welwyn – Unravel Travel

Garden cities of Hertfordshire

It’s an odd thing that when I take the train from Cambridge to London’s Kings Cross station I pass through both of the original Garden Cities, at Letchworth and Welwyn, as well as a couple of the later New Towns, at Stevenage and Hatfield (and if I go to Liverpool Street instead of King’s Cross I pass through Harlow New Town). For those who are not familiar with them, garden cities and new towns were twentieth-century responses to the dreadful living conditions in Victorian industrial cities. To be fair, industrialists had tried to improve living conditions from the end of the eighteenth century, in model villages such as New Lanark, Saltaire, Port Sunlight and Bourneville, but it was Ebenezer Howard‘s book To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (1898), revised as Garden Cities of To-morrow (1902), which caught the public imagination and launched a movement. The aim was to create a community with the benefits of both town (good jobs, educational and cultural opportunities) and country (nature, fresh air and low rents), expressed in Howard’s diagram of The Three Magnets (remembered in the name of the Wetherspoons pub in Letchworth…), with Town, Country and Town-Country pulling the People towards them.

Howard founded a company called First Garden City Limited which raised funds and bought land, and drew up plans with the architects and planners Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker; construction began in 1903 with the first cottages occupied the next year. In 1905 the first school was completed as well as the Mrs Howard Memorial Hall (in memory of Howard’s first wife, who had died in 1904) and the Cheap Cottages Exhibition, aiming to show that houses could be built for £150. This brought a lot of publicity, and around 114 of the original 131 cottages are still occupied (with round green plaques by the front door). These are mostly north of the railway, along Nevells Road, The Quadrant and Wilbury Road (the current station dates from 1912, following earlier halts in 1903 and 1905), but most of the public buildings, shops, schools, cinemas etc are to the south, as well as the Urban Cottage Exhibition Area on Lytton Avenue, which followed in 1907. Also opened in 1907 was the Skittles Inn at the east end of Nevells Road, the famous ‘pub with no beer’ which nevertheless became a popular adult education centre. Many architects were involved in addition to Parker and Unwin, such as CM Crickmer, Baillie Scott (mentioned in my post on West Cambridge), William Clough (whose nephew Sir Clough Williams-Ellis worked as site supervisor here, and went on the build the fantasy village of Portmeirion from 1925) and others, creating an attractive medley of styles, mostly rooted in the Arts and Crafts movement, and there are plenty of gardens and other green spaces, as intended. The shopping centre and public buildings are in a slightly grander, more classical, style.

But there was always meant to be industry here as well – the most obvious example is the wonderful Spirella corset factory immediately northwest of the station, now converted to offices. Irving Parachutes (founded in 1925) and the British Tabulating Machine Company (which arrived in 1920, and made the Bombe machines for Alan Turing’s code-breakers at Bletchley Park) both played major rôles in World War Two; the latter eventually became the computer company ICL (taken over by Fujitsu in 1998). The Anglia Match Company was founded (under a different name, no doubt) in Salzburg by Ukrainian-Jewish brothers who moved the business here in 1935 (it closed in 1954).

The town is only accidentally car-dominated, unlike the post-World War Two new towns, which were designed that way. Even so, there should be a lot more cycle parking, and the route west to Hitchin needs to improved, which wouldn’t take a great deal of work. The National Cycle Network’s route 12 runs north-south through the town, passing the UK’s first roundabout (c.1909), just south of the centre at the Broadway/Sollershott junction.

Quakers and Theosophists were prominent among the early residents, and as mentioned above alcohol was frowned upon when the town was founded; however there are now a few decent pubs, and even the Garden City Brewery.

In terms of museums, Letchworth is a bit rubbish, as North Hertfordshire Council decided to consolidate its offering, closing the Letchworth Museum and Art Gallery in 2012 and eventually opening a pretty good new museum in the former Hitchin Town Hall in 2019. But One Garden City, which now manages Letchworth, decided it did need a museum after all, and in June 2019 opened a one-room micro-museum exploring Letchworth’s social history for school groups. Of course you can walk or cycle around and get a feel for the place. I have the detailed 1977 Letchworth Conservation Area map which describes many of the original buildings – I don’t think it’s available now, but may be able to find a series of Heritage Trail leaflets. Otherwise, there are organised walks such as this.

