Geoffrey Hollis

Louis de Soissons

2025-04-28T17:36:42Z

This article printed in the Twentieth Century Society's Journal in 2019 was the fruit of intensive research into the Chief Architect and Planner of Welwyn Garden City. I uncovered the long-term deception carried out by his father and mother who claimed to be the Count and Countess de Soissons when both were actually Polish. Louis and his siblings benefitted by apparently being of noble birth, and undoubtedly it helped him in his stellar career. In the end truth did out.

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Nature Notes #27: Herons

2025-04-11T22:19:50Z

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Summer 2025 u3a Newsletter

2025-04-09T21:40:26Z

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The Comet

2025-04-09T21:28:42Z

The recent catastrophic loss of the Titan deep-sea explorer shows how man has struggled to conquer the extremes of planet Earth. Nowadays we take passenger jets flying at up to 7 miles high completely for granted but it was not always thus. One man and one machine showed the way – Geoffrey de Havilland and his DH106 Comet jet airliner.

In WW2 the Government had ramped up production of warplanes using many manufacturing companies including that founded by de Havilland (See our article on him at xxxx). In 1943 it faced the problem of what these companies should produce in peacetime, and set up a Committee to make recommendations. Its Chair was Lord Brabazon of Tara who had been the first Englishman to make a powered flight in this country (using a French plane). Geoffrey de Havilland was a leading member.

Geoffrey came up with the visionary idea of a pressurised passenger jet liner, capable of inter-continental travel. Jet engines were developed during the war but only worked efficiently at altitudes requiring pilots to wear oxygen masks. This was not feasible for passenger planes, hence the need for pressurisation. Also, at high altitude air temperatures are very low (-65 C) so cabins had to be heated. The other members of the Committee were sceptical but de Havilland with his wooden Mosquito had shown that he could build successful planes that others had derided. Brabazon was persuaded and the Government gave de Havilland funding to build at Hatfield what was to be called The Comet.

There was neither time nor resources to build many prototypes so the first version – Comet 1 – was designed to be capable of commercial use off the drawing board. Aluminium was chosen for the main material because it was not rationed. To keep weight down the skin was the thickness of a postcard. Extensive static tests of material and structure were made, not only because of the extreme flying conditions expected but also because many features of the manufacture and design were novel. Four Ghost jet engines made by de Havilland were embedded in the wings, two to each side, to aid streamlining. The result was visually stunning.

On 27 July 1949 the first Comet made its inaugural flight from Hatfield. After many hours of test flying, the first commercial flight took off on 2 May 1952 from Heathrow carrying 30 passengers to Johannesburg, in a blaze of publicity. Britain had produced the world’s first jet airliner – a tremendous achievement. Work started on versions 2 and 3 using more powerful Rolls Royce Avon engines and so capable of longer flights with more passengers.

At first all went well but accidents started, with planes failing to take off properly. Initially these were blamed on pilot error but gradually it became clear that the Comet was not easy to take off as it could stall if lifted off at too great an angle.

Then disaster: in early 1954 two Comets mysteriously exploded in flight and crashed – both into the Mediterranean – the first in January the second in April. After the second loss all flights were halted. A huge, difficult and expensive exercise was undertaken to recover fragments from both crashes. These were taken to Farnborough for study, as a result of which metal fatigue became suspected. A Comet 1 minus wings was taken to Farnborough and put through pressure tests where it was filled and emptied with water repeatedly to simulate ascending to high altitudes and then descending again. Eventually, after the equivalent of thousands of hours of flight, suddenly a tear appeared in the skin starting from a corner of one of the large and almost square windows. In flight this would have depressurised the plane leading to the instantaneous destruction of everything and everybody inside. (This must have happened in reverse to the unfortunate travellers in the Titan).

Extensive modifications were made: thicker skin, and a redesign of the frame with rounder windows. After extensive tests the Comet version 4 was put into back into service in 1958. In all 76 were delivered before production stopped in 1964. The last one flew in 1997. A version was developed into the Nimrod surveillance plane.

While Comet production was suspended American producers had been working on their own jet passenger planes, learning from the discoveries made at Farnborough. The Boeing 707 launched commercially in 1958 and was an instant success. The De Havilland Company though was hit severely by the loss of prestige and the costs of redeveloping the Comet. In 1960 it was effectively taken over by Hawker Siddeley.

So, Geoffrey de Havilland’s vision of an intercontinental jet passenger plane was vindicated – it was what the world wanted. Unfortunately other airplane manufacturers reaped the benefits, and many people suffered from the Comet accidents.

It is still possible to step inside a Comet 1. The one that was tested at Farnborough found its way to the De Havilland Museum in London Colney where it was refitted internally to recreate the experience of its original passengers. I was impressed by this Museum during a recent visit; there is something of interest for everyone and is highly recommended.

Hatfield Local History Society has produced a fascinating illustrated 86 page booklet, Taking Off - Memories of de Havilland at Hatfield, edited by its Chairman G Philip Marris . One reviewer said "a great collection of accounts from people who were actually there." Only £7.50 on Amazon.

Sky Fever

2025-04-09T21:17:27Z

One man transformed Hatfield from a small town into an industrial centre of excellence: Sir Geoffrey de Havilland. His working life spanned the earliest days of powered flight, through two world Wars, to pioneering jet passenger planes.

Geoffrey was born in 1882 into an upper middleclass family which could trace their line back to the Normans. His father was an eccentric, bad tempered, clergyman. He had better luck with his mother and her father, a successful farmer, who subsidised his daughter and grandchildren. Geoffrey and his elder brilliant brother Ivon were both keen electrical and mechanical engineers from boyhood. Together they built dynamos, steam engines, and eventually motor cycles and cars. Geoffrey trained for three years at Crystal Palace Engineering School, then worked for a couple of engineering firms making engines and cars.

Ivon designed the Iris, an innovative motor car, in 1905 but suddenly died of influenza – the first of several tragedies.

In 1908 Wilbur Wright toured Europe showing his heavier-than-air flying machine. Geoffrey was enthralled. “I was seized with an ambition to design and build my own aeroplane and nothing was going to hold me back.”

His grandfather stumped up £1,000 (£150,000 today), and a young apprentice Frank Hearle was hired. Geoffrey created a twin propeller biplane, with an engine of his own design, made out of timber, piano wire and doped fabric sewn by his new wife Louise. Hangars were bought at Seven Barrows, grass downland in Hampshire near his family home.

In December 1909 all was ready. Geoffrey knew how to build planes but not how to fly them. This ignorance nearly cost him his life: on the first – and only - flight of this plane he pulled back too hard on the control stick causing it to stall and crash. Luckily he was only slightly concussed.

Undeterred he redesigned the plane, making it lighter and simpler. The following summer he got it to fly safely a few inches above the ground for twenty yards - “the most important and memorable moment of my life.” After many weeks of trials he managed to take off, climb a hundred feet, circle the field and land. A little while after he was so confident of the plane and his skill as a pilot that he added a seat and took up Louise his wife with their 8 week old son Christopher in her arms.

