Welcome to Welwyn Garden City - Heritage
Welwyn Garden City (WGC), as its name suggests, is a garden city, founded by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the 1920s following his previous experiment in Letchworth Garden City, and designed by Louis de Soissons. Howard had called for the creation of new towns of limited size, planned in advance, and surrounded by a permanent belt of agricultural land, as a role model for lower-density urban development. Howard believed that such Garden Cities were the perfect blend of city and nature.
In Welwyn Garden City he achieved his aim, creating the icon of modern town design and the blue-print for many new towns the world over.
Despite this iconic
status, Welwyn Garden City like all modern
towns
comes under constant development pressure. In a
planning
application submitted in November 2005 to knock down original Handside
Village houses in Bridge Road in order to create a new housing
development, the council received over 200 objections (!) many
siting
the historical significance of these houses. This proves that
there is a groundswell of opinion that the heritage of the town should
be protected and furthermore celebrated.
This site
is therefore dedicated to the protection and
celebration of the heritage of Welwyn
Garden City and to provide a rallying point for all those interested in
its heritage. Please register
with us (free) if you would like to participate in any way (actively or
passively) or simply to indicate support of our aims.
and now ... The Heritage Trust Dream Becomes a Reality!
After
some time spent developing the
final Aims & Objectives of the proposed Trust application forms
were filed with the Charity Commissioners and Companies House this week
(2nd October 2006) to set up the Welwyn Garden Heritage Trust.
Read
more...