Letchworth Garden City, realising an organisational model

The concept of the Garden City as outlined in Ebenezer Howards book Garden Cities of To-morrow met with great criticism and scepticism when it was published in 1898. The cooperative vein combined with the clear organisational drawings resonated with social reformers, Arts and Crafts adapts and Quakers. The book and the subsequent Garden City Association (1899) lead to the creation of Brentham Garden Suburb in 1901; in 1902 the German Garden City Society was founded in Berlin. The year after the First Garden City Ltd. was founded with the aim of acquiring a site to realise the first true Garden City (i.e. not a suburban expansion of an existing urban area, but a separate satellite within a green belt). 

Some 16 km2 of land outside Hitchin between the hamlets of Norton, Willian and Letchworth was purchased by First Garden City Ltd. in 1903 (that company had been specifically set up to buy the land and develop it). A design competition was held to find an architect that could translate the utopian vision of a new garden city and the organisational drawings in the book into reality.  The firm of Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin was chosen with a rather formal 19th-century design. The other submissions were also regular or axial in composition. After winning the commission Parker and Unwin started working on a master plan. For this they set up an office in Letchworth where Unwin also lived.

The official plan for the new Garden City shows none of the typical spatial features of the Garden City Movement: it lacks informality,  winding streets and the placement of building on artistic principles (also known as Unwinesque urban design). The central feature is an axis that starts at the station building and end in a roundabout. On this axis a public garden inserts civic space with the main public buildings positioned around it. This setup is similar to the 19th-century star-like urban housing quarters in cities like Brussels, Paris and Berlin.  

The new Garden City was slow to get started as it mainly attracted idealists and artists. Unwin advocated a revolution in the architecture of domestic buildings -based on Arts and Crafts principles. He also stressed the need for an overall framework to give a sense of form to the urban development. Only after he came into contact with the German practice of city planning via Muthesius and Der Städtebau he is able to make these ideas practical. In 1905, and again in 1907, First Garden City Ltd. held the Cheap Cottages Exhibitions. These were architecture  contests to build inexpensive housing. Sponsored by the Daily Mail these exhibitions attracted some 60,000 visitors and resulted in the Ideal Home Exhibitions held at the Kensington Olympia. The two model homes exhibitions had a significant effect on planning and urban design in the UK, pioneering and popularising such concepts as pre-fabrication, the use of new building materials (concrete, steel, hanging tiles, etcetera) and front and back gardens. It is from this last feature of these model cottages built at Letchworth that the popular misconception stems that a Garden City is an urban environment characterised by houses with front and back garden.

The railway station was a prime requirement for such a suburban satellite. The one in Letchworth opened in 1903 not far from its current position. Railway companies used to run excursions to the town, bringing people to marvel at this social experiment and giggle at those eccentric folk populating this fledgling town.  After 1907 the housing is planned on Unwinesque principles in the staple Arts and Crafts style. By 1944 Letchworth Garden City had grown into a small town with ill-defined neighbourhoods on either side of the railway tracks. Norton Common had been opened up and was made a public park.

Letchworth was the first of two true Garden Cities to be built (the other one being Welwyn Garden City further south). The legacy, however, is far greater and spans continents. The idea of suburban satellites resulted in the 1944 Abercrombie Greater London Plan for a ring of New Towns around Greater London. Abercrombie proposed 10 New Towns of 60,000 inhabitants each to enable the rebuilding of war-damaged London and slum clearance. Stevenage, located between Welwyn and Letchworth is a good example. It has almost the same basic plan as Letchworth Garden City, but isn't a true Garden City.

Letchworth Garden City with the central axis of Broadway with the avenues radiating from it (1) is still at the heart of this town. Norton Common (2) is at the heart of the northern section. The Spirella Building (3) and the Works Business Estate (4) are located along the railway. This old core is surrounded by larger housing estates: The Grange (5), Icknield-Wilbury (6), Westbury (7), Jackmans (8),  Lordship (9) and Manor Park (10). The latter is named for the former Letchworth Hall (L) not far from Willian (W). Standalone Farm (S) is located within the Green Belt, whilst Norton (N) and Baldock (B) are located just beyond that.

Letchworth now became part of this belt of suburban satellites aimed at housing the London overspill. This meant that Letchworth should also grow in population. Several housing estates have thus been added. These plans follow the pre-war proposals of the company quite closely and more or less fill out the area available within the green belt. The first estate started in 1947 was the Grange Estate, north of Norton Common. After this the Icknield Estate and Westbury Estate were expanded. The Jackmans Estate followed in the 1960s. In the 1970 work started on the Lordship Estate. Manor Park Estate and some infill housing followed from the 1980s onwards.