A READER has a ladies' dance invitation programme. Attached by two ribbons is a pencil, the lady invited to dance has written names (unreadable) alongside the dances she had. One was a valse (waltz?), a polka and the lancers twice.
The programme for the event is dated June 26, 1901, and inside the venue is printed, "Beech Lodge, Watford".
Beech Lodge was one of the cottages on the estate of the Earls of Essex at Cassiobury House.
It stood in the Hempstead Road, on the corner of Grove Mill Lane (its position is shown on OS maps of the period and on the map with the details of the sale of Cassiobury House).
After the sale and demolition of Cassiobury House in the 1920's, it appears in the street directories under Hempstead Road with the names of various private residents.
For a while in the 1930's it was owned by the Watford solicitor, Norman Kelly.
In the 1960's various attempts were made to develop the site. Finally the house was demolished and a number of houses built on the site. The name survives as Beechpark Way.
I have never seen a photograph of the house. There is a drawing in Britton's Cassiobury, 1837, of a Great Beech Tree Cottage but this may not be the house which was demolished in the 1960's
January 27, 2003 16:00
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