IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Graham Close, ST. ALBANS, AL1 2DF

The last area of the former gasworks, where two gasholders remained until 2014, being developed as an extension of the surrounding retail park. I assume it was probably not suitable for housing due to soil contamination? See Image for the gasholders in situ and Image for them being demolished.

The gasholders on the site of the former St Alban gasworks are now being demolished. See Image by Nigel Cox of the gasholders in 2009, having been out of use for some years and see Image for a glimpse of one holder in use in 1987.

From old Ordnance Survey maps it is evident that the site of the St Albans gas works was once much larger, stretching down to Stephen's Hill, and having its own dedicated railway siding, more or less on the site where Sainsbury's is now. These two holders are all that remains but they are large enough to warrant being individually represented on the current Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 scale mapping.

Looking towards Image it was about a 100 metres away in the distance that the former Great Northern Railway's line to Hatfield peeled off to the right. That line closed in 1964.

The principal road of St Albans Retail Park. This was built on former gasworks and railway land.

This crossing over the St Albans Abbey branch line railway allows pedestrians to walk between Cottonmill Lane and Grindcobbe Close.

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.

Griffiths Way and the Abbey View retail park in St Albans.