IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Mentmore Road, ST. ALBANS, AL1 2BG

c.1930s housing in Mentmore Road, off Cottonmill Lane.

Remains of a Tudor mansion built on the site of Sopwell Nunnery. More at this http://www.stalbansmuseums.org.uk/Your-Visit/Sopwell-Nunnery

c.1930s housing in Cottonmill Lane, on the section between Leyland Avenue and Prospect Road. Although not developed until then, the route itself is much older, being the route from St Albans out to Sopwell from St Albans.

c.1930s housing in Cottonmill Lane, by its junction with Prospect Road. Although not developed until then, the route itself is much older, being the route from St Albans out to Sopwell from St Albans.

The ruined nunnery at TL151064

Leaving St Albans Abbey station, the former Hatfield and St Albans Railway left the current line to Watford Junction at a point just behind the photographer and this was the first crossing structure that it had to go under. The Great Northern Railway took over the line in 1883, but 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 in use as a section of National Cycle Network Route 61 and is the start of the Alban Way, the dedicated footpath and cycleway between St Albans and Hatfield. Those familiar with Cottonmill Lane will know that it makes a sudden and inexplicable sharp 90 degree turn just to the right of this photograph. Looking at old Ordnance Survey maps it is evident that the road formerly carried straight on to the existing railway, and the re-alignment seems to have occurred when the Berners Drive housing estate to the south was built.

Located on the Abbey Line Trail in Sopwell Nunnery Green Space https://www.walkingenglishman.com/ldp/abbeylinetrail.html refers, this board has been erected by St Albans District Council and has the following wording on it. Sopwell Nunnery Green Space: The value of wet woodland. Also known as Carr Woodland this is an important and rare wet woodland habitat in Hertfordshire. The images in the middle show the following: Clockwise from the bottom left: Banded Demoiselle damselfly, Common Frog, Riverside Willow, Lesser Celandine and Pollarded Willow These woodland types are dominated by mature Alder and Willow trees. Some of these trees have been historically pollarded (the branches cut back so they re-grow to provide material for baskets and fencing, amongst other things) and they provide excellent habitats for wildlife such as woodpeckers, bats and invertebrates.

The houses at the eastern end of Prospect Road are mainly bay-fronted between-the-wars semis, but the totally vegetation-clad telegraph pole with its massed ranks of radiating cables was something different!

c.1930s housing in Leyland Avenue, a cul-de-sac off Cottonmill Lane.