Memories of the library on the Carpenders Park Estate are evoked in a letter from Carol Males of Northfield Gardens, Watford.

I was brought up on the Carpenders Park Estate and we lived right next door to the library at number 62, Little Oxhey lane. My mother's name was Iris Bew and she was senior assistant at the library for 25 years, along with Miss Roberts.

My mother was known as "The Library Lady"

The library, which had originally been a farmhouse, remained there until they built the new one in Bridlington Road and my mother transferred to there and carried on there. It was approximately 1959 when she moved to the new library. The old library was boarded up until about 1962, when it was demolished to make a new entrance for a swimming pool complex, which I believe is still there.

It was a two-up and two-down library with a little outhouse for personal use and a little hot plate on which to heat a kettle. The upright black parafin heaters were the only form of heating, excellent with so much paper about but there were no mishaps.

The junior library was upstairs and there was only lino on the stairs the old-fashioned, brown thick stuff. The library was painted white at front and natural brick to the rear and sides.

The actual back yard was not used by the library but rented out to a man who lived in Lythem Avenue, who lived in a house in that road. I believe he was Mr Voss, but he kept chickens in the cobbled yard, in old-fashioned chicken-runs.

There were a couple of bulls at one stage when I was very young.

They used to be tied to the old farmer's rings at the back wall of the library. I think the farmer was a Mr Twizzle.

When they first opened the library we used to have cows coming from the fields behind, which ran right back to Harrow and Wealdstone.

There was a cattle bridge which led to the field.

It was nothing to open your back door to see a cow looking in. They used to wander in and tread down the chicken wire.

My parents were among the first on the estate in 1948-49, so we saw the whole of the estate built.

There was our house, a house opposite and a farmhouse and cottage, when we first got there. The cottage was pulled down quite early on.

There was a well in the cottage garden and was boarded over and we would jump on and over it, not realising the danger.

It was pulled down and warden-controlled flats for old people were built there.

But generally it was barren land for a long time. They built Woodhall School there but for years, the stretch between the school and the house opposite us, was barren land, undeveloped.

Where the library was, the actual gates are still there but they have blocked it off. I understand they are going to sell the land for flats.

In short, it was just an old fashioned library with picture windows, a little chimney and slates on the roof.