Areas of St Albans: The Truth Revealed

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…