History of St Albans

Abbey Decorators your local Painter and Decorator is based in the town of St Albans, Hertfordshire. Albans, Hertfordshire or Roman St Albans in Hertfordshire (VERULAMIUM) has records dating back to BC when the local Celtic tribe built a settlement there. In 43 AD the Romans invaded Britain. When they conquered Hertfordshire they took over the settlement and called it Verulamium. Roman St Albans was burned by Boudicca in 61AD.


The name St Albans derives from  the first British Christian martyr, St Alban who was executed there in 305 AD.

St Albans, Hertfordshire was visited by  St Germanus in 429 AD. Saxons from Germany invaded England. They arrived in St Albans Hertfordshire in the 6th century and in the 7th century St Albans Hertfordshire was converted to Christianity. An abbey dedicated to St Alban was probably founded in the late 8th century. A village grew up by the abbey and it was called St Albans in Hertfordshire

Medieval Cathedrals were the most obvious sign of the wealth of the Church in Medieval England. St Albans cathedral or the Abbey was built by master craftsmen including painters and decorators in the form of stone cutters, masons, blacksmiths glass cutters. The medieval painter would make paint on the spot, medieval paint was usually made up of the binder (a glue like tree sap called gum, or  it was made from egg white, or sometimes egg yolk), mixed with colour. Medieval colour came in powder form, or as dyes, or as powders stained with colour.

How were such huge buildings like St Albans in Hertfordshire built? Medieval workers worked with the most basic of tools. An architect  for St Albans Abbey in  Hertfordshire would employ the best master craftsmen and many highly skilled men were needed including painters and decorators.

In the middle of the 10th century an abbot decided to enlarge St Albans in Hertfordshireand develop it into a town. St Albans lay near the old Roman road of Watling Street. In the 10th century an abbot closed Watling Street and diverted traffic through the town so more people spent their money there.

 

At the time of the Domesday Book (1086) St Albans in Hertfordshire had a population of about 500. St Albans in Hertfordshire grew larger. By the 14th century it may have had a population of around 1,300. In 1077 the new Norman abbot demolished the old St Albans abbey in Hertfordshire and rebuilt it.

 

 

The new building was consecrated in 1136. In the Middle Ages there were the same craftsmen in St Albans in Hertfordshire that found in any Medieval town, like butchers, bakers, carpenters, painters and decorators and blacksmiths.

 

 

 

 

The main industry in St Albans in Hertfordshire was the manufacture of woollen cloth.
The people of St Albans in Hertfordshire were obliged to grind their grain to flour in the abbot's watermills. Again they resented this and wished to use handmills in their own homes in St Albans in Hertfordshire.

Most of all the people of St Albans in Hertfordshire wanted independence and resented being ruled by the abbot and his agents. Fairs in St Albans in Hertfordshire would attract buyers and sellers from all over Hertfordshire and from London.

During the civil wars in the 15th century there were 2 battles at St Albans in Hertfordshire. The two battles at St Albans in Hertfordshire were in 1455 and 1461.

In 1539 Henry VIII closed St Albans abbey in Hertfordshire. St Albans in Herts gained its first charter in 1553. (A charter was a document granting the townspeople certain rights. In this case St Albans in Herts it  was given a mayor and corporation and its independence).In 1604 St Albans suffered an outbreak of plague.

 

Then in 1642 came civil war between king and parliament. In 1643 the High Sheriff of Hertfordshire entered the Market Place with troops and called on the men of the town to join the king. However some troops led by Oliver Cromwell attacked and they fought in St Albans  High Street. St Albans in Hertfordshire remained in parliamentary hands for the rest of the war but the townspeople of St Albans in Hertfordshire built  earthwork defences around the town.

 

In the 18th century St Albans in Hertfordshire remained a small market town with a population of perhaps 3,500. Many stagecoaches passed through St Albans in Hertfordshire every day and there were several inns.

 

 

 

 

 

In 1796 London Road was rebuilt to facilitate traffic. At the beginning of the 19th century the population of St Albans in Hertfordshire was less than 4,000 but it quadrupled by 1900. In 1802 a silk mill opened in St Albans in Hertfordshire. In 1822 St Albans in Hertfordshire gained gas street lighting. In the early 1830s St Albans in Hertfordshire gained a piped water supply but no sewers were built until the 1880s.In 1877 St Albans in Hertfordshire became a city.

 

St Albans in Hertfordshire was linked to London by train from 1869. The boundaries of St Albans in Hertfordshire were extended in 1835 and 1879.

 

The cinema in St Albans in Hertfordshire was built in 1907. The first buses began running in 1906. In the 1920s the first council houses were built in St Albans in Hertfordshire.
A new civic centre was opened in St Albans in Hertfordshire in  1961. The Abbey theatre in St Albans in Hertfordshire opened in 1968. The Maltings shopping centre  in St Albans in Hertfordshire opened in 1988. A new Crown Court in St Albans in Hertfordshire was built in 1993. Today the population of  St Albans in Hertfordshire is 67,000.