One thing that caught my eye in the Hitchin museum was the painting of The Red Curtain (c1916) by Harold Gilman, one of the leaders of the (post-Impressionist) Camden Town Group, who moved to Letchworth in 1908 (living first at 15 Westholm Green, then at 100 Wilbury Road). The Red Curtain was painted in the living room of Stanley Parker, brother of the architect Barry. Spencer Gore visited Gilman and produced fine paintings of Gilman’s House, Wilbury Road and Letchworth Station.

Next stop, Welwyn

The second Garden City, at Welwyn, was founded after World War One – it was much closer to London (on the Great North Road and the Great Northern Railway) and it was accepted that many residents would commute to the big city, but it was also a successful development of Howard’s ideas. Nowadays it seems more City than Garden, in comparison with Letchworth, but it does have splendid green axes, mainly north and south along Parkway. It was laid out by the French-Canadian architect Louis de Soissons (1890–1962), who used grander Queen Anne and neo-Georgian styles in the centre than at Letchworth – but the residential areas are pleasantly green and informal. Instead of cheap cottages, Welwyn had the the Daily Mail Ideal Home Model Village (41 houses on Meadow Green and Handside Lane) opened by Earl Haig in 1922.

Just to the northwest (in the steep valley crossed by the Digswell viaduct, the major two-track bottleneck on the East Coast Main Line), the original village of Welwyn is now known as Old Welwyn and has preserved much of its charm – I’m always happy to see the plaque noting that Vincent Van Gogh walked here from Ramsgate in 1876 to see his sister Anne, who was teaching French here. It’s near St Mary’s church, a classic thirteenth-century structure that’s listed Grade II.

The railway (a much wider corridor than at Letchworth) became a barrier, with the new centre to the west and industry and what soon became ‘wrong-side-of-the-tracks’ housing to the east. Immediately east of the station, the Shredded Wheat silos are a familiar landmark – built in 1926 by de Soissons (inspired by Le Corbusier, but also by the grain silos of the Canadian prairies), the factory closed in 2008 and has been a problem ever since. Originally called Welgar (geddit?) and later Nabisco, it’s now been dubbed the Wheat Quarter, but all proposals for its future use have been bogged down in controversy. Plans by Tesco (whose headquarters are nearby) for a mixed-use development have been rejected by the planners; 27 of the silos were demolished in 2017, and there’s now talk of building 1,220 homes with arts and community spaces – but the buildings would be up to ten storeys high, double anything previously allowed here.

It’s a long way across the railway to the Wheat Quarter

One surprising thing about Welwyn is that you can visit some Roman baths here; what’s weirder is that they are right under the A1(M) motorway. A steel vault was installed when the new road was built, and in fact you’re hardly aware of the heavy vehicles thundering overhead. They’re not the best Roman baths I’ve seen, but they’re worth a visit.

Change for Hampstead

In addition to the two garden cities, there’s Hampstead Garden Suburb, which arose in response to fear of development following the opening of Golders Green station (on the London underground’s Northern line) in 1907. Initially there was talk of an extension of Hampstead Heath, but then Unwin left Letchworth to plan a garden suburb, involving architects of the calibre of Edwin Lutyens, then known for his work on country houses but later famous for laying out New Delhi, inspired by Garden City principles. Baillie Scott was also involved here, as (in the 1930s) was Ernst Freud (son of Sigmund). It has grand public buildings and churches, informal residential areas, green spaces, but no industry or pubs, and few shops. The extension created to the east in 1911-12 was soon cut off when Lyttelton Road and Falloden Way were connected to the Barnet Bypass and became part of the A1, near its junction with the North Circular, still a sewer of pollution and noise. I don’t know the area well, but it’s long been known as a good place to live, with intellectual and artistic associations.

Trier – we have the best Roman baths

A couple of months ago I found myself by chance at the Welwyn Roman Bath, which just consists of a few low walls and is of relatively little interest except for the fact that it’s in a vault like an air-raid shelter directly beneath the A1(M) motorway (which is totally inaudible). But it reminded me that I wanted to write about Trier, a small town in Germany which was once the capital of the Roman Empire. It’s not that well known today, probably because few of the Roman remains could be excavated until after World War II, and also perhaps because of its position on the far westernmost side of Germany, close to Luxembourg.

