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Welwyn Garden City


English Garden Cities - An Introduction

Author: Mervyn Miller

Published: 2010 by English Heritage

Format: Paperback 8¼" by 8¼" with 116 pages

* alternative
cover
designs


*The book is/was on sale with two different cover pictures. My own copy has cottages in Rushby Mead, Letchworth on the front cover, but no author's name (above left); the other version has houses in Westholm Green, Letchworth, plus the author's name (above right). My copy has the Westholm Green picture inside on page 44. I assume the books are the same except that the positions of these two photographs have been swapped.

Mervin Miller explains in Acknowledgements that the book followed a study (2004-8) by the Town and Country Planning Association and English Heritage on The Future of Garden City Communites, to which he was an advisor. The choice and quality of the pictures, I think, is brilliant. Many are very high quality modern colour images of some wonderful old houses giving a feeling of tranquility and restfulness. Some of the photographs are by Miller himself. Ten very clear aerial photographs are included, nine in colour - one an historic shot.
 

 
 

Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Baroness Andrews, Chair of English Heritage.

Chapter 1 — Visions for change: reforming the 19th-century city

Industrialisation and urbanisation — Ebenezer Howard and the garden city: planning visionary or heroic simpleton — Industrial villages — Arts and Crafts values — The co-partnership model — Gathering momentum — Translating vision into reality: Parker and Unwin.

Chapter 2 — Masterplanning the garden city communities

Letchworth, the first garden city — The Suburb Salubrious: Hampstead Garden Suburb — Welwyn Garden City — Death of Howard.

Chapter 3 — Garden city homes

Cottages for artisans — Home and hearth.

Chapter 4 — Industry and commerce

Chapter 5 — The Spirit of the Place

Chapter 6 — Tudor Walters, Wythenshawe and the new towns

The municipalisation of the garden city — From parkland to Parkerland — Towards the new towns.

Chapter 7 — Conservation and the challenge of change

Schemes of management — Regeneration and the future of the garden city communities.

Notes

References and further reading

Gazeteer

A list of garden city communities in England giving information for each one in tabular form.

 
 

 

 
 

List of Illustrations

The illustrations are modern photographs in colour unless otherwise stated

Bournville Selly Manor House, 16th century.
Bournville housing at Maryvale Road, by William Alexander, c.1900.
Bournville The Rest House, Village Green, by William Alexander Harvey and Herbert Graham Wicks, 1914.
Bournville Linden Road, infant school, by William Alexander Harvey, 1910.

Brentham Garden Suburb housing in Brunner Road, by Frederic Cavendish Pearson, c.1910 (b/w).

Ebenezer Howard portrait by Spenser Pryse, 1912.
Ebenezer Howard The Three Magnets diagram.
Ebenezer Howard Ward and Centre diagram with hand-written amendments.
Ebenezer Howard Garden City and Rural Belt diagram with hand-written comments.
Ebenezer Howard sitting for sculpured bust being modelled by Ivy Young, 1927 (b/w).
Ebenezer Howard photograph with Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin, in New York (1925, b/w).
Ebenezer Howard memorial plaque, Howardsgate, by James Woodward.