This was the beginning of a tremendous career. Within two years a British altitude record of 10,500 feet was achieved in an aircraft of his design piloted by younger brother Hereward. He sold it to the newly created Royal Aircraft Factory, then joined them to design and test planes. He was commissioned into the Royal Flying Corps. In May 1914 he was recruited by Airco, in Hendon, where he designed aircraft, all designated by his initials DH, which were tested in combat in WWI. By 1918 one third of Allied aircraft were designed by him. In 1920 Airco collapsed so he formed de Havilland Aircraft Company manufacturing at Stag Lane Aerodrome, Edgware. He was financed by a wealthy amateur pilot, Alan Butler, who in 1923 became the Company’s Chairman, which he remained until 1950 (when de Havilland employed 20,000 people). Many airplanes were designed there, tested by Geoffrey, including the revolutionary family of Moth biplanes using its own Gypsy engines.

In 1930 the Company bought farmland near Hatfield, initially for its Flying School. In 1933 it started manufacturing there too with Frank Hearle as Works Manager.

In 1934 the wooden framed DH.88 Comet racer brought tremendous publicity by winning an Air Race from England to Australia.

During WW2 the company developed this Comet into the versatile and rapid DH.98 Mosquito (The Wooden Wonder). At first the RAF were sceptical but when they watched it outpace a Spitfire they were won over. 7,781 were built; 75,000 people including subcontractors worked on DH products during the war.

In 1943 another tragedy: his youngest son, John, died when two Mosquitos collided in clouds over St Albans.

In 1944 a friend Frank Halford who had designed the Gipsy engine joined. His first gas turbine was the Goblin powering De Havilland's first jet, the Vampire.

In 1946 a third tragedy: his dashing son Geoffrey, who had carried out the first flights of the Mosquito and Vampire, was killed when an experimental jet, the DH.108, broke up in a dive attempting to break the Sound Barrier. (See a biography of Geoffrey Jr at Remembering the life of daring test pilot Geoffrey de Havilland Jr - 75 years on from his tragic death | Welwyn Hatfield Times (whtimes.co.uk)).

Yet another tragedy followed. After the loss of Geoffrey Louise suffered a breakdown which de Havilland believed led to her death from cancer in 1949. She was buried alongside her two boys in Tewin churchyard.

In 1952 David Lean made a film The Sound Barrier whose leading character (played by Ralph Richardson) was clearly based on de Havilland senior. He was portrayed as a driven man, prepared to sacrifice test pilots including his own son-in-law to break the Barrier. Doubtless this was an exaggeration but photos of de Havilland always show him unsmiling and focussed.

This determination and ambition created the DH.106 Comet, the world’s first jet powered passenger aircraft introduced in 1952, about which we will write next time.

Geoffrey controlled the Company until it was bought in 1960 by the Hawker Siddeley Group. He was described as ambitious, and autocratic, but far from arrogant, “driving a Morris Minor and holding doors open for lowly apprentices”.

In 1961 he wrote an autobiography, Sky Fever, which is a good read. He had been knighted in 1944 and appointed to the Order of Merit in 1962.

He died in 1965 aged 82 of a cerebral haemorrhage; his ashes were scattered from the air over the site of his first flight, Seven Barrows.

His statue – seated and staring into the distance - was erected in 1997 in the College Lane campus of the University of Hertfordshire. This had started life as Hatfield Technical College, built on land donated to Hertfordshire County Council by Butler.

To find out more about this great man visit the de Havilland Museum at London Colney - a truly fascinating place.

Garden Cities – Cranky or Enlightened?

2025-04-09T21:13:30Z

Welwyn Garden City is a brave attempt to create a Utopia – an ideal community. The word was coined by Sir Thomas More in his political satire of the same name published after his death in 1515. It is derived from Greek, literally good-place or no-place – ie impossible ideal.

In Victorian times several successful industrialists sought to build utopian model villages for their workers, inspired by a combination of religious conviction, guilt, paternalism, and self-interest. The two best known were Port Sunlight on Merseyside and Bournville near Birmingham.

Port Sunlight was founded in 1890 by William Lever, later Lord Lever, for his employees manufacturing Sunlight Soap, which he had made famous by clever advertising. He created a beautiful and comfortable estate, which combined visual appeal and social purpose.

Bournville’s creators were the Quaker brothers George and Richard Cadbury, who started building in 1898. Their father John was a teetotaller who had built up a thriving business in drinking cocoa, motivated by a desire to provide a healthy alternative to alcohol which he saw as a major source of social problems. Gin shops were popular, promising ‘Drunk for a penny, Dead drunk for two pence’. John believed that the man who abstained from alcohol could afford a joint of beef on a Sunday. Naturally no pubs were allowed in Bournville.

Interestingly, William Lever had a similar view of alcohol. His parents were strictly observant Congregationalists; his father James was a teetotaller and a non-smoker, who applied his religious principles in his business life as well as in his personal life. William too was a life-long teetotaller.

He ran Port Sunlight on paternalistic lines and workers who lost their jobs could be almost simultaneously evicted. On the other hand, he was keen to allow the residents of Port Sunlight a degree of democratic control. In 1900 he opened the Bridge Inn which of course sold no alcohol. Within two years the workers became restive and sought to change its status to a licensed house. Lever announced that he would not impose his own views, and that the issue would be decided by a referendum; insisting somewhat unconventionally for that time that women would take part. However, he stipulated that the Bridge would only become a true British pub if a supermajority of 75% was in favour. (Very sensible – only a rash person would hold a referendum on a major issue without requiring a substantial majority in favour). He probably felt confident that the outcome would support his abstemious sentiments, but in the event more than 80% voted for an alcohol licence.

the The World’s End is an apocalyptic science fiction comedy film from 2015. It tells the story of five middle-aged men on a nostalgic pub crawl which gets disrupted when they discover that the locals have been taken over by aliens. Their aim had been to visit twelve pubs, finishing at one called The World’s End. The film was shot in Letchworth, Welwyn Garden City, and for internal scenes Elstree Studios. The lead actor and writer, Simon Pegg, lives in Essendon and said that he chose the two Garden Cities as examples of pleasant modern towns. He must have been aware of the reputation of Letchworth as being a mostly dry town with few pubs but perhaps this was all part of the joke. To make up numbers some buildings including Letchworth Station had to be dressed up as pubs.

Ebenezer Howard devoted a section of his book Garden Cities of Tomorrow to Temperance Reform. He was not keen on alcohol but did not favour banning it completely, instead suggesting that profits from its sale should be diverted to building “asylums for those affected by alcoholism”. He proposed that the provision of services such as pubs should be decided by public ballot.

The early settlers in Letchworth (which included Howard) were idealists seeking Utopia and far from conventional. George Orwell somewhat sweepingly described the new town as attracting every form of “crank: fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature-Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist”. (Road to Wigan Pier, p 152).

When an enlightened ballot was set up to decide the provision of pubs, in which both men and women took part, a small majority voted against. Women carried the day, perhaps because they did not like to see men drunk. Letchworth was a dry town until 1960 with just one inn, The Skittles, set up in 1907. This sold only soft drinks and so was the legendary pub without beer; it was soon also without skittles as the locals shunned the game.

The Directors of the Company building Welwyn Garden were keen to avoid the cranky image of Letchworth, while maintaining its noble objectives. So, a “wet restaurant” was set up called The Cherry Tree. It was a modest wooden structure, designed by Louis de Soissons in 1921, Licenced in 1922. A larger public house replaced it in 1932, which was demolished in 1991. The facade was retained for the Waitrose supermarket now occupying the site.

