Handside Lane
Drowning in mud
By Llinos Thomas
Handside Lane, 1920's, taken from the junction with Russellcroft Road
Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies
Handside Lane, soon after the first houses had been completed in the 1920s. It was one of only a handful of roads that pre-date WGC. It linked Hunters Lane (now Bridge Road) with Tinkers Lane (now Lemsford Lane).
The road linked the two Handside farms, run by the Horn family, who also farmed at Brickwall on the old North Road
The lane was the first area to be developed and stories abound of the problem of mud while the town developed. A joke quoted in Roger Filler’s history of Welwyn Garden City “I was walking down Handside Lane, this morning when I came across a bowler hat lying in the road, when I bent down to pick it up there was a man’s head underneath”
The image however shows the road as being neat, clean and welcoming.
Does anyone remember the mud and a bowler hat in the road…!
This page was added on 01/06/2009.
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I used to visit my uncle aunt and cousins who lived at twenty four handside lane. My aunt passed away first my uncle a lot of years later. Obviously as children we used to play with my cousins. I know Pru has passed but would dearly like to contact Rob and Anne.