Forerunners
1851 Saltaire - planned housing based next to a factory, it was built over a period of 25 years, but most houses only had a yard - a few managers properties had a front garden. The town also had a church, hospital, school, almshouses and institute that featured in the two Antiques Roadshows.
1854 Bromborough Pool built by Prices Candles
1888 Port Sunlight built by Lever Bros
1895 Bourneville - started in 1880's - half of the properties available to non-Cadbury employees
1875 Bedford Park - a middle class suburb in West London
Ebenezer Howard 1850 - 1928
1871 - USA including Chicago known as the Garden City of the mid-west
1876 - returns to England - influenced by two books - Victoria by Buckingham & Hygeia by Richardson
October 1898 - Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform - it contained the diagram - Three Magnets
2nd June 1902 - The Garden City Pioneer Company formed - directors included George Cadbury and the subscribers included Lever.
They resolved to find an estate of 4 - 6 thousand acres near a railway line & near London or a large city.
Several sites were investigated - Essex, near Oxford & Worcestershire and Chartley Castle estate in Staffordshire was nearly selected. Of course, the site selected was between Hitchin & Baldock.
Herbert Warren as the solicitor to the Garden City Association who had recently acquired a practice in Baldock was approached to examine in detail Letchford Manor in spring 1903.
With the assistance of his managing clerk James Brown 3818 acres were purchased under nominees’ names with the assistance of the Hitchin solicitor William Onslow Times of Hawkins & Co in Portmill Lane.
1st September 1903 - First Garden City Ltd was registered at Companies House
Friday 9th October 1903 - Letchworth estate declared open by 4th Earl Grey in a marquee on land that is now Letchworth Croquet & Tennis Club on a day when the heavens opened & it poured with rain and almost everyone was to some extent covered in mud. The road to the club is named Muddy Lane.
Parker & Unwin
1901 - published " The Art of Building a Home" - a manifesto for the Arts & Crafts house with ideas for community planning.
1902 - they produced the plan for New Earswick the model village for Rowntree’s of York
April 1904 - they produced the winning plan which if superimposed on a modern plan would clearly show Letchworth has to a great extent been developed as Parker & Unwin originally envisaged. Industry is situated to the east & residential areas to the west so as take advantage of the prevailing winds to blow away the factory fumes.
There were two Cheap Cottage Exhibitions - one in 1905 & the other in 1907. There were three categories - brick & tile, wooden & cement concrete. Most survive & many of them proudly display a Green Plaque.
The rules stipulated that the properties were to cost no more than £150 to construct and to contain a living room, scullery and 3 Bedrooms. There was no requirement for a bathroom, but most contained a WC.
One architect who was eliminated - overrunning the budget of £150 as Baillie Scott whose cottages cost £420 to construct but nevertheless they were built at the top of NWS. He designed 3 others in the Garden City.
Parker & Unwin were the consulting architects for LGC - a role Parker continued in until 1942. He produced in 1927 the plan for Wythenshawe the garden satellite of Manchester.
Unwin left in 1906 for Hampstead having prepared his first layout for HGS in February 1905.
In the 1880's Unwin was influenced by William Morris & lectured for "Commonweal" Morris' Socialist League newspaper
October 1918 Ebenezer Howard identified the site for his second Garden City near Welwyn village & at an auction in May 1919 successfully bid for 1500 acres and had to borrow £250 from Norman Savill the estate agent to make up the balance of the deposit monies.
The success of the Garden City movement is that it has been imitated all over the world - including South Africa, New Zealand and Japan.
Between the wars many developers advertised their estates as garden cities - Upminster bookshop- Elm Park - From Garden City to London Suburb.
After WW2 The New Towns Commission built the first new town - Stevenage along Garden City principles - whereby housing & industry were separated - the last new town being Milton Keynes.
Some years ago, there was an article in the Sunday Times about the two great movements of the early 20th century - communism & Garden Cities. It concluded that Ebenezer Howard had achieved more for human happiness than Vladimir Lenin.
