[ Home ] [ Up ] [ Music ] [ Photo Album ] [ Favorites ] [ News ] [ Overview ] [ Entertainment ]

Below is a photo of the Attimore Hall Farm published in 1953.

The view is to the North and you are looking from the old farmyard across the entrance road through the open 5 bared gate to the Atti' front door. 

The barn to the left is the working horse stable. As you enter the Atti' entrance road you pass this on your right. It still has the partitions and feeding troughs.

The following view below taken about 1965 gives a view to the right of the above picture. The small extension on the left is the old dairy and the large barn from centre to right is the cow shed that used to have stalls for 60 cows.

Apart from the time differences the above two pictures could almost be joined as shown below to show their relationship.

Here is Robert Sherriff, Eric Sheriff's son (the last Farmer at the Atti') posing by the stable door in 1958. You can see this stable door if you look at the top picture. It is left of centre half way up.

Eric Sherriff reports that the small Jack Russell at bottom left was very good at disposing of rats! There were two granaries on the Attimore Farm so the little dog was very busy.

This section of an old map has been modified to identify the farm buildings.

From this you can identify the positions of the above photographs.

Grubs Barn Cottages

There have been two cottages in what is now Herns lane since at least 1766. Before they were demolished as the new town of Welwyn Garden City overtook them they were called Grubs Barn Cottages. They were roughly opposite to the Frederick Osbourne school. They were tied to the Attimore farmhouse and farm workers and their families have lived there since at least 1851. See the Census reports. In 1871, in one of the cottages, there lived a family of eleven! The name has changed over the centuries but being associated with Grubs Barn is a recurring feature. The picture below is one of the last taken.

Herns Cottage

Another tied cottage was 'Herns Cottage' which was situated about 250 metres to the west of the farm across what is now Ridgeway. It gave its name to Herns Way which starts at what is now Black Fan Road. The cottage was on the south side of this junction. It had a large front garden with an apple tree. Many farm working families lived here and one of the last was the Green family. See Stan Green This picture was taken around 1955 by Stan Green's daughter Barbara.

Back to History