Geoffrey Hollis

Posts for Tag: Welwyn Hatfield times

Queen's secret revealed on trip to open QEII Hospital


Queen Elizabeth II

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!


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


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.