The New Town of Stevenage

The post-Second World War British “New Towns” had their genesis in early 20th century “Garden City” planning along with a growing sense during the 1930s that bolder steps to make better use of land, plan coherently for expansion and growth and manage the many problems of inner-city overcrowding and slum conditions were required. The 1944 Abercrombie Report into planning in Greater London suggested a series of satillite towns around London and in 1945 a New Towns Commission, under the chairmanship of Lord Reith, was announced.

In 1946 the new postwar Labour Government accordingly passed the New Towns Act 1946 that gave statutory and legal powers to enable the planning, development and construction of a series of “New Towns”. Progress was swift and on 1 August 1946 Stevenage in Hertfordshire was designated as the first New Town and the Stevenage Development Corporation was formed. The Corporation was required first to draw up a master plan, necessitating discussions with numerous central and local government interests as well as carrying out physical activities such as site surveys to ensure that physically development could take place.

Despite local opposition, and a legal setback to the plans that was eventually overcome, work did start on site albeit slowly due to postwar austerity and capital constraints. The design was predicated by the planning ethos that saw the own comprise a series of self contained neighbourhood units that had a degree of ‘self-sufficiency’ with local shops, education and health facilities. The neighbourhoods were linked to a new central Town Centre and an industrial zone; at Stevenage this was to the west of the main line railway as was to be the new A1 road bypass – the latter was not completed until 1962.

This booklet, in two editions from 1949 and a second in 1950, was printed at the Shenval Press of London and Hertford and the cover shows the prevailing contemporary typographic ‘look’ of simple and bold use of typefaces: a large size of Olympic, with letterspaced capitals from Thorowgood Sans Shaded. One interesting point; the first edition gives the first Chairman of the Corporation as being The Rev. Charles Jenkinson, the fiery priest who had become famous in his adopted Leeds for furthering social housing causes. Jenkinson, as the second edition notes, sadly died on 3 August 1949 and was replaced by Monica Felton who was equally, it appears, fiesty. Many sources give the first Chairman as being Clough Williams-Ellis yet his name appears nowhere in these official publications.

See images from the interior in Mike Ashworth’s Flickr set.