Letchworth
Letchworth Garden City, commonly known as Letchworth, is a town in the North Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England. It is noted for being the first garden city. The population at the time of the 2021 census was 33,990.
For other uses, see Letchworth (disambiguation).Letchworth Garden City
Letchworth was an ancient parish, appearing in the Domesday Book of 1086. It remained a small rural village until the start of the twentieth century. The development of the modern town began in 1903, when much of the land in Letchworth and the neighbouring parishes of Willian and Norton was purchased by a company called First Garden City Limited, founded by Ebenezer Howard and his supporters with the aim of building the first "garden city", following the principles Howard had set out in his 1898 book, To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform. Their aim was to create a new type of settlement which provided jobs, services, and good housing for residents, whilst retaining the environmental quality of the countryside, in contrast to most industrial cities of the time.
The town's initial layout was designed by Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker. It includes the United Kingdom's first roundabout, Sollershott Circus, which was built c. 1909. The layout for Letchworth incorporates extensive parkland and open spaces, including Norton Common and Howard Park.
A takeover of First Garden City Limited in 1960 led to significant changes in how the company managed the town, which were opposed by the residents and local council who wanted the original garden city ideals retained. They secured an act of parliament which transferred ownership of the estate from the company to a public sector body, the Letchworth Garden City Corporation, in 1963. The corporation in turn was replaced by a charitable body in 1995, the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation, which owns and manages the estate today.
Letchworth today retains large business areas providing jobs in a variety of sectors, and the landlord's profits are reinvested for the benefit of the community by the Heritage Foundation. The town lies 32 miles (51 km) north of London, on the railway linking London to Cambridge, and it also adjoins the A1 road, making it relatively popular with commuters. Residential areas in the town are mixed; large parts of the town are included in conservation areas in recognition of their quality, but the town also contains four of the five poorest-scoring neighbourhoods in North Hertfordshire for deprivation.
As the world's first garden city, Letchworth has had a notable impact on town planning and the new towns movement; it influenced nearby Welwyn Garden City, which used a similar approach, and aspects of the principles demonstrated at Letchworth have been incorporated into other projects around the world including the Australian capital Canberra, Hellerau in Germany, Tapiola in Finland and Mežaparks in Latvia.
Letchworth
10,302
29,760[75]
1 April 1919
31 March 1974
Letchworth
An Act to constitute the Letchworth Garden City Corporation, to transfer to that Corporation the undertaking of First Garden City Limited, to confer powers upon the Corporation; and for other purposes.
10 & 11 Eliz. 2. c. xxxix
1 August 1962
Geography[edit]
Climate[edit]
Letchworth experiences an oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification Cfb) similar to almost all of the United Kingdom.
Local media[edit]
Local news and television programmes is provided by BBC East and ITV Anglia. Television signals are received from the Sandy Heath TV transmitter. [161] The town's local radio stations are BBC Three Counties Radio on 95.5 FM and Heart Hertfordshire (originally BOB FM) on 106.9 FM. The local newspapers are The Comet and Hertfordshire Mercury.
Letchworth has a mixture of independent and state schools. There are two state secondary schools:
When work began on the garden city, there were pre-existing church schools in the villages of Willian and Norton. A "Garden City School" opened in November 1905 in temporary sheds near the railway. It transferred to a new building on Norton Road in 1909, becoming Norton School.[136][155] Pixmore School opened in 1913 on School Walk, followed by Westbury School on West View in 1925. These were elementary schools, catering for children from ages five to fourteen, which was the school leaving age at the time.[136] Letchworth Grammar School opened in 1931 in prominent buildings in the town centre, with the name carved in the stonework over its doors.[166]
The school leaving age was raised to fifteen under the Education Act 1944 and schools were gradually separated into primary and secondary schools. The secondary part of Pixmore School relocated to new premises on the Jackmans estate in March 1962, becoming the Willian School. The junior part of Pixmore School kept the name, but later moved from School Walk to Rushby Mead. The Highfield School opened in September 1965.[167]
With the move to comprehensive schools, Letchworth Grammar School changed its name to Fearnhill School in 1973 and moved to its current site on Icknield Way in 1976.[168][169] Willian School closed in 1991.[170] Norton School closed in 2002, having been run as part of The Knights Templar School in Baldock for its final year.[171] The Highfield School was rebuilt in 2016.[172]
The independent schools in Letchworth include the St Christopher School and St Francis' College. The St Christopher School was founded in 1915 as "Arundale" by the Theosophical Educational Trust, which took over the vacated buildings of the short-lived independent Letchworth School on Barrington Road, built in 1909. A new school building was built at the junction of Spring Road and Broadway in 1919, when the school assumed its current name, with the Barrington Road building then being used as accommodation for boarders. There is a cornerstone on the Broadway building laid by Annie Besant. The school consolidated onto the Barrington Road site in 1928. It is noted for its distinctive vegetarian and Quaker ethos.[173][166][174]
The site vacated by the St Christopher School on Broadway became St Francis' College, a girls' school, in 1934. Both independent schools admit boarders and day-pupils.[166]
Letchworth in popular culture[edit]
The author George Orwell lived in the nearby village of Wallington in the 1930s. In his polemic essay on wartime Britain, "The Lion and the Unicorn", he said "The place to look for the gems of the future England is in light-industry areas and along the arterial roads. In Slough, Dagenham, Barnet, Letchworth, Hayes – everywhere, indeed, on the outskirts of great towns – the old pattern is gradually changing into something new." In The Road to Wigan Pier, chapter 11, he described "two dreadful-looking old men", supposedly socialists, getting on a bus in Letchworth.[194]
The 2013 film, The World's End, directed by Edgar Wright and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, was filmed in both Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City. The film is structured around a pub crawl, and several premises in Letchworth were used to portray the pubs in the film, including shops and the Broadway Cinema (which appeared as "The Mermaid") as well as the small number of actual pubs in town.[195][196][197]