Society of St Michael's & Kingsbury

St Michael's Village Newsletter

Spring/Summer 2018 no 63

Visit our website: www.stmichaelsvillage.org.uk

Message from your Committee

We hope you have all been enjoying the better weather after that rather prolonged winter. In this issue
we look at the problems with the lake and the plans for improvement of the situation. Don't miss our
summer visit to the Bishop's garden!

Summer Visit – 16th June

Enjoy an exclusive visit to the gardens of Abbey
Gate House, home of the Bishop of St Albans,
on Saturday 16th June. The garden covers just
over 2 acres and has been transformed in recent
years. It is divided into several sections with
different styles of planting. Bishop Alan, who is a .
keen gardener, will be on hand to answer
questions.

Meet in front of Abbey Gate House, 4 Abbey Mill

Lane AL3 4HD at 5.00pm on Saturday 16th June.
If you are interested please let Jan know at
jangiles48@gmail.com
Beach maintenance - Your committee have been out again this spring, cleaning up rotten leaves
and tidying up the gravel, so that our beach can look at it's best for the summer months.

General Data Protection Regulation

(GDPR)

SSMK holds names, addresses and e-mails,

plus subscriptions received for paid up
members of the society. We use this data to
keep a record of the members of the society
and administer the collection of subscriptions.
This information is not shared with any 3rd party.

If you are happy for your data to be used in this

way there is no need to take any action. Please
contact our membership secretary
guymarshall31@yahoo.co.uk if you wish to
have your name removed from our register.

If you have any comments on this newsletter or would like to contribute articles for future issues please
contact the Editor by email – Lynne.cockbill@hotmail.co.uk
Archaeological Open Day 24th March
We have covered plans to improve St Michael’s School
in previous editions of the newsletter. Work has now
moved to the upper school site where the existing
buildings are being extended southwards (towards the
church). As with most of St Michael's village, this site
lies over the heart of the former Roman Verulamium –
so building work was carefully planned around the
need to carefully uncover and record any
archaeological remains in the earthworks.

On 24 March the school, together with their architects

(Synergy), builder (Claridge & Hall Ltd) and
archaeological specialists (Oxford Archaeology)
organised an open day to allow the public to look over
the works.

This was very well attended; in fact a queuing system had to be set up to allow everyone a chance
to view the site. Some of the artefacts uncovered were on display – these included coins, pottery
and animal bones, all dating back to the Roman period. The main attraction was a view over the
excavation, which is shown on the attached photograph.

The most prominent feature uncovered was a corner of the Portico, which is helpfully indicated by
the nearest sign. The Portico was a covered walkway surrounding the Basilica, which would lie to
the left side of the photo under the churchyard & church. The Basilica was the principal building in
the centre of the Roman town and was the heart of law making and a key meeting point for the
citizens. To the right of the Portico you can see large stones compacted together overlying gravel;
this was Watling Street – the main road between London & the Northwest (the A5 of its day), which
ran through the town.

The site will be covered up by the new building but, in what is a really nice touch, a section of glass
flooring will allow pupils to look down on the base of a column – as a constant reminder of the past
beneath their feet.

For those who are interested in finding out more, we suggest you look at the website
https://locationzero.wixsite.com/stm1 which has been created by the photographer Andrew
Rafferty, and has a lot more detail on what has been found. Bill Free

Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Garden

The Wildlife Trust's garden in Verulamium Park has sprung into life thanks to continued volunteer
work. Last year major works to extend the garden, thanks to Tesco's 'Bags of Help' scheme, saw
weekly work parties dig, plant and grow the garden to double its former size. Now the sun is
shining and the garden has had a chance to settle in, it's thriving and blooming beautifully.

If you take a trip to the garden be sure to pop in and get

inspiration to make your garden more wildlife friendly!
There's a pond, compost heap, insect hotel and of
course lots of colourful plants to attract pollinators.

The Trust's annual 30 Days Wild challenge is coming

up- can you do something wild every day for the month
of June? Start small and eat breakfast outside or take a
wild walk through the park. Sign up at
wildlifetrusts.org/30dayswild.

Keep an eye on the Trust's website to check for events

taking place locally – hertswildlifetrust.org.uk
 Interesting things about the park
As part of sustainable St. Albans week the park rangers from the sub-contractors John O'Connor
ran a couple of interesting guided walks round the park on 25th April, which were well attended.

