Recalling plans to build a hotel near Watford Town Hall

I’d like to take you back to 1948, when many Watfordians were proud of their new Town Hall, the abundance of town centre cinemas, modern offices and shops. But what was recognised then was the absence of "a first-class licensed house"; a hotel with bars and a restaurant in the immediate vicinity, in keeping with "the importance of Watford’s merits". The building of such a hotel near the Town Hall was of significance to the directors of Benskins Brewery, whose words I have just quoted.

Cross Roads in 1909

Development in Watford has frequently been at the cost of historic buildings. The Elms, formerly Town End House, built in the early 18th Century on the north-west side of Cross Roads and originally home to the well-known Heydon family, was demolished to make way for the Town Hall. It faced Cross Roads, once a simple crossing of Hempstead Road/High Street and St Albans Road, with a triangular-shaped island on which there was a signpost, seats and a tree that commemorated Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. With the arrival of motor vehicles, an AA box appeared, as did an AA officer directing traffic. By the 1930s, Cross Roads were replaced by a not-unattractive flower-planted roundabout. The roundabout, in turn, gave way to the unsightly concrete underpass.

Elmcote in the early 1900s

Elmcote, once behind a wall by the Pond and home of John Sedgwick, solicitor and Clerk to the Local Board and his wife Emma Oliver, a notable landscape painter, was demolished to make way for the Odeon cinema, formerly the Plaza Cinema, at 125-127 High Street. The Odeon was demolished in 1964 and rebuilt. After years as a supermarket and nightclubs, it now houses Pryzm.

The Pond in the ‘Town Hall Quarter’ was originally one of four depicted on a 17-foot square 1871 tithe map. One was by Little Nascot, on the corner of Hempstead Road and St Albans Road; home of Charles Francis Humbert, estate agent and chartered surveyor. Another was ‘beyond’ Watford Public Library, then a new building in Queens Road, and the last was by the Kings Head public house at 86 High Street.

It is not a widely known fact that after the last war the directors of Benskins acquired a plot of vacant land behind Monmouth House. Ernest Brander Musman, FRIBA, was appointed as architect. He had already designed a number of interwar ‘roadside houses’ for Benskins, such as The Comet Hotel, Hatfield.

Monmouth Hotel sketch by E.B. Musman, FRIBA

Benskins proudly declared: "This new house, to be called Monmouth Hotel, will be a real addition to the amenities and architecture of the town." On the floorplan, a saloon, large lounge and public bar were on the ground floor. On the first floor was a large restaurant, an anteroom with cocktail bar and dining room for use with the restaurant or for special occasions, space for dancing and an orchestra platform. A staff common room and kitchens were also on the same floor. Staff bedrooms, bathrooms and 11 letting bedrooms were on the second floor. As a postscript, Benskins noted that Monmouth Hotel would appear "when conditions permit its building", adding: "Whether this will be before or after Colne Spring is again available, we cannot say." Colne Spring was a legendary Benskins ale matured in oak casks and classed as barley wine. It went through various revivals over the years.

Benskins had already arranged with Watford Borough Council to improve access to the road from High Street opposite Monmouth Place and provide an approach to the site opposite the Odeon cinema. The then-extant private road owned by the cinema and a public footpath would be retained. "A new private road connecting with Platts Avenue and a new service road at the rear of the house, linking up with Monmouth Road, will be provided within the boundaries of the site itself."

By the roundabout, the Town Hall on left, 1940s. This is the same viewpoint as picture at the top of the page

As for the exterior of Monmouth Hotel: "The lower storey will be in reconstructed stone and the upper two storeys will be in two-inch multicoloured brickwork with stone dressings, whilst windows will be double-hung sash in wood, painted cream." The drawing by E.B. Musman has a slight hint of Watford Town Hall about it.

Well, "conditions" did not permit the building of Monmouth Hotel but the need for a hotel in the ‘Town Hall Quarter’ raised its head again, 70-plus years later.

Lesley Dunlop is the daughter of the late Ted Parrish, a well-known local historian and documentary filmmaker. He wrote 96 nostalgic articles for the ‘Evening Post-Echo’ in 1982-83 which have since been published in ‘Echoes of Old Watford, Bushey & Oxhey’, available at www.pastdayspublishing.com and Bushey Museum. Lesley is currently working on ‘Two Lives, Two World Wars’, a companion volume that explores her father’s and grandfather’s lives and war experiences, in which Watford, Bushey and Oxhey’s history will take to the stage once again.