The story of Chas Lowe & Sons goes back to the very beginnings of Knebworth Garden Village. It was Monday 20th November 1905 when Charles Lowe bought his first plot off the Knebworth Estate. It was a condition of sale that he did not erect a pigsty or allow a house on wheels to remain on the site, and that the property he built should cost at least £400 in addition to any stabling. Mr Lowe purchased four more plots in 1908, two for £75 and two for £138. By the time he bought a further plot in 1922, it was required that at least £1600 be spent on the building.
Since then, Chas Lowe’s has been at the very heart of our village, filling our shops and cafes with people from all over the district, as they popped in to pick up some lengths of 2×4, or a lock chain, or a tub of exterior gloss. The builders’ merchant has kept our village vibrant, whilst other villages – for instance our closest neighbour to the south – have become sleepier as their commerce has drifted away.
But maybe we want our villages to be sleepier. Few supported the idea ten years ago of keeping the business close by relocating it to the railway-side field to the south of Monread Nursing Home and opening up its High Street site as a village centre or village green. And many, I know, will not miss the delivery lorries that have got bigger and noisier over the years, since the days of ‘stabling’. But I suspect, after 112 years, we will miss Chas Lowe & Sons.
I certainly will.
Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com