The Kents were long-standing brewers in St Albans and I presume New Kent Road is named for them.

Some of the images are very familiar, others focus on very interesting architectural detail, and of course many depict  narrow alleyways and ancient buildings which have since been swept away.

I am grateful to the Arc & Arc for allowing me to reproduce a splendid picture of the market.  What are they selling?  Brian Bending of the Society thinks it is carrots and celery.

Anyway do look at the rest of this thought-provoking photo collection here.

We can now get an appropriately mixed development at London Road – who knows, a primary school, perhaps a small shopping centre, housing of course, all done in a way that respects the scale of the city centre.  I hope there will be an intelligent planning brief for the site but equally no delay.

Meanwhile only yesterday I was talking to market stallholders whose site is outside the former Woolworths.  They were so sad at the decline of St Peters Street at the Hatfield Road end.  They knew there was a possibility of a reinvigorated city centre Tesco and they were looking forward to it as a magnet and anchor.

Well Tesco looks to have delivered – full marks to them.

It is interesting to ponder what restaurants would be left in St Albans if our council did the same. Pubs serving bangers and mash and all day breakfasts, St Michael’s Manor, a couple of caffs and not much else, I suspect – unless of course Indian restaurants now have honorary British status.

We have the availability of good local produce both from the regular market and the farmers’ market. It would be good to have somewhere in addition to hotels and pubs to eat the finished British product!

How lucky we are to have the market, and my sense is that it has regained vitality over recent months – in contrast with the shops behind where an empty Woolworths adds to the gloom.

Our key objective was vegetables – so much cheaper and more appetising looking than shrink wrapped in a supermarket. We have our favourite stall – which is clearly everyone else’s too given the length of the queue waiting patiently to be served.

Pleased to see that Peter Trevelyan of the Civic Society shares our opinion!

We staggered away with the frozen coriander – but also apples, bananas, seville oranges for marmalade, onions, flat-leaved parsley, celeriac, sprouting tops, multi-coloured peppers etc etc No problem getting our five-a-day and all at prices far cheaper than in the big stores.

Then fresh sprats and squid from the fish stall and mouth-watering cheese from the Italian cheese stall where before Christmas we had bought simply the best olive oil I have ever tasted.

Bread from Simmonds and the thought that I would be proud to take any foreign visitor on a similar culinary odyssey.