The Gout Track

 The Gout Track

A curious name for a road, one might think, especially a turnpike road. 

Until authorisation by an Act of Parliament, responsibility for the repair of the roads lay with the parishes through which they ran, whether local roads or long-distance ones. The Overseer of the Highways, appointed by the Vestry, had the unenviable task of raising a rate to pay for repairs and finding the men to do the work. The Turnpike Acts made the users of the roads responsible for their upkeep, by the tolls which they had to pay at each gate they passed through. The tolls varied from 1/2d for an unladen horse up to 10d for a drove of livestock, with variable rates for carts, coaches and other wheeled vehicles, depending on the load and the width of wheels.

The Hatfield and Reading Turnpike was a turnpike road created in the 1760s to provide a route that connected the Great North Road (the modern A1) with the Holyhead Road (A5) and the Bath Road (A4). It had the advantage of making it possible for travellers to avoid congested London and was shorter in distance. 

The Founding of the Road

It is said the the Marquis of Salisbury, who lived at Hatfield House, wanted a route to the Great West Road avoiding central London, for onward travel to the spa towns of Bath and Cheltenham where, as a sufferer of gout, he often took the waters. This would also spare him the discomfort and congestion of London's cobbled streets. With others, including the Earl of Essex, who suffered from a similar affliction and who lived at Cassiobury House close to Watford, he sponsored an Act of Parliament passed in 1757 for the building of a road from Hatfield to Reading. The Reading and Hatfield Turnpike Trust was set up by a further Act passed in 1768 to improve the route between the two towns. 

It ran via St Albans, Watford, Rickmansworth, Amersham, High Wycombe and Marlow, with two alternative routes south and west from there, one to Knowl Hill (on the Great West Road between Maidenhead and Reading) and the other to Reading itself via Henley-on-Thames. In Watford the turnpike was known as Hagden Lane or colloquially as Ricky Road.

For many years this route was known as the Gout Track given its raison-d'etre. 

In 1881 it was the last of the turnpikes to have its tolls removed, being on the last surviving Turnpike Trusts in the country. 

Photograph By Ian Capper, CC BY-SA 2.0, 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84960745

References:  Wikipedia

Watford, A History - Mary Forsyth

Sue Ettridge

Domenic's Cafe

 Closure of Domenic's Cafe, Vicarage Road

Photo courtesy of Stephen Danzig

A family run cafe has sadly closed at the end of January 2023 after 40 years in Vicarage Road.

Frank Blasi, who worked at the family-run business for 25 years, told the Watford Observer: “It’s a decision we’ve made as a family to explore other avenues.

Although the economic climate has been tough, it had no bearing on the decision, Frank added.

His dad Domenic, who opened the business in 1983, still chips in aged 80, while Frank’s sisters Luisa and Rita also work there too.

“It allows my parents now to just relax, especially my mum, because my mum (Nicky) works here as well. It’s purely from a family point of view.”

The decision to close sparked a wave of touching customer responses, which Frank described as “incredible and humbling”.

“Everyone’s got a little story and a memory which is nice,” he added. “For me it’s just going to work really, and I just didn’t realise how we’ve affected so many people over the years.

“But everyone’s saying ‘it’s the end of an era’, ‘don’t know what we’re going to do’, especially the Watford match day fans who come in as it’s been their place to go to.

“Some have even said to me that they enjoy coming to us more than going to the football!”

Many messages of sadness, but also good wishes were posted from customers. 

Report courtesy of The Watford Observer

Photographs in the Gallery courtesy of Stephen Danzig