| Letchworth Garden City |
Article Index for Letchworth |
Limousines in Letchworth |
Articles about Letchworth |
Website Links For Letchworth |
Information AboutLetchworth Garden City |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT LETCHWORTH | |
| towns in hertfordshire | |
| new towns in the united kingdom | |
| utopian communities | |
| settlements established in 1903 | |
|
Letchworth, officially '''Letchworth Garden City''', is a town in Hertfordshire , England . The town's name is taken from one of the three villages it surrounded. Founded in 1903, it was one of the first New Town s, and calls itself the world's first Garden City . Its development inspired another Garden City project at Welwyn , and had great influence on future town planning and the New Towns movement. Today it has a population of around 33,000. THE TOWN'S DEVELOPMENT The early days Howard's Three Magnets diagram Select image for transcript A competition was held to find a town design which could translate Howard's ideas into reality, and within a few years the company "First Garden City Ltd." was formed, Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin were appointed architects, and 16 km² of land outside Hitchin were purchased for building. In 1905 , and again in 1907 , the company held the Cheap Cottages Exhibitions, contests to build inexpensive housing, which attracted some 60,000 visitors. Railway companies often ran excursions to the town, bringing people to marvel at the social experiment and sometimes to mock it: Letchworth's founding citizens, attracted by the promise of a better life, were often caricatured by outsiders as idealistic and otherworldly. . One of the most prominent industries to arrive in the town in the early years was the manufacture of Company began building a large factory in 1912 , close to the middle of town and the railway station that opened the next year. The Spirella building, completed in 1920 , blends in despite its central position through being disguised as a large country house, complete with towers and a ballroom. During the Second World War , the factory was also involved in producing parachutes and decoding machinery. Because corsets fell out of fashion, the factory closed in the 1980 s, and was eventually refurbished and converted into offices. Another significant employer in the town was Shelvoke And Drewry , a manufacturer of Dustcarts and Fire Engine s which existed from 1922 until 1990 . Amy Rose and the takeover bid One of Letchworth's founding principles, unlike any previous British attempt at new town design, was that land should be held in common for the good of all. First Garden City Ltd owned the entire estate, but leased plots to citizens for building houses, to farmers for growing crops, and so on. The rents would provide income for the company, which would then invest the money back into the community. All citizens were shareholders, so all money was invested for the common good, and developments which the citizens disliked ( Tower Block s, for example) could be restricted as they pleased. This arrangement began to go wrong in 1961 , when Amy Rose and a company named Hotel York Ltd realised that if it bought enough of the shares from the citizens it could have a controlling interest in the town's estate, with no guarantee that the money would be used for the common good. To remedy this, Parliament passed the Letchworth Garden City Act 1962 , which created a public body, the Letchworth Garden City Corporation, to take on the business of First Garden City Ltd; as a statutory corporation it could not be bought. The Corporation's officers were appointed by The Crown ; later, the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation Act 1995 replaced the Corporation with a Charity , the Foundation, whose officers were appointed by local residents. Many of the original ground leases were written to last for nine hundred and ninety-nine years, but some ran for only ninety-nine; around 2001 many of these shorter leases began to expire, whereupon the Foundation sold the Freehold of the land to the houseowners. The civic local government of Letchworth has always been separate from the Company, Corporation or Foundation. It was formerly the responsibility of the Letchworth Urban District Council. After that body's abolition in 1974 , local government became the responsibility of the North Hertfordshire District Council. However, in December 2003 a Referendum showed 60% in favour of creating a town council in addition to the district council; elections to the new body were held in late May 2005 . All members of the new council are independent of any Political Party . Letchworth today , Jackmans in 1961 , and the more prosperous Lordship Farm and Manor Park in 1971 . However, Jackmans is rather cut off from the rest of the town by major roads. The Garden City estate began to turn a profit in the , a leisure centre and a theatre named Plinston Hall in 1982 , a free hospital (the Ernest Gardiner Day Hospital) in 1984 , and major refurbishment of the town's Cinema and Shopping Centre in 1996 and 1997 . The Foundation celebrated the town's centenary in 2003 by building a landscaped path for Walkers and Cyclists . The path, known as the Greenway, forms a 20km loop around the town. During January 2005 Letchworth Garden City was recognised as having the first roundabout on a public road in the United Kingdom, dating from circa 1909. Letchworth is Twinned with Wissen , Rhineland-Palatinate , Germany . {Link without Title} SCHOOLS Letchworth hosts a mixture of both private and state Schools . State schools include "Highfield" and "Fearnhill". The private schools in Letchworth are " St. Christopher School " and "St Francis's College". St. Christopher is arguably the most famous school in Letchworth, it is Vegetarian and has a strong Quaker ethos. Unlike many schools where pupils sneak outside the school grounds for a Cigarette , many at St Christopher's sneak outside for a ham sandwich or sausage roll to go with their Cigarette . "Knight's templar" is another local school, although in the neighbouring town of Baldock , many children from Letchworth are taught there. In 2002 "Norton School" closed down in the town. Teacher shortages at the school had lead to significant numbers of temporary staff, with the quality of teaching by some staff deemeded unsatisfactory by an Ofsted report. BLACK SQUIRRELS Letchworth Garden City is home to the UK's only colony of Black Squirrel s. They are thought to be a genetic mutation of the common Grey Squirrel. Sightings of Black Squirrels are common in and around the gardens and parks of the town. SEE ALSO
EXTERNAL LINKS The town's government
Facilities |
|
|