The Park Street and Frogmore Society (PSFS) was formed in 1995 to promote interest in local history and nature including conservation.
The Society organises open meetings for members and the general public, each of which includes a presentation from an invited speaker on a topic usually of a historical or nature interest. The meetings are held at Downs Hall, Park Street Village Hall, off the A5183, Park Street, St Albans, Herts. AL2 2PX. Start time is 7.45pm unless otherwise stated and admission is £1 per person for members and £2 per person for non members.
Limited parking is available outside the hall.
Members are kept informed by regular Newsletters and Journals and posters advertising talks are put on the Parish notice boards.
The society archive includes historical documents and items, books, records, images, maps and ephemera together with recorded memories of residents past and present. Help can be given to those researching local and family history and the Society encourages the sharing of memories, photos and items of local interest.
For further information or if you have anything that you would like to donate to our archive, please contact:
Jacqui Banfield-Taylor (Archivist, Journal Editor & stand-in Secretary) on 07792 588892.
Email:
For membership enquiries please contact:
Bruce Banfield-Taylor (Treasurer, Membership Secretary & Publications Co-ordinator) on 07870 447151
Email:
Or download and fill in the membership form
Scheduled Events
Park Street and Frogmore Society
2023 Scheduled Open Meeting Details.
Tuesday 21st November2023. Artwork and Photos from the St Albans Museum, St Albans and surrounding villages, including St Stephens. Sarah Keeling.
This talk is an interesting overview of the different artists and types of pictures the museum has in its collection with lots of examples of St Albans and the wider district, including the St Stephens area.
2024 Talks
Tuesday 20th February: ‘Heartwood Forest A Transformed Landscape’ Brian Legg.
Tuesday 21st May: ‘Before records began: 4000,000 years of Hertfordshire History from the Stone Age to the Norman Conquest’. Trevor Baker
Tuesday 20th August: ‘Scandals, Slander and Gossip. Elizabeth Eastwood. This talk explores some of the notorious incidents throughout the ages in Hertfordshire, including kidnapping, a wicked Earl and the scandal of a vicars wife. Some of them have inspired novelists and film makers, while others have had a real impact on the legal lot of women.And no talk on gossip would be complete without a word about the weather!
Tuesday 19th November: ‘Reverend Henry Small, the naughty Rector at the Abbey who embezzled £20,000! Jon Mein.
The River Ver, a Meander Through Time by Jacqui Banfield-Taylor.
A large colour, hardback book on our local chalk stream. Dedicated to her late father, Ted Banfield, a founder member of the Ver Valley Society, this first major and comprehensive work on the River Ver reveals a fascinating story from source to confluence and prehistory to the twenty-first century of a chalk stream that has shaped not only the local landscape but the lives of people past and present.
With a forward by the renowned television presenter and wildlife photographer Chris Packham, the book tells of the Ver’s long, interesting and chequered history, including archaeology and geology, milling and watercress growing, problems with abstraction along with rainfall and aquifer records, abstraction and flow charts and comprehensive records and details of a selection of local flora and fauna.
There are wonderful personal memories and experiences sprinkled throughout the book of people who have lived, worked and played on or near the river, helping to bring the past to us here in the present, all complemented with over 350 illustrations, many never seen before in public and some going back more than 250 years.
This beautifully written and illustrated book hopes to encourage readers to take an interest in exploring and caring for this superlative resource and its surroundings and help to give the River Ver its rightful importance now and for future generations.
Signed copies are available from the author for £24.99 and can be delivered free locally (within 10 miles of St Albans).