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Original Text (Annotation: EPW061126 / 2027371)
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This photograph is one from the St Albans Museums collection, but has never been officially identified.
1) I believe this to be an aerial pic of Cell Barnes hospital with the entrance from Hill End Lane/ Frobisher Road junction.
2) The picture is very close to Hill End, but the plane was flying a little further south and moving westwards, towards the city. In the middle is Cell Barnes colony (as it was first known), with Highfield Lane and the farm (now demolished) to the right. Further back, and on the right, are the hospital houses on part of the former Beastney’s Farm. The double row of houses going left to right are a short road known as Bisney Road. Later, in the 1950s this became Drake’s Drive, and was extended fully the width of the picture to London Road, just above the parallel Hill End Lane. Camp Road can be seen snaking towards the city in the distance with the allotments to the left. The zigzag roof of the rubber works stands out near the top, and to the right of it you can just see Campfield Press (neither of these buildings extant). Cell Barnes Lane is the hedge-line shown diagonally in the top left of the picture, eventually meeting Hill End Lane out of shot. I think the picture was taken just after WW2. Cell Barnes was built c1933 and the grounds seemed to have matured, and the allotments were at their greatest extent during, and just after, WW2. '
