Watford

Moored near Lock 67 Apsley

The temp agency rang me to say my service were not required today (I must have been too efficient) so we decided on a trip to Watford.

The first reason was to visit British Waterways and change our BW licence to a gold licence as we are planning on travelling over Environmental Agencies waterways later in the year. The second was for me to have a good look around my old home town at what changes had taken place over the years.
The bus trip from Apsley to Watford was good in that I saw many places that I remembered from my childhood days.

The first photo shows the pond at the top of High Street which has been in existence prior to the invention of the motor vehicle, being originally used to water the horses.

The Harlequin centre (shopping mall) is huge as it has swallowed up probably 25% of what I remember of the town centre. We wandered around and found the old shop (H G Cramers Ltd) that my Aunt and Uncle owned and ran with my parents as a toy, models and hobbies and dolls hospital until a fire destroyed it in the early 1960’s. These days it’s a wedding dress shop.

Watford Central School

After walking through part of the Harlequin Centre we came out onto what is left of Queens Road. About a third of the street has disappeared under the centre. Then we found the Watford central school where my grandparents had been caretaker and cook for many years. The house they lived in, in Stanley Road just behind the school, was very handy for my grandfather to be able to nip across to the school boiler house and make sure everything was OK and the central heating was working. The boiler house has long been demolished but the old kitchen/dining hall was there. It all bought back many a happy memory.