Hampstead Garden Suburb street map (modern).
Hampstead Garden Suburb painting, Hampstead Garden Suburb from the Heath Extension by Annie Walker.
Hampstead Garden Suburb drawing of the layout by Parker and Unwin, dated April 1911 (b/w).
Hampstead Garden Suburb aerial photograph with churches and looking towards the 'New Suburb'.
Hampstead Garden Suburb Temple Fortune, Hampstead Way buildings, by Arthur Joseph Penty, 1909-11.
Hampstead Garden Suburb aerial photograph of Artisans' Quarter looking east from Finchley Road.
Hampstead Garden Suburb Asmuns Place, Hampstead Way, by Raymond Unwin, 1907-8 (b/w).
Hampstead Garden Suburb houses in Reynolds Close, off Hampstead Way, by Parker and Unwin, 1911 (b/w).
Hampstead Garden Suburb houses on Baillie Scott Corner junction of Hampstead Way and Meadway, 1909 (b/w).
Hampstead Garden Suburb houses on Hampstead Way, by Michael Bunney (Arts and Crafts) and G. Lister Sutcliffe (after Edwin Lutyens).
Hampstead Garden Suburb house on Corringham Road squares, by Parker and Unwin, 1912.
Hampstead Garden Suburb Heathcroft Flats by J. B. F. Cowper, 1923.
Hampstead Garden Suburb Crickmer Circus houses at junction of Willifield Way and Temple Fortune Hill, 1909.
Hampstead Garden Suburb house with 'liner' architecture at Lytton Close, by G. C. Winbourne, 1935.
Hampstead Garden Suburb Belvedere Court flats, Lyttelton Road, by Ernst Freud, 1935 (b/w).
Hampstead Garden Suburb house in Edmunds Walk, Tudor Enclave, by R. H. Williams, 1935.
Hampstead Garden Suburb Eliot House (formerly White Walls), in The Bishop's Avenue, by Philip Hepworth, 1924.
Hampstead Garden Suburb Hampstead Garden Suburb Institute ( now part of Henrietta Barnett School).
Hampstead Garden Suburb The Masque of Fairthorpe chorus at Big Wood in 1910 (b/w).
Hampstead Garden Suburb opening of the Hampstead Garden Suburb Institute with H. M. Queen Mary and Henrietta Barnett in 1924 (b/w).
Hampstead Garden Suburb The Club House, Willifield Green, by Parker and Unwin, 1909 (b/w).
Hampstead Garden Suburb St Jude's Church, Central Square, by Edwin Lutyens, 1909.
Hampstead Garden Suburb No. 25 Winnington Road 'Suburban Superhouse' by William Bertram, 1998.

Henrietta Barnett photograph in her 30s (sepia).

Letchworth Howard Cottage Society housing at Rushby Mead, by Robert Bennett and Wilson Bidwell, 1911.
Letchworth Civic Week envelope sticker, 1935.
Letchworth aerial photograph looking east.
Letchworth street map (modern).
Letchworth plan by Parker and Unwin, 1904 (b/w).
Letchworth Parker and Unwin office, 296 Norton Way South, 1907 (now a museum).
Letchworth Broadway, estate office, by Parker and Unwin, 1912-13.
Letchworth central square aspirational sketch, by Raymond Unwin (after Wren), 1912 (b/w).
Letchworth aerial photograph looking north..
Letchworth The Stone House, Exhibition (now Nevells) Road, by Bennett and Bidwell, 1905 (b/w).
Letchworth No. 2 Cross Street, The Nook, by Clare and Ross, 1905.
Letchworth No. 158 Wilbury Road, by John Alexander Brodie, 1905 (b/w).
Letchworth Nos. 7-17 (odd) Lytton Avenue (originally Middle Street), by Courtenay Melville Crickmer, 1907.
Letchworth painting, Letchworth: The Road (Wilbury Road) by Spencer Gore, 1912.
Letchworth Lakeside and Crabby Corner (now both Arunside) in Letchworth Lane , by Parker and Unwin, 1904 (b/w).
Letchworth Signe Parker seated in house designed by her brother-in-law Barry Parker, 1909 (b/w).
Letchworth The White Cottage, Croft Lane, by Parker and Unwin, 1906.
Letchworth housing at Westholm Green, by Parker and Unwin, 1906.
Letchworth aerial photograph, housing in cul-de-sac and green on Birds Hill, by Parker and Unwin, 1906.
Letchworth housing at Pix Road, by Parker and Unwin, 1906-9 (b/w).
Letchworth No. 7 Willian Way, The Cottage (front elevation), by Wilson Bidwell, 1909.
Letchworth No. 7 Willian Way, The Cottage (interior, inglenook fireplace), by Wilson Bidwell, 1909.
Letchworth No. 12 Croft Lane, Three Gables, by Cecil Hignett, 1907.
Letchworth Dean Row,Pasture Road, by Courtenay Melville Crickmer, 1910-11 (b/w).
Letchworth No. 29 Norton Way North, by M. H. Baillie Scott, 1906.
Letchworth Spirella factory, by Cecil Hignett.
Letchworth K & L Works, interior showing men filling shells, 1915 (b/w).
Letchworth Spirella factory with charabancs full of workers, 1924 (b/w).
Letchworth Edmundsbury Weavers factory, interior showing female loom workers with Dorothea Hunter, c.1909 (b/w).
Letchworth Leys Avenue shopping street (1920, b/w).
Letchworth Howard Park, May Day dancing c.1912 (b/w).
Letchworth What some people think of us cartoon by Louis Weirter, 1909 (b/w).
Letchworth Cottages and field with Unwin's children Edward and Peggy, c.1906 (b/w).
Letchworth The Skittles Inn (now The Settlement) by Parker and Unwin, 1907.
Letchworth The Cloisters, Barrington Road, by W. H. Cowlishaw, 1906-7.
Letchworth Howgills, South View, by Bennett and Bidwell, 1907.
Letchworth St George's Church, Norton Way North, by Peter Bosanquet, 1964.
Letchworth aerial photograph, Broadway Gardens.
Letchworth Leys Avenue.

