Hertfordshire Genealogy: Places: Boreham Wood

The Home of Rest for Horses, Boreham Wood
This old postcard, which has the name Raphael Tuck on the front and reference BW 20, was recently sold on eBay.

Alan Pyle (pyleaj @t aol.com) has provided the following information: I lived over Furzehill on the Laing estate between 1939 and 1961. It was a treat to be taken to visit the Home on a weekend. A senior groom lived in our road and he would encourage us to come. the horses and ponies were all rescued animals. The building was set out with stalls round a square which you entered through a large arch much like the stables for a very large house. the stables were open for visitors. I particularly liked the pit ponies. I believe it was a charity and like to think the money they got for the sale of the site enabled them to set up in the countryside again as the LCC had come to B'Wood. .

The picture is a view looking northish. Barnet Lane as it leaves Stirling Corner is just off to the left. Now the superstore is at the camera's back and the entrance to the Home is where Farriers Way comes off at the roundabout with Furzehill Road. The stables would be on the line of Hunt Close and Cobb Close. I wonder how many residents know the horsy origin of their addresses?

Donna Reeves (donnageales @t aol.com) writes: I have two connections to the former 'Home of Rest for Horses'. My father worked there for about 5 -6 years from the early 1950's. It was a charity for rescued horses, ponies & donkeys. A very rich charity - while the grooms were on a very low wage, the stables were often painted twice a year to try and make use of all the money donated. It was often featured in newsreel films as a filler - pictures of horses rolling in fields etc. Sometimes the horses were used by the film studios. I later lived in Boreham Wood and the Home of Rest was still there ( before relocating) when I moved away in 1967.

Nancy Callegari (Lauren @t lcallegari.freeserve.co.uk) writes: Back in 1971 my gran took my cousins and I up to Borehamwood to see the horses. Although many were retired animals, many also were former working horses, grocers, milkmen, coalmen all used horses once. You could read all about the history of their working lives on plaques on the stables. Seven years later we did another trip to the horses home to find it being built on, which I found rather sad.

In 1986 I married and moved to my husband's address, guess where? Yes, off Farriers Way. All the street names have connections with horses, Saddlers Close, Cob Close, Percheron, Shetland, Hackney, etc.

I still live there 20 years on. When the wind is in a certain direction you can still smell horses and they're not the horses currently on the field at Barnet Lane because I live at the bottom end of Farriers Way. .