The Watford Observer is again delighted to be teaming up with its friends at Watford Museum to take another journey back to the past to recall the key events and dates that helped shape the town’s future.
Part 33 of '50 events and dates that shaped Watford' recalls when a new road was built as the development of the town began to spread increasingly north.
The museum's volunteer archivist Christine Orchard said: "In the late 1800s a new road named Leavesden Road was built on the line of an old footpath that went across fields in the direction of Leavesden and Abbots Langley.
"The old path’s route took it past Callowland Farm and stopped where it does today, at Gammons Lane.
"The land’s development for housing would have been among some of the earliest roads laid out to the north of the railway bridge on St Albans Road.
Leavesden Road c. Edwardian Watford
"Much building work had already been progressing on the south side of the bridge although roads were not filled with houses all in one go.
"When it was decided to create a new road, it would have been divided up into individual plots. Batches of these plots were sold at public auction, sometimes split between numbers of developers.
Auction of building plots in Leavesden Road and roads leading from it. Watford Observer, March 12, 1898
"By the 1890s there were many such notices in the Watford Observer for land in this part of the town."
Watford Museum is open Thursday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm. No booking is necessary but Covid prevention measures are still in place to keep visitors safe.
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