The history of Trier

A small Celtic town was conquered by the Romans in the late 1st century (and still claims to be the oldest town in Germany). It was just a local administrative centre (capital of the Civitas Treveroum) until AD 269, when it became capital of the Gallic Empire (not recognised by Rome), governing Gaul, Britannia and parts of Hispania, Germania and Raetia. This lasted just five years before being re-integrated into the Roman Empire, and in 275/6 and 287 Trier was destroyed by Germanic (barbarian) invasions. In 286 the Emperor Diocletian created Maximinian his co-regent, then appointed two more to form a tetrarchy, and Trier became capital of Gaul and an imperial residence (and Trevorum became Augusta Treverorum, meaning The City of Augustus among the Treveri). A palace district, including the Imperial Baths, was created in the eastern part of the present-day city, but work stopped as Constantine the Great (who had spent a lot of time here from 306 to 316) switched his attention to the Eastern Empire. From 328 Constantine II (son of Constantine the Great) was based in Trier; he was Emperor of the West from 337 to 340, followed by his brothers Constans I until 350 and Constantius II until 353. This was a time of revolts, but after 364 there was peace, and Trier saw its heyday under the emperors Valentinian I (who continued building the palace district, completing the baths in 375 – although they were used as barracks) and his son Gratian. Its population may have been as high as 100,000, the same as today. Valentinian II was the last emperor to occasionally reside in Trier, and after 395 Trier lost its importance, as the imperial court moved to Milan and the provincial administration to Arles.

In about 460-470 it was taken over by the Franks and developed steadily as part of the Holy Roman Empire, its bishops becoming archbishops and prince-electors, responsible for choosing the next emperor. One amusing footnote concerns the Synod of Trier (1147) which went a bit wrong when some of the bishops went to Troyes in France instead – it was reconvened in 1148 as the Council of Reims.

France attempted to seize Trier during the Thirty Years’ War, the War of the Grand Alliance, the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Polish Succession, and the French Revolutionary Wars – it was captured by France in 1794 and the electoral archbishopric was dissolved, along with the Holy Roman Empire itself, in 1806. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, Trier passed to the Kingdom of Prussia, and continued to develop, with industrialisation to go along with the well-established wine industry.

The sights

So what can be seen now? Lots – there are plenty of Roman ruins (and a lot more still to be excavated) and some fantastic churches, which mostly have Roman origins anyway. They’re all part of UNESCO’s Roman Monuments, Cathedral of St. Peter and Church of Our Lady in Trier World Heritage Site, created in 1986 – details are here. The most famous Roman remains are probably the Imperial Baths (Kaiserthermen), which cover a wide expanse just south of the city centre, with atmospheric underground passages; there’s a good little museum here. Near the Imperial Baths, a little way southeast of the centre off Spotzmühle, is the amphitheatre – built to seat around 18,000 in the second century, this mostly staged bloody fights, animals against animals, gladiators against animals, and no doubt gladiators against gladiators too.

I was particularly taken by the St Barbara Baths (Barbara-thermen), southwest of the Altstadt on Bäderstrasse, which were built in the 2nd century outside the city walls in the suburb later named after the abbey of St Barbara. Covering an area 172m by 240m, they were the second largest baths in the Roman Empire, and the largest north of the Alps. Abandoned from the 5th century, a church and houses were built inside their walls, and then destroyed in the 17th century, when the Roman stones were taken to build a Jesuit college. Now only the foundations remain, along with various tunnels below, but a modern (free) walkway across the site allows you to see the layout of the whole complex, including pools and furnaces and the heating and sewerage systems.

More or less in the city centre, the Forum Baths were discovered only in 1987, when an underground car park was being built – the remains of the two hot-water baths, a cold-water bath, under-floor heating systems and sewers are now roofed over and can be visited from 9am to 5pm except on Mondays. Most of the other sites are open daily from 9am to 4, 5, or 6pm according to the season, and typically cost €4.

