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Beaumonds, Upper Marlborough Road, ST. ALBANS, AL1 3NL

The northern end of Upper Marlborough Road, as it approaches Hatfield Road, the road in the background. On the right is The Peacock (see Image). On the left is a sewer vent pipe - see Image for a close up.

A Victorian sewer vent pipe in Upper Marlborough Street - see Image for a wider view.

A locally listed pub on Hatfield Road. In a couple of years between 2007 and 2009 it went through various name changes: O'Neills, Ryans then back to O'Neills. It has now reverted to its original name, The Peacock. A 1634 map shows an Inn called The Peacock on the site, although the current building is clearly more recent, dating from the late 19th/early 20th century.

A pub in Hatfield Road, this was once The Peacock, then O'Neill's, then Ryans, then O'Neill's, and now back to The Peacock.

Public house on Hatfield Road. There is a bench mark http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4745571 on the bottom left corner.

A locally listed pub on Hatfield Road. In a couple of years between 2007 and 2009 it went through various name changes: O'Neills, Ryans then back to O'Neills. It has now reverted to its original name, The Peacock. A 1634 map shows an Inn called The Peacock on the site, although the current building is clearly more recent, dating from the late 19th/early 20th century. Compare Image for how it looked in 2011.

See http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4745574 for location.

Close up of the cast iron milepost seen in front of St Peter's Church Hall (see Image). Modern roads do not give an obvious reason for showing Hatfield and Reading as destinations on the same post, but the explanation is historical. It is said that the Marquis of Salisbury, who lived at Hatfield House, wanted a route to the Great West Road avoiding central London, for onward travel to the spa towns of Bath and Cheltenham where, as a sufferer of gout, he habitually took the waters. He with others (including the Earl of Essex, who suffered from a similar affliction, and who lived at Cassiobury House near Watford) therefore sponsored an Act of Parliament passed in 1757 for the building of a road from Hatfield to Reading, with the Reading and Hatfield Turnpike Trust set up by a further Act passed in 1768, to improve the route between the two towns so he could be spared the discomfort and congestion of London's cobbled streets. It ran via St Albans, Watford, Rickmansworth, Amersham, High Wycombe and Marlow, with two alternative routes from there, one to Knowl Hill (on the Great West Road between Maidenhead and Reading) and the other to Reading itself via Henley-on-Thames. The Trust lasted until 1881, and at the latter date was one of the last surviving Turnpike Trusts in the country. For many years the route was known as the Gout Track, given its reputed raison-d'etre. Ignoring short sections of other modern day road numbers and stretches where the original has now been bypassed, its route is now represented by the current A1057, A412 and A404 (and A4155 for the alternative route via Henley-on-Thames). The original mile markers were milestones but the lettering quickly eroded and as a result they were replaced in around 1820 by new mileposts made of cast iron by Wilders & Sons of Reading, as here. Grade II listed - for listing particulars see www.historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1347181.

Cast iron post by the A1057, in parish of ST ALBANS (ST ALBANS District), Hatfield Road, at junction with Marlborough Road, near 'The Peacock', in pavement against wall, on North side of road. Wilder gabled iron casting, erected by the Reading & Hatfield turnpike trust in the 19th century. Inscription reads:- : HATFIELD / 5 : : WATFORD / 8 / READING / 45 : Grade II listed. List Entry Number: 1347181 https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1347181 Milestone Society National ID: HE_RGHT45.

Comprehensively described by Ian Capper here http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2705980 . This view shows the other side of the post, which is, unusually, void of any lettering. Traditionally this would have referred to the next place to the right of the post, but this has already been incorporated into the top panel, and there are no other intermediate places of any consequence. Listed Grade II.