There already were pubs in the area. The Beehive in the small village of Hatfield Hyde dated from the early 17^th Century, although it was only given a Licence in 1842. Owned by Lord Salisbury it became a favourite destination for early Garden citizens to walk to across the fields on a nice summer evening. Once the QEII hospital opened it was popular with hospital staff. It closed in 2016 as it was losing money and now looks very sad and empty.

The non-conformist spirit was certainly strong in Welwyn Garden. The Welwyn Times for 21/9/23 reports that, following an enquiry from the WGC Church Council, the Parish Council after a lively discussion agreed to ask the WGC Company to prohibit "calling" bells or other continuous ringing. There followed a number of letters in the paper; one favoured a ban to " prevent a small minority disturbing the tranquillity or recreation of the vast majority. Continuous bell ringing on a Sunday is anti-social and intolerable to enlightened communities". Eventually all the churches in the area agreed not to ring their bells, which is still generally the position today.

The provision of pubs in the centre of the town remains a sensitive matter. Wetherspoons bought one of the large houses on Parkway, near the Fountain, some years ago and sought a Licence for a pub to be called the Cherry Tree. This was hotly contested by locals, ostensibly as being in the wrong location but more probably as being the wrong sort of pub. Planning permission was refused twice and in 2021 Wetherspoons threw in the bar towel and put the building up for sale. As this newspaper reports on 5th April, the building is now to be a Nursery School – so no danger of underage drinking.

The Backhouse room

2025-04-09T21:04:04Z

On 26^th August 1922 Edward Backhouse set off with a young Swiss guide to climb a mountain near Zermatt. He was 46 and an experienced climber, but the route was taxing and he was advised to hire an additional guide. None was available but he carried on. After the two men failed to return a search was launched; eventually they were found dead, still roped together, at the foot of a 250 m drop. Edward was buried in the cemetery of St Peter’s in Zermatt, a Protestant Church built especially for the large number of Britons keen to climb the Matterhorn.

Edward was born in 1876 into a wealthy Quaker family. e took a degree at Balliol and then worked for Barclays Bank (which was a merger of several Quaker Banks including Backhouse & Co). He retired aged 40 to pursue nobler causes. During WW1 he was a conscientious objector, and worked as a baker’s roundsman in Camberwell. At the time of his death he was the Labour candidate for Bedford. He left £75,000, (£5.5m today).

Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City were founded by Ebenezer Howard as ideal cities, and they attracted idealists. Just before Howard unexpectedly bought the land for Welwyn in 1919 some Quakers with a connection to Letchworth had formed a Trust to back another New Town. It had money, and no land, while Howard had land but no money - a match made in heaven. In 1921 the Trust took a tenancy for 500 acres from Howard and set up an Agricultural Guild to feed the new arrivals. It also created an Educational Association to provide schools, and built Guessens Court, a cooperative of 40 flats.

Edward Backhouse was the first Chairman of the New Town Trust, and of the Agricultural Guild, and a Director of Welwyn Garden City Ltd. It was therefore a great shock when he was killed.

As Quakers moved into Welwyn Garden they needed somewhere to worship so supported the Educational Association in converting a 17^th Century open fronted cart store, part of an old farm on Handside Lane near the crossroads with Applecroft Road. It was opened on March 23^rd 1923, exactly 100 years ago, “to be used for comradeship and education”. Naturally it was named in honour of Edward. In 1980 it was Listed Grade II.

In 1925 the Friends built a Meeting House nearby on Handside Lane, designed by Quaker architect H Clapham Lander, who had also converted the Backhouse Room. The Room carried on serving community needs, and still does today. The Welwyn Garden City Quaker Meeting took over its management in 1962; if you are interested in renting it email backhousebooking@virginmedia.com.

There is a twist to this story. In the 1930s Quakers were active in resettling Jews fleeing Germany, which was not easy as anti-semitism was rife, including in this country. Jews set up Potters Bar Golf Club in 1923 because they were refused entry to local Clubs. Some rich aristocrats admired Hitler, for his opposition to Communism, including Roland, 2^nd Lord Brocket, (grandfather of Charles, present Lord Brocket). He attended Hitler’s 50^th Birthday party in 1939, entertained leading Nazis at Brocket Hall including Ribbentrop, and acted as a conduit between Chamberlain and Hitler.

At that time Jews could only gain entry to the UK if they were well off, or in transit, or servants. After Kristallnacht, November 9^th 1938, Jewish and Quaker community leaders persuaded the Government to allow 10,000 unaccompanied Jewish children to come here (Kindertransport). The gathering of the children, paperwork, and travel plans were coordinated by Quakers in Vienna and Berlin. In 1947 Quakers from the USA and Britain were jointly awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for this and other humane acts. The British Quaker who travelled to Oslo to collect the Prize was Margaret Backhouse, one of Edward’s sisters. The Backhouse Room has a fine pedigree.

A Brutalist building in Welwyn Garden City being demolished

2025-04-09T19:34:23Z

In our previous article we described the successful conversion into luxury apartments of the near-derelict Roche HQ on Broadwater Road, dating from 1940. On the other side of that road, at Number 29, Roche added in 1977 a large office building to cope with their expanding business.

When Roche moved to their current beautiful new building in Shire Park in 2005, they sold off their earlier buildings - including Number 29. This was used as offices for a variety of businesses but planning permission has been granted to demolish it and build 128 affordable flats on the site. In the past month or so enormous wrecking machines have been at work to clear the site. It was a large muscular building in glass and concrete, typical of the Brutalist style which was popular in the 1960s and 70s.

Above: Roche building at 29 Broadwater Road, WGC designed by James Cubitt & Partners

Some of the more striking examples of Brutalism have been listed, but many more have fallen out of favour and suffered the fate of Number 29. It was well designed by James Cubitt & Partners, who created many of the Roche buildings in Welwyn Garden City. This practice, founded in 1947 and still in business, is highly regarded and examples of their work can be found across the world. Good design though does not provide protection, and large office blocks are falling out of favour. But should it have been demolished? It is much simpler for property developers to flatten existing buildings, then build new flats, rather than convert them. About 50,000 per year are destroyed in this way. But concrete has a colossal carbon footprint - at least 8% of global emissions caused by humans come from the cement industry alone. There is therefore environmental pressure to reduce the output of new concrete, and to maintain existing concrete buildings.

Above: Demolition of the Roche building at 29 Broadwater Road, WGC in 2023

Writing in the Architects' Journal last November an environmental architect, Will Arnold, argued that large buildings should be protected by listing in a new Grade III. The status would apply automatically and would come with just one rule: the property may only be demolished if it is structurally unsafe, or is given special dispensation by the local planning authority. Arnold's proposal would still allow architects to alter layouts, strengthen foundations, add new floors and upgrade facades. He argues: "Such alterations are of course vital if we want to keep doing the most social good for our country. But the restriction on demolition would at last enable us to make rapid inroads towards stashing construction's huge carbon footprint." He pointed to several successful examples of regeneration and indeed the Roche HQ is another.

