Continuing our republished series, “A Question of Royston”, covering the little-known history of Royston, as written by the late Councillor F John Smith (1932-2021).
The Coombes Hole underpass, which runs from Melbourn Road past the Town Council’s Green Street allotments through to Burns Road, opened in 2012 thanks to funding from Sustrans, North Herts Council, Royston Town Council and Hertfordshire County Council, after a long campaign to create a safe crossing under the train tracks. Until then, anyone wanting to get from one side of the tracks to the other had to go all the way into the town centre and back again, with some people choosing to cross the tracks instead, which was an extreme safety concern.
Originally though, the path from Melbourn Road past the allotments used to lead to a farm crossing of the railway with wooden gates on each side.
This was the route that refuse freighters owned by Royston Urban District Council used to take in the period before the early 1970s. And where were they going? To the refuse dump at Coombes Hole.
What was Coombes Hole? Well, there was a depression on the north side of the railway and the town’s waste gradually filled it up until it became not a hole but a hill!
And that hill today is the BMX track alongside Burns Road. Coombes is the name retained in the Coombes Community Centre and also figures in the street named Coombelands
After the refuse tip was no longer used, the railway insisted that the crossing should also be closed; an understandable attitude when they wanted to deter people from crossing the tracks except at properly controlled places.
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You can find out more about Royston’s history in the book “A Royston Miscellany” by F John Smith, available to borrow or reference in Royston Library
