The first Brookmans Park Village Day 1959

The first Brookmans Park Village Day in 1959
Image courtesy of Trevor Baker

Former Brookmans Park resident Trevor Baker, who attended the village primary school in the 1950s and early 1960s has digitised an old film of the first Brookmans Park Village Day and the opening of the school's swimming pool in 1959.

Brookmans Park Motors in the 1950s

The workshop at Brookmans Park Motors at Bell Bar in the 1950s
Image courtesy of the Peter Miller Collection - photographer unknown

A collection of photographs of the Brookmans Park Motors (BPM) garage, showroom, and petrol station forecourt at Bell Bar in the 1950s has been acquired by one of the North Mymms History Project (NMHP) founders and uploaded to this site. We have digitised the photographs and shared them below.

Welham Green's storm relief work in the 1970s

Flooding in Dellsome Lane in the 1970s
Photograph by K. King - part of the Images of North Mymms Collection

For many years areas of Welham Green have been prone to flooding. Two areas to suffer the most have been Dellsome Lane close to Whites Corner and Travellers Lane close to the junction with Dixons Hill Road. In the 1970s two storm relief drains were laid with the aim of diverting water away from the village towards the swallow holes at Water End.

The 'Welham Green curve'

The scene of the Hatfield train crash
Image from The Health and Safety Laboratory

On 17 October 2000, an InterCity 225 train bound for Leeds left London King’s Cross at midday heading north on the East Coast Main Line. It passed through North Mymms travelling at 185 km/h (115 mph) before encountering the 'Welham Green curve' where it started to derail before travelling a further 1km to a point south of Hatfield. Four people died and 70 were injured.

The final report by the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR), July 2006, concluded that the "immediate cause of the derailment ... was the fracture and subsequent fragmentation of the [outer] rail on the [northbound] fast line at the Welham Green curve". The rail failure, according to the board, was due to the presence of "multiple and preexisting fatigue cracks in the rail".

North Mymms man given 10 years for "forgery and fraud"

North Mymms House front entrance 1870s
Photograph R. Sinclair part of the Images of North Mymms Collection

On Wednesday 4 November 1908 Sidney Boughton Pope, who lived in Welham Manor, Welham Green, was sentenced to 10 years penal servitude for a series of crimes in which he was accused of stealing thousands of pounds through "forgery and fraud". Among his victims was one of the owners of North Mymms Park.

The judge described the case as "one of the most serious" he had ever had to deal with. He said it was "extraordinary" that so many "simple-minded people" had been "taken in" by the accused, and likened the case to "Alice in Wonderland".

A German child evacuated to North Mymms during WWII

Theodora Schwarzschild, third from the right bottom row
At the "large old and very cold house" in Brookmans Park where she was educated
Image North Mymms Local History Society,
Part of the Images of North Mymms Collection

In 1938 a Jewish girl fled Hitler's Germany with her family and headed for England. Soon after arriving she was separated from her parents along with dozens of other children and evacuated to Brookmans Park. Speaking no English, she remembers being "deposited" on Brookmans Park Station and taken in by a "really special family" who lived in Brookmans Avenue. She recalls being woken one night after a shell exploded in the back garden "blowing out the upstairs windows".

Early Memories of Eleanor Vyse 1887-1976

Water End School c 1903. Headmistress Mrs Cooke on the left
Image part of the Images of North Mymms Collection

Eleanor Vyse left school before she was 13 to help her mother care for her brothers and sisters. She was glad to get away from the schoolmistress who was "stern" and who could control 60 children "by just looking at us". A highlight of the year - "almost the only one" - was tea and games on the vicarage lawn on Ascension day. A year after leaving school she moved five miles away to serve as a mother's help doing "stacks of washing up". It was not an easy life for some children growing up in North Mymms towards the end of the Victorian era.

Welham Green when "everyone just about knew everyone else"

The Water Cross, Welham Green 1900s
Photograph by G Knott, part of the Peter Miller Collection

Washing clothing by hand with water from a brook, freshly made bread baked daily and delivered door-to-door, welcoming evacuees during WWII, and the day a bomb landed near to the North Mymms cricket pitch shattering a stained glass window in St Mary's parish church - just some memories shared by a local resident who lived in Welham Green when it was a small village where "everyone just about knew everyone else".

The history of Welham Cottages

Welham Cottages, Station Road, Welham Green - 1982
From the Images of North Mymms Collection

In 1890 a pair of cottages at the junction of Dellsome Lane and Station Road, Welham Green, went under the auctioneer's hammer. The highest and final bid of £340 was made by Alfred William Vyse, a local haybinder.

The semi-detached cottages, which were called Welham Cottages at the time of the sale, were owned by Coningsby Charles Sibthorp of North Mymms Park who had a vision for building "a model village" at Welham Green. Welham Cottages, which were built in 1872, were part of that plan. A datestone with the original owner's initials C.C.S. is on the front face of the premises.

Sheepsheadhall along Bradmore Lane

Sheepsheadhall Cottage, Bradmore Lane
Photograph A Nott / G Knott part of the Images of North Mymms collection

A small, wooden-faced brick cottage "set in neat gardens" on what was described as "an excellent holding" once stood alongside Bradmore Lane on the edge of Brick Kiln Wood. Now the site is overgrown with the adjacent woodland having reclaimed the land.

The spot where Sheepsheadhall Cottage once stood (location - https://w3w.co/gloves.head.every) is a third of a mile west of the junction with what is now Station Road.

The compact "brick, timber, and tiled" cottage, with a "parlour, living room, and scullery" downstairs and four bedrooms upstairs, stood at the point where the woodland meets a field. There were "good gardens" and a "well of water".

Photographs of Gobions brick bridge wanted

The brick bridge at Gobions in 1986 - NMLHS *
Photograph from the Images of North Mymms collection

Do you have any old photographs of the brick bridge in Gobions Wood, taken before its current ruined state? If you do they might help in the restoration of an important part of the history of North Mymms.

Maps of south-west North Mymms

Detail of the North Mymms Park area of the 1899 OS map of North Mymms
Map courtesy of the Royal Library of Scotland

These three maps are of the south-west area of North Mymms, which include North Mymms Park and the area north of South Mimms, were published in 1899, 1920, and 1938.

Maps of south-east North Mymms

Detail from the 1898 OS map of North Mymms
Map courtesy of the Royal Library of Scotland

These four maps are of the south-east area of North Mymms including the area just above South Mimms were published in 1898, 1919, 1938, and 1946.