He concluded: "With the introduction of Grade Ill, development across the UK would change overnight. Re-using what exists already would become the norm." Had Number 29 been listed Grade III it could readily have been regenerated. Indeed, planning permission had been granted in 2019 to convert it into 72 flats. However, the developers wanted more and subsequently won permission for the current scheme. Similarly, had the large concrete and glass BioPark building nearby been protected under Grade Ill there would have been a presumption of regeneration rather that demolition. This would have been much less controversial than the planned redevelopment into high-rise apartments.

Meanwhile, the Grade II Shredded Wheat building and silos stand silent and unused. The longer they languish in this state the more they are at risk. Listing does not guarantee survival. There needs to be some form of reuse that helps both them and the community. The buildings could be regenerated provided they are properly maintained. But what about the silos? How about packing them with lithium batteries, to store surplus electricity at night for use during the day? All ideas welcome!

Originally published in the Welwyn Hatfield Times on 15 March 2023.

The arrival of Roche in WGC and preserving its former HQ

2025-04-09T19:32:49Z

Have you visited Basel in Switzerland? It is one of the top European cities, and has two things in common with Welwyn Garden.

Firstly, its historic centre is separated from its business area; Basel by the Rhine, Welwyn Garden City by the East Coast main line railway. Secondly, both have notable buildings by the healthcare company Roche in their business zones. Roche's headquarters in Basel is a pair of massive pyramidal towers by Herzog & de Meuron. Its Welwyn Garden site, in Shire Park, houses around 2,000 researchers in a beautiful modern building by BDP (Building Design Partnership) whose brief was to provide 'Quality without Ostentation' - very Swiss.

Roche arrived in Broadwater Road, Welwyn Garden City, in 1937, having outgrown an office in Tower Hill. In 1934 they were the first company to mass produce synthetic vitamin C, and its success meant they needed much more space. They commissioned a leading Swiss architect, Otto Salvisberg, to design an off-white modernist HQ and laboratory, complementing the adjacent Shredded Wheat factory. It was made of reinforced concrete with a steel frame and completed in 1940. In 1939 The Architect's Journal had designated it 'Building of the Year'. Our pictures show the stylish design incorporating a magnificent spiral staircase, and a grand boardroom. This had a specially designed mural showing the Roche sites in England, by a Czech artist Waiter Trier, a Jewish emigre. The building was listed Grade II in 1980.

The then new Roche building in Welwyn Garden City, with the Shredded Wheat factory in the background. Pic: WGC Heritage Trust

After the war, Roche added more buildings, initially around and matching the original one. In 1977 they ran out of space and added a large Brutalist office block on the opposite side of Broadwater Road. All these new buildings were designed by James Cubitt and Partners, leading architects of their time. In 2005, the company pulled all its staff into the new building in Shire Park and sold off previous sites.

The old HQ was bought by Taylor Wimpey. They were eventually granted permission to remove the later buildings, replacing them with blocks of flats, but were not allowed to convert the listed HQ. The council commendably wanted this preserved, either by using it still as offices or by the community in order to conserve original features such as the board room. Despite efforts to market it as offices there were no takers, and the building stood empty for ten years, gradually decaying and suffering vandalism. Eventually in 2016 another application was submitted for change of use and conversion to 34 high quality apartments. This was supported by ourselves the Heritage Trust as well as the Welwyn Garden Society and the Twentieth Century Society. Eventually the council caved in, despite misgivings that there was no affordable housing included.

The Roche factory spiral staircase. Picture courtesy Oakbridge Homes.

In 2018, Oakbridge Homes bought the site and began converting it. It was a challenge: the walls and floors throughout were covered in graffiti, windows had been smashed and frames removed for scrap, as was the bronze balustrade to the main staircase. Just as the units were ready for sale, Covid-19 put a stop to viewings. Happily their efforts were ultimately rewarded and all the units sold. It is now called Griffin Place, as a tribute to the city of Base!, which has a griffin as its heraldic symbol.

Above: The Roche factory boardroom in Welwyn Garden City with mural.

This is a success story for lovers of our heritage; a landmark building was saved from demolition by being listed and has been repurposed to great effect. One puzzle remains: while the building was empty the board room mural vanished. If you can help retrieve it you would be doing the town and Roche a great service. Also, we do not have a colour picture of this mural can you help?

How a 'young superman' shaped the look of WGC

2025-04-09T19:31:38Z

One hundred years ago a decision was taken that had a profound effect on Welwyn Garden City, and on Town Planning worldwide. Ebenezer Howard bought the land in 1919; Louis de Soissons was appointed Town Planner and Chief Architect in April 1920, aged 30, and came up with his famous overall plan.

House building started pretty quickly, initially to the design of a Letchworth-based architect, Courtenay Crickmer. He followed the Arts and Crafts style that had been employed at Letchworth, the first garden city, as indeed did de Soissons for the first house he designed, towards the top of Handside Lane. The Board of the Welwyn Garden City Company, set up to build the town, wanted to make a break with Letchworth and so Crickmer moved on.

De Soissons, who had trained in France in the classical school of architecture, decided that the residential areas of WGC should henceforth be in neo-Georgian style. Its characteristics were white timber sash windows, pan-tile roofs, and locally produced red bricks. This was in harmony locally as there are many examples of Georgian houses nearby, for example in Hertford, Old Hatfield and St Albans. Accordingly, in 1923 the Company issued Regulations laying down guidelines to be followed by architects. To ensure that these were met, all plans had to be submitted for approval before work commenced, either by de Soissons or his able deputy, Arthur Kenyon.

Above: A house in Handside Lane, Welwyn Garden City.

This policy was controversial. One of the leading directors of the Company, Richard Reiss (pronounced Rice), wrote in strong terms to the Board's Chairman. "I cannot consent to have de Soissons acting as a dictator on matters of taste, he has delayed building and caused a large amount of friction, if a young superman is to come and impose his will on us and stop work I for one shall have to resign". These threats did not work; de Soissons carried on; Reiss did not resign.

The Board supported Louis because it was far more than a speculative property developer. Frederic Osborn, company secretary, wrote later that it sought to educate the public in architectural appreciation, and that he had invented the slogan "Houses good to live in as well as good to look at." Louis wanted to design every aspect of the town and its buildings. Earlier architects such as Charles Rennie Mackintosh or Frank Lloyd Wright had the same idea (Gesamtkunstwerk in German - literally total work of art) but they had been limited to individual structures. Louis had a whole town to play with. So, every tree was mapped, every contour line plotted, and every structure carefully designed to be harmonious.

Above: Louis de Soissons' former home in Guessens Road, Welwyn Garden City.

The Regulations, issued in 1923, specified that:

- Elevations should be of good appearances on all sides;

- Walls and roofs should be of sound and pleasing materials;

- Principal rooms should have a sunny aspect;

- Projections to the rear should be kept to a minimum;

- Out-buildings should form part of the design.

Even boundary fences and gates had to have Louis' stamp of approval. He did not slavishly stick to neo-Georgian though. See, for example, his Free Church (now known as the United Reform Church) in Church Road of Dutch/ Expressionist style. Also, the industrial buildings on the east side of the railway line, particularly the Shredded Wheat factory that he designed, set new standards in modernism.