New Earswick map of village, dated October 1907 (b/w).
New Earswick housing at Western Terrace, 1902-3 (b/w).

Port Sunlight war memorial (for fallen 1916-22), sculptor William Goscombe John.
Port Sunlight Arts & Crafts housing at Lower Road/Central Road, by J. Lomax Simpson, 1907.
Port Sunlight aerial photograph.
Port Sunlight housing at Corniche Road, by Edwin Lutyens, 1897.
Port Sunlight Lady Leverhulme Art Gallery, by Segar Owen, 1910-22.
Port Sunlight Heritage Centre (originally Girls' Club) by J. Lomax Simpson, 1913.

Raymond Unwin The Garden City Principle applied to Suburbs diagram from Nothing Gained by Overcrowding, 1912 (b/w).

Silver End, Braintree housing in Silver Street, by Frederick MacManus, 1927-8.

Welwyn Garden City Parkway, Louis de Soissons memorial.
Welwyn Garden City street map (modern).
Welwyn Garden City sketch plan by (later Sir) Frederic Osborn, 1919 (see below).
Welwyn Garden City town plan by Louis de Soissons, 1920 (b/w).
Welwyn Garden City aerial photograph showing Parkway looking north to Campus.
Welwyn Garden City house on Dognell Green, by Louis de Soissons.
Welwyn Garden City No. 106 Handside Lane, by Bertram Parkes, 1922.
Welwyn Garden City Meadow Green houses including Italian Villa, by Louis de Soissons, 1922 (b/w).
Welwyn Garden City Nos. 102 and 104 Handside Lane, by Theodore Leake, 1922 (b/w).
Welwyn Garden City WRDC housing on Handside Lane, by Courtenay Melville Crickmer, 1919-20 (b/w).
Welwyn Garden City aerial photograph of area developed in the 1920s.
Welwyn Garden City Badgers End, Brockswood Lane, by C. M. Hennell and C. H. James, 1929 (b/w).
Welwyn Garden City Woodhall Community Centre, by Louis de Soissons, 1938.
Welwyn Garden City Shredded Wheat factory and grain silos, by Louis de Soissons, 1924-5 (b/w).
Welwyn Garden City Roche Products building, by Otto Salvisberg, 1938 (b/w).
Welwyn Garden City Welwyn Stores building (now John Lewis), by Louis de Soissons, 1939.
Welwyn Garden City buildings in Howardsgate by Louis de Soissons, begun 1929.
Welwyn Garden City Welwyn Theatre and top of Howardsgate (c.1932, b/w).
Welwyn Garden City Cherry Tree, original building, with Louis de Soissons's trelliswork (b/w).
Welwyn Garden City Church of Holy Family, Shoplands, by de Soissons, Peacock, Hodges and Robertson, 1967.
Welwyn Garden City housing in Panshanger, by Oliver Carey, 1960s.
Welwyn Garden City Knightsfield flats, by Louis de Soissons, 1955.
Welwyn Garden City Shredded Wheat factory grain silos.
Welwyn Garden City Templewood School by Charles Herbert Aslin, 1949 (b/w).

