IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Townsend Avenue, ST. ALBANS, AL1 3SJ

An independent girls school in Townsend Avenue, founded in 1889. The main building dates from 1908 according to carvings on the door surround (see Image). It was designed by Amian Champneys, son of the Victorian architect Basil Champneys. It occupies part of the former grounds of Hall Place, a mid 15th century house demolished in 1907, which reputedly was where Henry VI was held following the First Battle of St Albans in 1455. Although now single sex, in the past it also took boys up to the age of 10, with its most famous former pupil being Professor Stephen Hawking.

See Image This is the entrance to the main building, showing a building date of 1908.

Headquarter building of the Trans European Division of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, dating from the 1960s.

Building towards the northern end of St Peter's Street, on the site of the former Townsend Farm. Its name was taken from a previous building further along the street which had been demolished for the new Post Office built in 1935 - see Image Maps back to the 1898 1:2,500 edition show a similar shaped building (other than later extensions) in the site named Townsend, suggesting that the naming as Thorne House was simply a renaming, with the building itself being late Victorian.

Heading through St Albans.

At the junction with Beech Road

Mainly Edwardian houses in Avenue Road.

A Charles Wells hostelry, on Stonecross as it changes into Sandridge Road, with its own very good website here http://www.thejollysailorpub.co.uk/index.htm Just what a Jolly Sailor had to do with St Albans was a mystery until I read the website...!