1851 Saltaire - planned housing based next to a factory, it was built over a period of 25 years, but most houses only had a yard - a few managers properties had a front garden. The town also had a church, hospital, school, almshouses and institute that featured in the two Antiques Roadshows.
1854 Bromborough Pool built by Prices Candles
1888 Port Sunlight built by Lever Bros
1895 Bourneville - started in 1880's - half of the properties available to non-Cadbury employees
1875 Bedford Park - a middle class suburb in West London
Ebenezer Howard 1850 - 1928
1871 - USA including Chicago known as the Garden City of the mid-west
1876 - returns to England - influenced by two books - Victoria by Buckingham & Hygeia by Richardson
October 1898 - Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform - it contained the diagram - Three Magnets
2nd June 1902 - The Garden City Pioneer Company formed - directors included George Cadbury and the subscribers included Lever.
They resolved to find an estate of 4 - 6 thousand acres near a railway line & near London or a large city.
Several sites were investigated - Essex, near Oxford & Worcestershire and Chartley Castle estate in Staffordshire was nearly selected. Of course, the site selected was between Hitchin & Baldock.
Herbert Warren as the solicitor to the Garden City Association who had recently acquired a practice in Baldock was approached to examine in detail Letchford Manor in spring 1903.
With the assistance of his managing clerk James Brown 3818 acres were purchased under nominees’ names with the assistance of the Hitchin solicitor William Onslow Times of Hawkins & Co in Portmill Lane.
1st September 1903 - First Garden City Ltd was registered at Companies House
Friday 9th October 1903 - Letchworth estate declared open by 4th Earl Grey in a marquee on land that is now Letchworth Croquet & Tennis Club on a day when the heavens opened & it poured with rain and almost everyone was to some extent covered in mud. The road to the club is named Muddy Lane.
Parker & Unwin
1901 - published " The Art of Building a Home" - a manifesto for the Arts & Crafts house with ideas for community planning.
1902 - they produced the plan for New Earswick the model village for Rowntree’s of York
April 1904 - they produced the winning plan which if superimposed on a modern plan would clearly show Letchworth has to a great extent been developed as Parker & Unwin originally envisaged. Industry is situated to the east & residential areas to the west so as take advantage of the prevailing winds to blow away the factory fumes.
There were two Cheap Cottage Exhibitions - one in 1905 & the other in 1907. There were three categories - brick & tile, wooden & cement concrete. Most survive & many of them proudly display a Green Plaque.
The rules stipulated that the properties were to cost no more than £150 to construct and to contain a living room, scullery and 3 Bedrooms. There was no requirement for a bathroom, but most contained a WC.
One architect who was eliminated - overrunning the budget of £150 as Baillie Scott whose cottages cost £420 to construct but nevertheless they were built at the top of NWS. He designed 3 others in the Garden City.
Parker & Unwin were the consulting architects for LGC - a role Parker continued in until 1942. He produced in 1927 the plan for Wythenshawe the garden satellite of Manchester.
Unwin left in 1906 for Hampstead having prepared his first layout for HGS in February 1905.
In the 1880's Unwin was influenced by William Morris & lectured for "Commonweal" Morris' Socialist League newspaper
October 1918 Ebenezer Howard identified the site for his second Garden City near Welwyn village & at an auction in May 1919 successfully bid for 1500 acres and had to borrow £250 from Norman Savill the estate agent to make up the balance of the deposit monies.
The success of the Garden City movement is that it has been imitated all over the world - including South Africa, New Zealand and Japan.
Between the wars many developers advertised their estates as garden cities - Upminster bookshop- Elm Park - From Garden City to London Suburb.
After WW2 The New Towns Commission built the first new town - Stevenage along Garden City principles - whereby housing & industry were separated - the last new town being Milton Keynes.
Some years ago, there was an article in the Sunday Times about the two great movements of the early 20th century - communism & Garden Cities. It concluded that Ebenezer Howard had achieved more for human happiness than Vladimir Lenin.