Wythenshawe street map (modern).
Wythenshawe plan for Wythenshawe by Barry Parker, 1931 (b/w).
Wythenshawe mansard-roofed cottages, by Barry Parker, 1931 (b/w).
Wythenshawe cul-de-sac housing, by Barry Parker.
Wythenshawe aerial photograph of the Benchill neigbourhood (1937, b/w).
Wythenshawe St Michael's and All Angels, Northenden, interior, by Cachemaille-Day and Lander, 1935-7 (b/w).
Wythenshawe Wythenshawe Road roundabout, Princess Parkway (1934, b/w).
Wythenshawe Baguley, housing.

 
 
 
 

Welwyn Garden City sketch plan by (later Sir) Frederic Osborn, 1919

© Margaret Fenton/Town & Country Planning Association

(Click image to enlarge)

 
 

 

 
 

Other books by Mervyn Miller listed in the bibliography

Raymond Unwin: Garden Cities and Town Planning. Leicester University Press, 1992.
Letchworth: The First Garden City. Chichester:Phillimore, 1989, 2002.
Hampstead Garden Suburb. Arts and Crafts Utopia ? Chichester: Phillimore, 2006.

 
 

 

 
 

Other books in the Informed Conservation series by English Heritage
listed at the back of the book

Behind the Veneer: The South Shoreditch furniture trade and its buildings. Joanna Smith and Ray Rogers, 2006.
Berwick-upon-Tweed: Three places, two nations, one town. Adam Menuge with Catherine Dewar, 2009.
The Birmingham Jewellery Quarter: An introduction and guide. John Cattell and Bob Hawkins, 2000.
Bridport and West Bay: The buildings of the flax and hemp industry. Mike Williams, 2006.
Building a Better Society: Liverpool's historic institutional buildings. Colum Giles, 2008.
Built on Commerce: Liverpool's central business district. Joseph Sharples and John Stonard, 2008.
Built to Last ? The buildings of the Northamptonshire boot and shoe industry. Kathryn A. Morrison with Ann Bond, 2004.
England's Schools: History, architecture and adaptation. Elain Harwood, 2010.
Gateshead: Architecture in a changing English urban landscape. Simon Taylor and David Lovie, 2004.
Manchester's Northern Quarter. Simon Taylor and Julian Holder, 2008.
Manchester: The warehouse legacy - An introduction and guide. Simon Taylor, Malcolm Cooper and P. S. Barnwell, 2002.
Manningham: Character and diversity in a Bradford suburb. Simon Taylor and Kathryn Gibson, 2010.
Margate's Seaside Heritage. Nigel Barker, Allan Brodie, Nick Dermott, Lucy Jessop and Gary Winter, 2007.
Newcastle's Grainger Town: An urban renaissance. Fiona Cullen and David Lovie, 2003.
'One Great Workshop': The buildings of the Sheffield metal trades. Nicola Wray, Bob Hawkins and Colum Giles, 2001.
Ordinary Landscapes, Special Places: Anfleld, Breck and the growth of Liverpool's suburbs. Adam Menuge, 2008.
Places of Health and Amusement: Liverpool's historic parks and gardens. Katy Layton-Jones and Robert Lee, 2008.
Religion and Place in Leeds. John Minnis with Trevor Mitchell, 2007.
Religion and Place: Liverpool's historic places of worship. Sarah Brown and Peter de Figueiredo, 2008.
Stourport-on-Severn: Pioneer town of the canal age. Colum Giles, Keith Falconer, Barry Jones and Michael Taylor, 2007.
Weymouth's Seaside Heritage. Allan Brodie, Cohn Ellis, David Stuart and Gary Winter, 2008.

English Heritage online shop: www.english-heritageshop.org.uk