IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Royal Road, ST. ALBANS, AL1 4LQ

Well used community centre in Royal Road.

Seen here in Fleetville at its junction with Royal Road. For close up of the milepost in the centre of the photo, see Image

Close up of the cast iron milepost in Fleetville (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/1103008.

Cast iron post by the A1057, in parish of ST ALBANS (ST ALBANS District), Hatfield Road, at junction with Royal Road, in pavement, on North side of road. Wilder gabled iron casting, erected by the Reading & Hatfield turnpike trust in the 19th century. Inscription reads:- : HERTFORD / 11 / WARE / 13 : : HATFIELD / 4 : : ST. ALBANS / 1 / READING / 46 : Grade II Listed. List Entry Number: 1103008 https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1103008 Milestone Society National ID: HE_RGHT46.

Fleetville is a district on the east side of St Albans between Marshalswick and The Camp. The post office is on Hatfield Road along with similar small shops and businesses.

Hatfield Road in the Fleetville area of St Albans. On the left is Morrison's Supermarket, built on the site of what was from the 1920s to 1967 the works of Ballito Hosiery and then for a while a factory of Marconi Instruments, eventually part of the electrical and engineering conglomerate GEC.

The main road east out of St Albans to the next town along. A picture at the mini roundabout by the junction with Sutton Road

Terraced housing built in 1899.

Late Victorian/early 20th century terraced housing.

Bike sales and service centre on a triangular corner site.