstead Cathedral was sacked by invaders from Welwyn in 1684, Sandridge was a wafer-thin settlement comprising mainly of delicatessens, butchers and producers of trout pâté. The village was known as ‘sandwich’ as it was the filling in the middle between the two great bread-baking cathedral cities of St Albans and Wheathampstead. Over the centuries, the village’s name evolved to Sandridge. This explanation should settle once and for all the debate as to whether the correct pronunciation is Sand-ridge or Sarrndridge; it is, of course, Sand-ridge, as in sandwich.

When oil was discovered on the outskirts of St Albans in 1923, workers used giant chisel-drills to cut through the lush turf and through the limestone to create a well; from this innovative approach the name Chiswell Green was born. Although drilling ceased in 1965, its legacy hangs heavy over Chiswell Green:

Much to the embarrassment of the current rigidly upstanding people of Batchwood, their part of our city gained its name from pioneering 19th century work undertaken at Batchwood Hall to find alternative ways to alleviate erectile dysfunction.  The innovative approach revolved around practical therapy for men who were treated together in groups (or ‘batches’), and hence the term ‘batchwood’ was coined.

Finally – Beech Bottom Dyke: you can work this one out for yourselves…