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Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire

Welwyn Garden City
The Parkway Fountain.jpg
View to the northwest from the Parkway Fountain
Welwyn Garden City is located in Hertfordshire
Welwyn Garden City
Welwyn Garden City
Welwyn Garden City shown within Hertfordshire
Population 46,619 
48,380 (2011 Census)
OS grid reference TL245135
• London 20 mi (32 km)
District
Shire county
Region
Country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town WELWYN GARDEN CITY
Postcode district AL7, AL8
Dialling code 01707
Police Hertfordshire
Fire Hertfordshire
Ambulance East of England
EU Parliament East of England
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
Hertfordshire
51°48′22″N 0°11′36″W / 51.8062°N 0.1932°W / 51.8062; -0.1932Coordinates: 51°48′22″N 0°11′36″W / 51.8062°N 0.1932°W / 51.8062; -0.1932

Welwyn Garden City /ˈwɛlɪn/ is a town in Hertfordshire, England. It is located approximately 20 miles (32 km) from Kings Cross, London. Welwyn Garden City was the second garden city in England (founded 1920) and one of the first new towns (designated 1948).

It is unique in being both a garden city and a new town and exemplifies the physical, social and cultural planning ideals of the periods in which it was built.

Welwyn Garden City was founded by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the 1920s following his previous experiment in Letchworth Garden City. Howard had called for the creation of planned towns that were to combine the benefits of the city and the countryside and to avoid the disadvantages of both. The Garden Cities and Town Planning Association had defined a garden city as

"a town designed for healthy living and industry of a size that makes possible a full measure of social life but not larger, surrounded by a rural belt; the whole of the land being in public ownership, or held in trust for the community"

In 1919, Howard arranged for the purchase of land in Hertfordshire that had already been identified as a suitable site. On 29 April 1920 a company, Welwyn Garden City Limited, was formed to plan and build the garden city, chaired by Sir Theodore Chambers. Louis de Soissons was appointed as architect and town planner, C.B Purdom as finance director and Frederic Osborn as secretary. The first house was occupied just before Christmas 1920.

The town is laid out along tree-lined boulevards with a neo-Georgian town centre. It has its own environmental protection legislation, the Scheme of Management for Welwyn Garden City. Every road has a wide grass verge. The spine of the town is Parkway, a central mall or scenic parkway, almost a mile long. The view along Parkway to the south was once described as one of the world's finest urban vistas. Older houses are on the west side of Parkway and newer houses on the east side


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