Elstree, Composite c.1955

Photo ref: E103016

My family moved to the council estate in Elstree in the mid sixties. I used to play football on the pitch opposite Hill House, now sadly a new housing estate. Robert Stores for groceries, the aptly named Greens running the greengrocers who kept stuffed game birds in the window of his shop. The post office, now an Indian takeaway, was run by the Jacksons, the antique shop on the corner of ...see more

My grandmother who had lived in Elstree for most of her adult life would sometime chant "no one knows what lies betwixt Saint Nicholas and Pennywells" Does anybody know what lies betwixt? Saint Nicholas is the parish church and Pennywells is a stately house on Deacons Hill.

I could not think of a better place to spend my early years than overlooking the old reservoir. My grandmother's timber cottage was one of eight built long ago, probably to house estate workers. Each cottage appeared to be occupied by a relative, an uncle or an auntie, everyone seemed to marry someone who lived just two doors away. Before the war, water came from a communal well out the back but by ...see more

I lived in Lodge Avenue from 1957 to 1976. It runs off Allum Lane, which was a major road that connected Watling Street to the Railway Station, which opened in 1868. Lord Aldenham, Governor of the Bank of England, lived in Aldenham House (now Haberdashers School) whose South Carriage Drive (double-lined with horse chestnut trees), connected it to Allum Lane and then to the Railway Station. Lord Aldenham’s ...see more