In addition, don’t miss the Porta Nigra (Black Gate), on the north side of the Altstadt, towards the station, a massive Roman city gate in which the Greek monk Simeon had himself walled

The Porta Nigra as it was in the Middle Age

up as a hermit, dying there in 1034 or 1035. He was made a saint and two churches were built into the gate, one above the other – these were removed, along with the upper story of the eastern tower, in 1804-19, but you can see a model of this rather bizarre hybrid construction in the city history museum next door in the Simeonstift, a former monastery. In addition to a series of plans explaining the city’s development (only in German), there’s a display of sculptures by Ferdinand Tietz (1707-77) around the upper level of the cloister. Anyway, you can walk through and around the gate, while the interior is open in the same way as the other Roman sights.

There are also a couple of quite stunning churches to be seen here. First, the huge Basilica of Constantine, at the east end of Konstanstinstrasse, has an ugly red-brick exterior but a stunning bare interior, no less than 67m long by 26m wide and 33m high – it was built in c310 as the imperial throne room; it was left roofless by the Germanic tribes when they sacked the city, and they built a settlement inside the ruin. It later became a church and the administrative centre of the bishop of Trier, with the apse converted into his residence, until a new palace was built alongside from 1614. In the mid-19th century it was restored to its original condition and has been a Lutheran church since 1856 – the usual Protestant lack of internal decoration is ideal to show off the building’s Roman bones. There’s also an optical illusion that emphasises the building’s depth, as the apse’s windows and the niches below them become progressively smaller towards the middle.

The city’s cathedral or Dom is also superb – the oldest cathedral in Germany, it’s built on the ruins of a much bigger Roman church complex and incorporates some walls from a 4th-century church, still up to 26m in height. It was rebuilt in Romanesque style at the end of the 10th and 12th centuries, with Gothic vaults added later. There’s also the Baroque Chapel of the Holy Robe, built to house the Seamless Robe (or Chiton) of Jesus, the one which the soldiers who crucified Jesus cast lots for (rather than ripping it apart), because it was made of one seamless piece of cloth. The Emperor Constantine’s mother, St Helena, supposedly found it in about AD 327 on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and donated it to the church that Constantine had started building in Trier in 326 (he founded St Peter’s Basilica in Rome the same year, to mark the twentieth anniversary of his reign). The robe was certainly here by 1196, when it was sealed in a new altar, and only removed in 1512; since then it has been displayed to the faithful every few decades, attracting up to a million pilgrims. Normally the robe is hidden away in a reliquary in this chapel, which can merely be glimpsed by processing up behind the high altar of the cathedral – it gives great views down the nave, but is a waste of time in terms of seeing the robe or the chapel of the robe.

Entering through the cloister, you have the Dom on your right, and the Church of the Virgin (the Liebfrauen) on your left – this was built in Early Gothic style around 1200, and is totally different in atmosphere to the rather hectic Dom. It’s much darker (due to the stained glass) and there’s quiet choral music playing, so that tourists and others sit quietly and meditatively.

Changing gear totally, Karl Marx was born in Trier in 1818, and the family house at Brückenstraße 10 is now a museum about his life and writings as well as the history of communism; I’ve seen enough of communism and I didn’t get here. But Roman baths do seem to be a bit of a theme at the moment – in addition to Trier and Welwyn, I recently saw one in Cimiez (in Nice, next to the Matisse museum), and most years I lead a hiking group to the Roman bath house at Ravenglass, which boasts the highest Roman walls in northern Britain, no less than 4m high (I’m being ironic). It was built in about AD c130, as part of a fort guarding the supply line from the port here to the central part of Hadrian’s Wall.

This is what Roman ruins look like in northern England.

A very few practicalities

I stayed at the youth hostel, which is typically German and efficient; there are some pleasant riverside restaurants nearby, next to the Roman bridge over the Mosel river. Built around 144-152 AD, this is the oldest bridge in Germany, although in fact only the pilings are original and the arches and roadway date from the 18th century. The German army planned to demolish the bridge in March 1945, but a lightning advance by General Patton’s tanks led to its being captured before they had the chance to do so. It now leads to the delightful pedestrian and cycle route along the far bank of the Mosel.