Crown Street Cumberland Cottage
The house was built at the start of the 20th century by Frederick Hall. His wife brought the name of the cottage, having lived in a ‘Cumberland House’. It was not simply a house, but rather an estate, formerly part of the Bowes-Lyons land, stretching to the ford at Waterend Lane along a driveway sided with chestnut trees to the coach house. It stretched to Harpenden Lane and included the present Ver Road estate. Hall sold the house and estate in 1932 and Mr Hoskins continued to develop the land for housing.
He is also remembered in the village for providing on the chestnut avenue, houses for missionaries. He built five houses and four flats on the land adjacent to the coach house there was also a common room. The road was called Hardings Close, after the Rev F. Harding of Spicer Street Church in St Albans, a member of the Trust set up to run the project. The Hoskings moved out of the cottage and into a new house in the Close. When they retired away from the village, this property became a home for retired missionaries until it was closed as it did not meet requirements for nursing homes.
Crown Street also ran down the backs of the buildings on the High Street to Waterend Lane. The Barn is shown on the 1878 map.
Jan Nelder
Hi, I live at Cumberland Cottage, and my Parents bought it from mr Hosking in 1968. There are several errors in the write up:
1. The Hoskings built their new house on the site of present day Flint Copse, not the Close.
2. It is Harding Close, not Hardings.
3. Cumberland Cottage was enlarged in 1905, from a pair of existing 19th century cottages. Frederick Hall was a London stockbroker.