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ALAN CASH - web pages Welwyn Garden City |
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Author: Maurice de Soissons Published: 1988 by Publications for Companies Format: Paperback 9" by 8" with 258 pages
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From the rear cover |
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Contents |
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About
this book |
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Sir Ebenezer Howard's second garden city holds a pivotal place in the development of Britain's New Towns. Begun soon after the First World War, Welwyn Garden City now has a world reputation as a planned complete town of reasonable size housing 42,000 people in 17,000 houses of which 60 per cent are owner-occupied. It is indeed a "town designed for healthy living," as Howard termed it, a good place in which to live, work and raise a family. Its master plan embodied ideas from earlier planned towns and villages, especially Letchworth, the first garden city. Those precepts were developed, enriched, and combined into flexible planning principles within a logical framework. They have since provided the basis and the inspiration for many new towns in many lands. Nearly 70 years ago Howard formed a company and gathered round him a group of men to build a new town on farmland in mid-Hertfordshire. In a climate of derision and indifference Welwyn Garden City Ltd began building a compact yet open town where citizens could walk or bicycle to work, school or the shops, and were close to the countryside: a city in a garden and a city of gardens. The company brought its town through many vicissitudes — shortages of money, materials and labour, an economic depression and a world war — to provide in some measure the springboard for the 1946 New Towns Act. Designated a New Town itself in 1948, the garden city continued to grow largely to its original concepts under a development corporation until 1966, and latterly the Commission for the New Towns, followed by the present Welwyn Hatfield District Council. Indeed, from its beginnings it was aided by watchful and concerned local authorities. Population increases in the South-East, smaller family units, high land prices, and ever-increasing numbers of cars, have all induced changes in later development that have caused heart-searching and criticism. Today Welwyn Garden City is fighting to preserve its garden city ideals, tempered by necessity, as it moves towards the 21st century. This book chronicles the political, economic and social life of an exceptional new town, and details its architectural and landscape heritage. Above all it tells of its citizens over almost 70 years, who have collectively created the garden city and now have the responsibility to ensure that it keeps its very special qualities for future generations. There are 151 black and white and 43 colour pictures, maps (Figures), and full appendices with an index. |
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List
of Plates |
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Plates 28, 29, 89, 90, 93, 94, 133,
134 provide detailed studies of selected housing areas. |
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Black
and White Plates and Figures: |
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Industrial
studies: |
Maps in the text: |
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Plate
148. Nabisco. Plate 149. Danish Bacon. Plate 150. Popper. Plate 151. Rank Xerox. |
Figure 1. Welwyn
Garden City in its regional setting, Figure 2. Town Centre in 1948. Figure 3. Communications 1953. Figure 4. Communications 1988. Figure 5. Industrial development 1950, Figure 6. Industrial development 1988. Figure 7. Town Centre 1988. |
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Colour
Plates: |
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Acknowledgements |
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The Welwyn Hatfield District
Council acknowledge with thanks the loan of certain pictures for reproduction
in this book from the Hertfordshire County Archives, the Hertfordshire
County Library in Welwyn Garden City, and the Commission for the New Towns.
Other pictures are named in the captions as to their source. The publisher
and Welwyn Hatfield District Council apologise to any copyright holders
of pictures whom they have inadvertently failed to acknowledge. |
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Three
pictures from the book |
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