Chickens in a school coop were not the only ones lucky to escape injury at the weekend when fierce winds ripped through St Albans, toppling trees in gardens and along roads.

A 100-ft tree crashed onto ground near a hen-house at Nicholas Breakspear School, Colney Heath Lane, overnight on Friday.

Tom Short, who runs the school farm, said: “I think these must be the luckiest chickens in England.

“The tree also hit the beehive, but fortunately we have no bees at the moment.”

Over in Jersey Farm, Marian Lewis said it was lucky that no one was injured when a tree fell onto a neighbouring bungalow. She said: “It looked very dramatic. We think we may have had a mini-hurricane as there was other damage in the area, including brick walls cracking.”

And a St Albans woman had an eventful Friday night when she had her grandson to stay, while her daughter was in labour in hospital, and a neighbour’s two-storey-high tree suddenly fell onto her property: “It didn’t cause any damage. We were very, very lucky, as it could have smashed the glass on my conservatory. I didn’t hear a thing.”