We found out a number of interesting facts about the park:

* The park covers 165 acres and was bought by the council
in 1928 from Lord Verulam for £6,500.

* The grass is cut twice a month but in Seabrook meadow it

is only cut twice a year to preserve wildlife and promote
biodiversity. The yellow rattle has been planted to encourage
wildflower diversity by preventing the domination of grass
species that prevent wildflowers from growing.

* In 1950 the park became a scheduled ancient monument,

which is great for its protection, but which needs consent
from English Heritage for every little thing, such as the
location of the rubbish bins.
* The mosaic floor in the hypocaust building is cleaned once a
year – they were in the process of doing this when we visited,
. with a delicate combination of brushing and hoovering. The
original floor would have been polished which would have
made the colours brighter.

* The sand in the volleyball pitch came from the London

Olympics beach volleyball pitch.

* During the war the lake was drained as the Germans used
to use its reflection of the moon at night as a waymarker

* The Roman part of Verulamium was excavated in the 1930's

by Sir Mortimer Wheeler and the museum was built in 1938 to
hold the exhibits found during that excavation. The museum
was then extended in 1998.

Upcoming events - Gorhambury talks

Message from St.Michael's
primary school PTA
St. Michael's primary school
PTA would like to thank the
people of St. Michael's who
donated or bought items at our
jumble sale in February. We
raised an amazing £800 from
your kind donations, from
selling some items on ebay and
a very successful sale on the
day.
We will be planning our next
one for autumn so please do
have a pre-Christmas clear out
for us!
Due to major refurbishment works at Gorhambury, public
access to the 18th century rooms is suspended until further
notice. However, there is a schedule of of 'Gorhambury in
Focus' talks and activities at the House until October including:
*The Countess of Verulam – My life and art at Gorhambury
* The Viscountess Grimston – The Gorhambury Building
Project revealed
* Mark Todhunter, Head Gardener – Gorhambury Gardens
History and Tour
These talks cost £15 and are repeated at various dates until
October. If you are interested please contact Heidi Treadwell to
book your place either by email at office@grimstontrust.co.uk
or telephone 01727855000. Details of the talks and other
activities can be found on the Gorhambury House website at
www.gorhamburyestate.co.uk/What's-On
Revitalising the River Ver

The Environment Agency, Affinity Water, St Albans City and District Council and Hertfordshire
County Council are working together to develop proposals that will improve the River Ver and the
Verulamium Park lakes.
The River Ver is a chalk stream, which is a
rare type of habitat with only around 200 in the
world. However our river is in a very poor
condition for a number of reasons and this
project aims to return the river to its natural
state as part of the Chalk Streams
Partnership, a wider programme of projects
that aims to protect and restore our rare chalk
streams.

As part of this programme Affinity Water has

agreed to cease or reduce the amount of
water that they abstract from groundwater
sources.
The project has been split into six sections or 'reaches'. The part of the river that flows through
St. Michael's is Reach 1, which covers the River Ver from St. Michael's Street through the upper
section of the park down to the Causeway including the lakes.
The lakes are artificial and have suffered badly from water quality issues in recent years. .They
were constructed between 1929 and 1932 partly to give work to unemployed people during the
depression. They are lined with concrete and are only around one metre deep. In the early days
they were dredged at regular intervals but this has not happened for a large number of years.

The lakes suffer from a low throughflow of

water. When the river level is too low, no
water enters the lake. The lake is large and
shallow so has a high surface area to volume
ratio and hence gets warm in summer
allowing algal blooms and oxygen crashes
which are bad for wildlife and water quality.
The project proposal does not include the
dredging of the lake, as it would be too
expensive. Instead it proposes that the route
of the river be changed at the bottom end so
that it comes through the lake at this point and
that the fish pass be removed. Part of the
plan includes planting soft edges to the lake
and increasing the size of the Heron islands so
that there is less water surface area. This
would create a wetland habitat around the lake
that would be accessible by boardwalks.

The SSMK committee has responded in writing to this proposal. We have expressed our
support for the plans to improve the river particularly relating to bringing more light to the river
bed and the establishment of gravel beds for fish swarming, but question the removal of the fish
pass.

We expressed great concern over the proposals for the lake. The current situation is clearly
unacceptable but we consider that the silt should be removed from the lake prior to new
measures being introduced to prevent further silting

If you would like to read the SSMK response it is posted on our website. If you wish to read the
full proposal it can be found on the website www.stalbans.gov.uk/leisure-and-culture/parks-
and-green-spaces.