IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Field Road, HEMEL HEMPSTEAD, HP2 4RR

Now filled in but it was in the green on the left side of the road. Originally there was a Coxpond Farm on the right side of the road, but this was swept away during the construction of Hemel Hempstead New Town in the 1950s. The pond lasted much longer. The road is Leverstock Green Road and in the 1930s and 1940s was the A4147, the A road classification having now passed to Maylands Road to the east.

This part of the town was developed in the 1950s following the grant of 'New Town' status in the late 1940s. I found this on the local authority website for the area which encapsulates the post war history in a few words: "The new town is one of the original 'Mark 1' types dating from the early 1950s. Today it has a population of approximately 81,000 (Census 2001). Effectively it comprises a planned, linear town centre on the floor of the Gade Valley with residential development extending up the valley sides. Although important differences do exist, much of the housing is of a similar size, design and layout, reflecting the original construction work carried out by the Hemel Hempstead Development Corporation."

Adeyfield was the first of Hemel Hempstead New Town's neighbourhoods to be developed, with construction starting around 1952. This road and its estate neighbours, Everest Way and Hillary Road, would have been named after the successful Everest summit-topping expedition team of May 1953. The denizens of Tenzing Road can sleep in their beds safe in the knowledge that Streetmap tells us that this is the only Tenzing Road in the country. Dacorum Borough Council have replaced most of the original road name plates in their area recently, so the one at the foot of the lamppost on the left here, with its faded gold letters on a blue background, is very much a survivor of an earlier time. Tenzing Norgay, or Sherpa Tenzing, died at the age of about 71 in 1986.