Above: Site Planning in Practice at Welwyn Garden City by Louis de Soissons and Arthur Kenyon.

A good source of information on Louis de Soissons' achievement is a beautifully illustrated hardback book, initiated by the Heritage Trust, Site Planning in Practice at Welwyn Garden City, which compares de Soissons' original plans with their appearance today. Priced at £35 plus P&P if required, it is available from the Trust. Contact info@welwyngarden-heritage.org

The history of railway branch lines around WGC

2025-04-09T19:30:00Z

Welwyn Garden City Heritage Trust continues its look back at the history of the second garden city. This week it's the Hertford and Luton branch lines through the town.

Great technical breakthroughs have made some people rich but others poor. Good examples are the dot.com revolution and cryptocurrencies.

In Victorian times it was the railways. In 1830 the Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened; it was the world's first inter-city passenger railway with scheduled services. There soon followed a rush of applications to build lines. Each required an Act of Parliament, but this was easy to obtain as the Government did not vet applications. All it needed was a supportive MP and speculative investors. Railway mania broke out in the 1840s with the price of railway company shares rocketing then collapsing.The mania peaked in 1846, when 263 Acts of Parliament were passed approving new railway companies.

About a third of the railways authorised were never built the companies either collapsed, or were bought out by larger competitors, or turned out to be fraudulent enterprises. The lines around Welwyn were typical of these speculative efforts. The Great Northern Railway was set up in 1846 to connect London and York. It quickly saw that seizing control of territory was key, and acquired many local railways along its route, whether actually built or not.

Above: A map of the Hertford, Luton & Dunstable Railway. Picture: Afterbrunel, Creative Commons.

The Hertford & Welwyn Junction Railway was authorised in 1854, to boost the fortunes of Hertford by linking it to the GNR. The plan was to merge with it at Digswell, via spurs running both north and south. A similar initiative by the burghers of Luton led to the Luton, Dunstable and Welwyn Junction Railway in 1855. This also envisaged joining the GNR at Digswell via similar spurs, plus a bridge over the main line connecting to the Hertford line directly. These two lines were both under financial pressure and amalgamated in an Act of 1858, to form the Hertford, Luton and Dunstable Railway (see map). This was itself swallowed up in 1861 by the GNR, which scrapped the plans to build a bridge and the northbound spurs. Thus, Hatfield became an important junction acting as a terminus for both these branch lines as well as another from St Albans.

After Ebenezer Howard set about creating Welwyn Garden in 1920, a Halt was built on the Luton branch just before it joined the main line. This was important for builders and commuters because special trains ran directly from there to King's Cross a few times a day. It was only a stop gap and made redundant when Welwyn Garden station was opened in 1926, 200 yards to the south of the Halt. It was by then run by the LNER (London and North Eastern Railway), a grouping of railways including the GNR formed in 1923.

Above: The Welwyn Garden City Halt in the early 1920s. Picture: Disused Stations - http://disused-stations.org.uk/

The Luton branch line was well used. Goods trains took gravel from a pit near Wheathampstead and subsequently filled it with rubbish from London. Nurseries were served by daily deliveries of manure from London Zoo. Passengers included playwright George Bernard Shaw travelling from his house in Ayot St Lawrence. The Hertford branch was important too because sidings were constructed off it to serve the new industries on the east side of the town. Goods trains could run from there to the London docks via a link at Hertford.

After serving the town well, these single lines lost traffic to road transport and were closed to through traffic in the mid-1960s. Today parts of both have been converted to attractive level paths for walkers and cyclists. The Luton one - the Ayot Greenway - runs for three miles from the White Bridge.

Above: A view of Cole Green Station, demolished c1975. Picture: David Hillas, Creative Commons.

The Hertford one - the Cole Green Way - runs for six and a half miles, starting from Cole Green Lane. They still serve the town although in ways that would surprise the Victorian speculators who built them.

First published in the Welwyn Hatfield Times on 28 December 2022.

What the LNER did for the future of garden cities

2025-04-09T19:28:50Z

Ebenezer Howard first saw the site of Welwyn Garden from an LNER (London and North Eastern Railway) train, as he commuted from Letchworth (his first Garden City) to London, where he worked as a Parliamentary Reporter for Hansard. He looked out on the sparsely inhabited farmland, and in his imagination thought it would be the ideal spot for a second Garden City.

In May 1919 he got a surprise call giving him some good news - these very fields were coming to auction. The bad news was that the sale was in just six weeks' time. Miraculously he managed to buy the land, without even the funds to meet the deposit; he then turned his mind to planning and building a new town from scratch. Howard had envisaged that railways would be crucial to Garden Cities, and the LNER proved he was right. Firstly, the company specified exactly where it would build a station 200 yards south of the existing Hunters Bridge- which effectively determined where the town centre would be. Next, it demanded 72 acres at a bargain price to provide a stretch of land over 500 yards wide for extra lines.

This cut the site in two; Louis de Soissons, chosen by Howard to be the city planner and chief architect, decided to put houses and shops on the west side and factories on the east. Now that the land directly to the east of the station has been cleared for development one has a panoramic view from the long footbridge over the lines of the impact of these decisions. Next, the LNER was vital in transporting building supplies for the emerging town. These were delivered to a site just off the main line on the branch line that travelled west towards Luton. A halt was constructed there too which for the first few years served to ferry the early settlers to and from London where many of them worked. Sidings were constructed alongside the main line and the Hertford branch line to serve industries like Shredded Wheat, which used them to bring in cereals and send out finished goods.

The main station was opened in 1926 by Neville Chamberlain then Minister of Health and well known to Sir Theodore Chambers, the chairman of the Welwyn Garden City Company. The station was developed into the Howard Centre in 1990. Howard envisaged that Garden Cities would provide employment for those who lived in them but this was never true of Letchworth or Welwyn Garden. Instead, a significant proportion of their citizens were commuters, relying on fast trains to London.

With the growth of working from home this group may dwindle, so perhaps Howard's dream may be not so farfetched after all.

This article by Geoffrey Hollis for the WGC Heritage Trust was first published in the Welwyn Hatfield Times on 7 Dec 2022.

Remembering the tragic 1935 WGC train crash

2025-04-09T19:27:48Z

At 11.28pm on Saturday 15th June 1935, Wilson Bibby was arriving at the Cherry Tree restaurant in Welwyn Garden City (now the site of Waitrose) to take people home from a dance. Suddenly he heard a dull-sounding explosion, followed by a series of heavy grinding noises.

"I looked towards the station and saw a great red glare reflected in smoke and escaping steam. People came rushing out from the dance hall, many of them in evening dress to help shift the wreckage. They were met by a scene of horror, with dead and injured scattered along the track, and buried under tons of wreckage.

One of the most cool-headed workers was a woman, Dr Miall-Smith [subject of our previous article]. She had heard the fire alarm, was the first doctor on the scene, and worked all night to help the injured. We had to make improvised stretchers out of coach seats. Some of the people were terribly mutilated, and many of the rescuers were overcome with nausea. I saw a small black dog lying on one side of the track. Nearby was a bowler hat with a piece of wood sticking out of the dome. One of the most dreadful sights was that of a baby which had been crushed."

