How Wood & Park Street
St Albans 019 · 4 sub-areas · 6,809 residents
St Albans 019 is a settled residential area within St Albans, home to around 6,800 people. A typical two-bedroom flat lets for about £1,615 a month — noticeably above the national median but reflective of its position as commuter country, with central London reachable in under 20 minutes by rail.
How Wood & Park Street is a commuter neighbourhood within St Albans — train into London runs in around 13 minutes, and the rhythm of weekday mornings is shaped by it. Most homes are owner-occupied, so turnover is low and many residents have been here a long time.
Overview
What's it like to live in How Wood & Park Street?
Greenspace is on the doorstep — a park or playing field is within walking distance of most homes; The streets feel safe by national standards — police-recorded crime is well below the country-wide median; Public transport is genuinely strong; most errands and a fair share of social life don't need a car; rents sit firmly in the upper bracket nationally, with a typical home letting at around £1,912 a month; gigabit broadband is effectively universal.
Generated from the latest May 2026 data · refreshed automatically
Figures are aggregated across 4 sub-areas — population-weighted means for rates, sums for counts. Sources cited beneath each section.
How Wood & Park Street in St Albans
Living in How Wood & Park Street
What sets this part of St Albans apart from similar commuter-belt postcodes is the unusually high proportion of residents who've stopped commuting altogether. More than four in ten working residents work from home — a rate that shapes the neighbourhood's daytime feel: quieter residential streets, a higher footfall in local cafés and parks during the week, and a community that skews noticeably older and more settled than central St Albans.
The cost of living here is substantial. At around £1,615 a month for a two-bedroom home, you're paying well above the national average of roughly £1,200, and council tax (Band D) adds another £2,419 a year on top. The median house price sits at just over £500,000, meaning a deposit takes roughly five and a half years to save on a typical local salary. That said, resident earnings are strong — the median annual salary for people who live here is around £45,500, which helps offset those costs compared to neighbouring areas where wages are lower.
The population skews older than you might expect for a commuter town. Around a fifth of residents are over 65, and a similar share are under 18 — suggesting a lot of established families and empty-nesters rather than young professionals renting their first place. Owner-occupation is high at nearly three-quarters of households, so the private rental market here is relatively thin: only around one in eight homes is privately rented.
For day-to-day practicalities, the nearest mainline rail station is roughly 900 metres away — about an 11-minute walk — and puts central London around 18 minutes away by train. Greenspace is accessible too, with a park or open space within about 500 metres of a typical address. See the streets and sub-areas below for more on specific pockets within this part of St Albans.
What you'll need on day one
Compare How Wood & Park Street with
Frequently asked
- Is St Albans 019 a nice place to live?
- It's a settled, well-established part of St Albans with good rail links to London and strong local greenspace. Owner-occupation is high at nearly 75%, which gives it a stable, quiet residential feel. The trade-off is cost — rents and house prices are substantial — and the school picture within catchment distance is patchier than you might expect.
- What is the rent in St Albans 019?
- A one-bedroom flat runs around £1,257 a month, a two-bedroom around £1,615, and a three-bedroom closer to £2,000. These are estimates scaled from district-level data using local sale prices. Rents rose about 3% over the past year.
- Is St Albans 019 safe?
- The recorded crime rate is around 121 per 1,000 residents a year, which is above the UK average of roughly 80. However, the area is in the least deprived 30% of English neighbourhoods, and higher reporting rates in prosperous areas can inflate the headline figure. It's worth checking street-level data for specific roads.
- What's the commute from St Albans 019 to London?
- The nearest mainline rail station is about 900 metres away — roughly an 11-minute walk — and the rail journey to central London takes around 18 minutes. That's one of the fastest London commutes available from any neighbourhood in Hertfordshire.
- Who lives in St Albans 019?
- Mostly settled, older households — around a fifth of residents are over 65, and owner-occupation sits at nearly 75%. There's a strong family presence too, with over a fifth of households being couples with children. Young renters are relatively underrepresented here compared to other parts of St Albans.
- What schools are near St Albans 019?
- There are 16 schools within typical catchment distance, but only around half are rated Good or Outstanding — well below the national average. The nearest Outstanding-rated school is about 3.3 km away. Catchment boundaries shift significantly street by street, so it's worth checking the specifics for your exact address.
- How does the cost of living in St Albans 019 compare to the rest of the UK?
- It's significantly above average. A two-bedroom home costs around £1,615 a month — well above the national median of roughly £1,200. Council tax adds another £2,419 a year. Resident salaries are above average at around £45,500, which offsets some of the pressure, but the rent-to-income ratio remains tight.