The crash was caused by human error: a signalman in the Welwyn box had mistakenly allowed two trains travelling north from King's Cross to enter the same section of track. The first, the 10.53 express to Newcastle, had been slowed by a signal and was leaving the station at 20mph; the second, which had started its journey at 10.58, ploughed into it at 50-60mph. The guard's van in the first train was pulverised, killing the guard and his dog instantly. The carriage in front of it was badly damaged but none of its occupants were seriously injured. The remaining nine carriages ahead were amazingly undamaged as they were modern with heavy duty couplings which kept them upright.

Above: A double page spread from The Illustrated London News reporting on the fatal collision at Welwyn Garden City on 15 June 1935 between two LNER trains, one from King's Cross to Leeds, the other from King's Cross to Newcastle. Picture courtesy Illustrated London News / Mary Evans Picture Library.

The first train was allowed to continue its journey after decoupling the damaged carriages. One of its passengers, Henry Robinson, had fallen asleep when it had left King's Cross and slept through the whole crash, only waking next morning and wondering where he was. The passengers in the second train were not so fortunate. Several of its carriages were of older design and were thrown off the track causing many casualties. The engine driver, Charles Barnes, survived because the locomotive was tremendously strong. It was able to move away under its own steam after the wreckage had been cleared the next day.

Fourteen people were killed, of all ages, in the crash. Several families suffered multiple losses: one poor man had to identify his mother, his wife, and their young son, who were among the dead. Twenty-nine people were seriously injured.

There were many acts of heroism that night, none more so than those of Dr Gladys Miall-Smith.

An enquiry found that the signalling system was poorly designed. It recommended changes which automatically prevented two trains being on the same section; this became known as the Welwyn Control and became a national standard. The jury at the ensuing inquest found the signalman not culpably negligent, and that the deaths were accidental.

First published in the Welwyn Hatfield Times on 16 Nov 2022.

Dr Gladys - Welwyn Garden City's first GP

2025-04-09T19:26:32Z

In Iran, girls are protesting against discrimination by men. In 1921, a young lady doctor, Dr Gladys Miall-Smith, declined a request from her employer, St Pancras Borough Council, to resign as an assistant medical officer following her marriage to another doctor, Hubert Fry.

The council then voted by a large majority to dismiss her on the grounds that jobs should be reserved for people who needed the pay. Gladys did not go quietly and became a national figure. Her sacking was clearly absurd as she was a superb doctor.

Born in 1888, she qualified in 1916, was a surgeon in Great Ormond Street Hospital, served two tours of duty in field hospitals in France during the First World War, and then specialised in obstetrics and public health. She was invited to apply for posts across the country by more enlightened employers. Richard Reiss, a director of Welwyn Garden City Ltd and a friend of Hubert, was one. She and Hubert moved in 1922 to 18 Brockswood Lane and thence to 17 Valley Road.

Gladys worked as a GP during the week and Hubert took the role at weekends, as he was a pathologist during the week. There was no NHS then, so together with a third doctor they founded a Health Association. For a subscription of one penny a week per family, members could benefit from infant welfare clinics (run by Gladys), a district nurse, and reduced rates for treatment at local hospitals. The association won many national awards; in 1931 the Ministry of Health declared that the town had the highest standards of care in the country. The town's mortality rate was considerably lower than the national average. She knew all the key figures in the gestation of Welwyn Garden City, including Ebenezer Howard, whom she described as very quiet but determined.

Gladys carried on campaigning to improve the lot of women, being an active member of the women's Freedom League. Sadly Hubert died young in 1930, having acquired an infection while carrying out a postmortem. Gladys was left as a single mother with three young children.

She retired as a GP in 1950, when her children had grown up, but carried on practising at infant and school clinics. These were not only in England, she worked for two years in hospitals in Ghana, and also in Rhodesia and South Africa.

The last years of her life were spent in Elizabeth House, Panshanger. Gladys Miall-Smith died on January 3, 1991, aged 102. Perhaps because of her upbringing - her parents were both outspoken radicals and humanists - and her challenging life, Dr Miall-Smith was assertive and could be intimidating. One young patient remembers being frightened of her and hiding under the bedclothes when she visited.

Her long life of service and dedication to public health mark her out as an outstanding woman.

First published in the Welwyn Hatfield Times on 26 Oct 2022.

The life of Cresta Silks founder Tom Heron

2025-04-09T19:25:14Z

Many talented people were needed to build up Welwyn Garden City and one of the most creative was Tom Heron. In our previous article we described Cresta Silks, the company he founded. This time we are going to look at the man himself.

Tom was born in 1890 into a middle class family in Bradford where his father ran a business wholesaling fabrics. One of his teachers had tried to persuade his parents to let him try for a scholarship to Oxford University but they wanted him to go into the family firm, which he did at age 16, as an office boy. As a young man he came under the influence of many talented individuals in the Leeds Art Club. There he met artists such as Paul Nash, who many years later designed patterns for him, and Stanley Spencer. He was a patron of avant-garde art and active in progressive causes, supporting suffragettes and becoming a lifelong pacifist.

At that time one had to be at least 21 to run a business. On his 21st birthday, in February 1911, he went into business in Leeds on his own account, making blouses. This prospered despite the outbreak of war in 1914, eventually employing 200 people. He registered as a Conscientious Objector, and - unusually for a company owner - embraced socialism, joining the Fabian Society.

He met Eulalie Davies, daughter of a congregational Minister, who shared his beliefs; they were married in a Quaker Meeting House in September 1918. Their marriage lasted until Tom's death at age 93 in 1983. She died in 1986. They had four children: Patrick, famous artist; Michael, Benedictine monk; Joanna, who cared for them both in their final years in her home in Cumbria; and Giles, an organic farmer. After a spell in Crysede Silks in Cornwall, Tom looked for somewhere to start a new business. He had "watched the Garden City movement with interest since its inception and had always thought the idea a good one". Also "having as a young man had to catch a train at 7.30am a mile away from my home in order to reach my father's business thirty miles away, I decided that as soon as I could manage it I would live near my work". So he brought his family to Welwyn Garden City where he founded Cresta Silks in 1929.

Tom and Eulalie were both committed Christians, eventually settling down as active Anglicans in St Francis Church. His religious and political beliefs were put into practice in Cresta. Following in the footsteps of William Morris, he sought to create a company which generated profits but where profit was not the main goal. Staff were valued as individuals - many stayed for decades; quality was overarching, and creative artists were at the centre. An article in the Welwyn Times in 1933 recognised that Cresta had a wider purpose than most manufacturing concerns: "It believes not only that clothes express personality but that they actually affect the future of civilisation." Initially the Herons lived in a large house at 76 Brockswood Lane. In 1961, they moved to number 38 ("half the number and half the size") and in 1978 retired to Cumbria. Space does not allow a full account of this exceptional man, who was also a poet and a writer.

His son Giles with author John S Peart-Binns wrote a biography 'Rebel & Sage' in 2001 which is highly recommended.

First published in the Welwyn Hatfield Times on 5th Oct 2022.

Follow the silk trail around WGC - the history of Cresta Silks

2025-04-09T19:23:04Z

An interesting way to spend half an hour in Welwyn Garden City is to take the Cresta Walk. Start at one of the Sectional buildings on Broadwater Road, such as occupied currently by Topps Tiles. These flexible units were built by the Welwyn Garden City Company in the 1920s to attract start-up companies.

One was taken in 1929 by Tom Heron, who wanted to create a business producing and marketing block printed silk garments for discerning women. He had started making blouses when only 21 in Leeds, then moved to Cornwall to work for Crysede, a leading designer of silks. He was successful there but felt he could do more.

Choosing Welwyn Garden because of its forward looking image - and because the Company provided essential funding - he set up Cresta Silks. Heron employed modern artists to design his products, including his young son Patrick, who went on to be an outstanding figure in British art. He chose modernist Wells Coates to design his retail shops, in London, Bournemouth and Brighton, which broke new ground. They attracted go-ahead women who wanted reasonably priced but stylish and well made clothes.

Cresta flourished. It moved in 1938 to a new building, our second stop, beside the railway station in the town centre, with a shop and factory behind. Heron had to conform to neo-Georgian styling because of planning restraints. It stood in splendid isolation on the corner of Howardsgate/ Stonehills. Now it is McDonald's, Stonehills has been narrowed and a matching building has been infilled.

Silk was hard to come by during the war so Cresta turned to wool. Heron helped his country by joining the Board of Trade to set up the Utility Clothing Scheme, which provided well-designed clothes at minimum cost. In 1951, with Heron looking to retire, the business was taken over by the Howardsgate Trust, which had been set up to facilitate disposal of the assets of the Welwyn Garden City Company when it had been wound up. In 1954 Cresta moved to Welwyn Stores, also owned by Howardsgate Trust.

Our walk concludes in the toy department of John Lewis. Imagine it full of machinists, working behind windows which were blacked out (and still are) because residents objected to seeing a factory on Parkway. Cresta continued successfully for some time but moved away from block printing. Debenhams bought it in 1957, moved it out of Welwyn Garden, then closed it in 1980.

Tom Heron was a remarkable man and an important citizen of Welwyn Garden. We will write more about him in our next article.

First published in the Welwyn Hatfield Times on 31 Aug 2022.

Sign of the times: The life of WGC signwriter Arthur Brown

2025-04-09T19:21:31Z

Russians attacking Ukraine have fired missiles with apparently little regard for civilian casualties. It puts the clock back to World War Two, when more civilians were killed than military personnel. WGC suffered bombing attacks being near Hatfield, where the de Havilland factory was manufacturing Mosquito aircraft.

Arthur and Dorothy Brown were downstairs in the kitchen of 61 Handside Lane on the evening of 26th September 1940 when a bomb fell in their front garden. Displaced soil came through the roof and crushed their bed. If they had retired early they would have been killed. Happily they only suffered minor injuries but their house was heavily damaged. As we mentioned in an earlier article, it and the adjoining number 63 had to be demolished.

Arthur made an important contribution to the look of Welwyn Garden City. He was born in 1889 and in 1920 was recruited from Rochester Row School of Arts and Crafts to work for the Welwyn Garden City Company doing lettering layouts. He had started his career as a letter cutter in stone, apprenticed to Eric Gill, but broadened his work to include calligraphy.

Arthur’s most obvious work was the first road signs for which he designed an alphabet using the Nuneaton script. He made large wooden letters and screwed them to a wooden backing to spell out a street name. From this a cast was taken and used as a mould at the foundry for molten metal. Some of these signs survive; later ones use a typeface called Kindersley, after its designer David Kindersley, who also was once apprenticed to Eric Gill.

A contemporary recalled: “You would see Arthur dangling his legs high up on a scaffold, lettering a huge board depicting the site of some factory which is probably a household name today. “He also helped to teach the early citizens good manners, with little cream and green boards warning ‘Please keep off the grass’.”

Arthur opened his own sign-writing business around 1933 in a hut at 28 Bridge Road and was a founder member of the WGC Craftworkers Guild.

He died of a heart condition on 20th July 1950. Dorothy outlived him by 31 years. Some of his road signs are with us still.

First published in the Welwyn Hatfield Times on 10th Aug 2022.

WGC's Coronation Fountain

2025-04-09T19:19:58Z

Water has always been an important resource and the Romans made great engineering efforts to pipe it into their cities. So successful were they that there was often some to spare. To celebrate their success they introduced fountains - literally splashing out!

Fountains are great symbols of urban pride, and it was natural for Welwyn Garden City to build one to mark the Coronation in 1953 of Queen Elizabeth II. The designer was Kenneth Peacock, a partner in Louis de Soissons Architects. The site is in the middle of Parkway at the top of Howardsgate - a wonderful focal point.

The fountain has a bronze crown for a base comprised of 16 leaves, set within a basin edged in stone, 17 metres across (55 feet), holding 20,000 litres (4,400 gallons). There are nine jets and floodlighting both inside the ground and around the basin of the fountain. It cost £4,600, equivalent to nearly £1.5 million today.

It was 'unveiled' on a summer evening by Arthur Vickery, chairman of Welwyn Garden City UDC. Mr Scoffham, the UDC's engineer, had been on site at sunrise that morning to test the fountain while there was no one around. His efforts were rewarded. Arthur Cornner, the corporation's senior engineer, said "that's the first 'opening' of a public fountain I've been at where the jets were not set awry and did not spurt spectators with cold water." In spite of rain and wind, there were street parties to celebrate the Coronation, and a 25-mile cycle race.

The Fountain has kept going more or less ever since, but not without incident. In the harsh winter of 1962-63 it froze over in a great mound of ice on which children could climb.

In 2012, it was switched off because of a hose pipe ban but this coincided with the Olympic Torch being carried through the town centre (remember?). The council controversially paid £450 to refill it from a lake.

It was garlanded in poppies in 2018, the centenary of the end of World War One. Several times it has been dyed pink to signal breast cancer awareness. In 2019, ahead of the town's centenary, the council spent £22,000 to burnish the bronze, refurbish the jets, and upgrade the lighting.

The fountain remains a much loved feature of the town; long may it continue to entertain us.

The above article by Geoffrey Hollis for the WGC Heritage Trust was first published in the Welwyn Hatfield Times on 20 July 2022.

The photographic studio that took pictures of the King and Queen

2025-04-09T18:54:32Z

Open any popular newspaper and there is a good chance of seeing an informal picture of a member of the Royal Family. But it was not always thus - before 1936 Royal images were strictly formal. All that changed one day in June of that year when photographers Lisa and Jimmy Sheridan set off from Welwyn Garden City to photograph the Duke and Duchess of York and their daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, then aged ten and six, who lived in the Royal Lodge in Windsor Park.

Lisa was the artistic one of the pair, deciding when pictures should be taken, while Jimmy was a skilled photographer. Their images of the family relaxing in the garden with their dogs went around the world.

The Sheridans, who traded as Studio Lisa, became Royal photographers and had many more photoshoots with the King and Queen, as the Duke and Duchess became in 1938. When Queen Elizabeth II broadcast her first televised Christmas message in 1957, two framed Studio Lisa photographs of Prince Charles and Princess Anne were displayed on her desk. Lisa and Jimmy were justifiably proud of this connection and displayed a large Royal Coat of Arms on the front of their house, as well as a Warrant above the door 'By Royal Appointment'.

They had started in Broadstairs, Kent, but in 1934 decided to move nearer to London and discovered Welwyn Garden. Number 14 Parkway was newly built and proved ideal with room to add a studio in the back garden. As well as Royal commissions they had a large commercial practice. Lisa kept an eye out for photogenic local children to advertise products such as baby foods.

Jimmy enjoyed watching the town's expansion and recorded its growth. His photographs now comprise a unique historical collection. One of their two daughters, Dinah, became a top film actress, starring in Genevieve in 1953.

You can read more about Studio Lisa in a well-illustrated book by Rodney Laredo, 'Informally Royal - Studio Lisa and the Royal Family 1936-1966'.

Number 14 is on the west side of Parkway near the Campus. Look out for the frame above the door where the Royal Warrant was displayed.

First published in the Welwyn Hatfield Times on 6 July 2022.

Queen's secret revealed on trip to open QEII Hospital

2025-04-09T18:52:42Z

In this, the Queen's Platinum Jubilee year, Welwyn Garden City Heritage Trust looks back on the day when Queen Elizabeth II opened the new hospital named after her in the third of their regular columns delving into WGC's past.

On July 22, 1963, the Queen visited Welwyn Garden City to open the first general hospital to be built after the war, and which was to bear her name. There were several hospitals named after Queen Elizabeth, who was by then the Queen Mother, so this one was designated QEII.

This was a Red Letter Day for the town, and many companies closed to allow their staff to watch. Roads around the hospital were packed by the crowds who had turned out to greet Her Majesty on the Royal visit.

School pupils walked in large groups from as far away as Digswell to line the route of her Rolls-Royce. They were issued with Union Jacks, reportedly paid for by Barbara Cartland. When the Queen had passed some were disappointed that they had to walk all the way back to school to restart lessons.

One man, who was seven at the time, recalled: "We had to write about what we had seen had in particular what the Queen was wearing. "I, as a boy, had no clue; being colour blind, even less clue! Luckily a girl next to me said she had green gloves on. What a day!"

When the Queen got to the new hospital, a nurse, Louise Fairbrother, presented her with a bouquet. When Louise died, a fountain was erected in the grounds bearing her name.

A lady shared her memory of what happened next with the Heritage Trust "A select few wives of consultants and GPs were allowed viewing space In what was the Outpatient Department overlooking the front of the building, beautifully planted with Masquerade roses - very fashionable at the time. It was a beautiful - warm and golden with sunshine. We looked at Her Majesty with some interest. One of the young GPs among us proclaimed, 'The Queen's pregnant - she's wearing elastic stockings'. A number of us were pregnant at the time so were well tuned into her condition. We felt a certain sympathy with her discomfort whilst also admiring her dedication to duty. A few weeks later the announcement came from the Palace that the Queen was with child - Prince Edward to be. We at the opening ceremony already knew."

The Welwyn Times printed a special supplement in colour to mark the occasion, which included some charming pictures of the Queen meeting patients and staff.

First published in the Welwyn Hatfield Times on 22 June 2022.

Mud, glorious mud!

2025-04-09T10:25:54Z

An early challenge for the Welwyn Garden City Company, which had been incorporated to put Ebenezer Howard's plans into reality, was housing the builders, planners and other employees. Ex-army huts were erected in a clearing where Campus West now stands as temporary homes for the builders, but houses were needed for everyone else - and quickly.

A hamlet, Handside, of eight cottages lay roughly in the centre of the nearly 2,800 acres which Ebenezer Howard had purchased. It had an all-important well and stood at the junction of Handside Lane and Brockswood Lane, then little more than narrow farm tracks, so was a natural starting point. (Any road in Welwyn Garden City bearing the name 'Lane' indicates an original track which often led to a farm).

Fifty houses were built rapidly along Handside Lane, which wandered downhill towards the Great North Road at Lemsford. These houses were designed by Courtney

Crickmer, an architect from Letchworth who had been appointed in July 1919 to prepare a preliminary town plan. Crickmer had his own practice designing houses in Arts & Crafts style for Letchworth and Hampstead Garden Suburb.

His designs for the houses in Handside Lane seem remarkably similar to his in Letchworth and were not what the Company wanted. They believed that the newer town should look different from its predecessor. Their requests went unheeded by Crickmer and after an argument over fees he left. His designs were implemented

though; the first brick was laid on April26, 1920, and the houses were completed by the winter of that year. They are the 50 white rendered houses from the corner of what is now Russellcroft Road going south. Two were bombed in the war (numbers 61 and 63) and are replacements.

We will talk about the early residents in a subsequent article. They had to be tough as the new houses did not get a proper road surface for quite a while; when it rained the Lane became a quagmire. One contemporary tale was that someone discovered a bowler hat floating in the Lane; on lifting it up its wearer was discovered, submerged in the mud!

You can discover these houses and much more by following the Town Centre Trail, developed by the Trust. This is one of two Digital Heritage Trails using the capabilities of smartphones. .Look for the blue plaque at number 43, the first house occupied.

published in the Welwyn Hatfield Times on 8th June 2022.

An Ideal Factory producing an Ideal Food

2025-04-08T22:05:56Z

The Shredded Wheat factory in Welwyn Garden City is still a landmark, despite being much reduced. It was opened by the 4th Marquess of Salisbury on March 16th 1926. The Welwyn Garden City News – forerunner of the Welwyn Hatfield Times – reported the ceremony at length. Lord Salisbury, who had sold some of his land to Ebenezer Howard for the new City, declared that the factory was “a splendid augury of what was coming”.

The Chairman of the Canadian Company boasted that it was an “ideal factory producing an ideal food”. They had chosen Welwyn Garden because of the clean, healthy and pleasant surroundings, which were a perfect fit for the image they had created of their pure and healthy product.

Its design, by Louis de Soissons, was at the cutting edge of Modern architecture, rivalling the Bauhaus in Dessau which was opened in 1925. One newspaper described it as: "A palace of crystal, its great walls of glass held together by slender white tiled columns of concrete".

The construction of the silos used hydraulically jacked sliding shutters for the first time in this country.

Its staff enjoyed conditions that were unheard of. They did not work at the weekend. They were allowed 15-minute breaks in the morning and afternoon. They had a free canteen for lunch. Although most operations were mechanised the packing of biscuits was not. There was an annual award for the fastest packer, the first going to Kate Potter who packed an incredible 32,400 biscuits in a working day.

Because of its outstanding architectural merit and importance to the development of Welwyn Garden City the factory and original set of silos were Listed Grade II in 1981.

Above: The souvenir given to the Marquess of Salisbury following the opening of the Shredded Wheat factory in March 1926. Picture: Holly Robertson, Hatfield House.

At the Opening Ceremony the Marquess was presented with a silver cigarette case, surmounted by a shredded wheat. This magnificent piece is still in Hatfield House and displayed at important occasions. The Heritage Trust fervently hopes that one day there will be another ceremony – perhaps by the present Marquess – when this iconic building is brought back to life.

Above: Shredded Wheat factory photographed from footbridge - showing Nabisco logo. Image donated to the WGC Heritage Trust archive by Cereal Partners UK as part of the 'Where Do You Think We Worked?' project.

Originally published in the Welwyn Hatfield Times on 18 May 2022.