162 



THE GARDENERS' MAGAZINE. 



February 24, 1912. 



ameliorating and refining agent which will 

 raise to a higher moral plane tlie mas&es of 

 our fellow mortals who are, perforce, com- 

 pelled at present to live under conditions 

 which are not only a m-enace to public health, 

 but a disgrace to our civilisation, and which 

 is rapidly causing the d-eterioration of the 



race. 



Town Planning: Act. 



But all this may in time be changed, for 

 with the parsing three years ago of the Hou;-;- 

 ing and Town Planning Act, there has now- 

 been placed in the hands of local authorities 

 a (System of administrative machinery which 

 can wipe out slums. It now only rests with 

 those who elect these bodies to see that the 

 right men ace placed upon them to carry 

 out the work. If the powers with which 

 tho:^ bodies are now armed are fearlepely ad- 

 ministered, slums are bound to disappear, for 

 under the Town Planning part of the Act, 

 their reproduction has become impossible. 

 The first part of this Act (which consolidates 

 former Housing Acts) deals with the housing 

 of the working classes, and under clau-e 17 

 very drastic powers are placed in the hands 

 of local autliorities to deal with slum pro- 

 perties. 



The second part of the Act deals with town 

 planning, and it is to this that I wish mor? 

 particularly to draw attention here. The 

 object of this part of the Act is to prevent 

 a recurrence of the conditions which have 

 done so much in the past to disfigure our 

 cities and towns, more e-specially our manu- 

 facturing towns. Under this part of the Act 

 municipalities may have the power conferred 

 upon them to prevent haphazard building, 

 and to control the widths of streets and 

 roads, the number of houses to the acre, the 

 height of houses, and the provision of open 

 spacer, gardens, etc. All that Ls necessary 

 by way of procedure m for the local authority 

 to place before the Local Government Board 

 a prima facie case for the preparation of a 

 town plan, after which a preliminary en- 

 quiry is held regarding the need for action, 

 folMwed by the authorisation of the local 

 authority to prepare a detailed plan ; the 

 issue of provisions relating to co-operation 

 on the part of the local authority with the 

 owners and other persons interested in the 

 land, and the formation, if necessary, of a 

 joint body of local authorities, where the 

 land to be planned is in the area of more 

 than one local authority ; the holding of a 

 local and. public enquiry to fully consider 

 the plan when prepared; and, finally, the 

 placing of the plan as approved by the Local 

 Government Board on the table of both 

 Houses of Parliament for thirtv davs, and 

 its formal authorisation and publication. 

 Hitherto the only control exercised over th? 

 planning of new areas has been by means of 

 local bye-laws, and, excepting in areas where 

 the well-to-do have made demands for garden 

 space, the "jerry" planner has taken good 

 care to give the minimum of street width, 

 and the minimum of open space, with the 

 maximum of height for his buildings. 



In the event o: the plan being adopted, 

 the Local Government Board may suspend 

 the ordinary bye-laws, and replace them by 

 regulations providing for the limitation of 

 the number of houses to the acre, etc., as I 

 have already mentioned. ITiere is no reason, 

 therefore, why municipalities .should not 

 now build garden cities like Port Sunli.ofht, 

 Bournville, Letehworth, or I^ew Bars^vick 

 under any new town planning scheme wiiich 

 they may promote. 



The Garden City Movement. 



Though the Garden City idea is by no 

 means new, the " movement " is of compara- 

 tive! v recent date. In England the com- 

 mencement of the movement was due to the 

 success which had attended the formation of 

 model industrial villages, more particularly 

 those of Messrs. Cadburv at Bournville, near 



Ml- 



Birminofhain ; of Messrs. lAn-er HrMflu'is, at 

 Port Sunlight, no:ir Hirki'iiiuMtl : aiui. later, 

 of the Joseph Row n t re<» Village 'I r u - 1 at 

 New Earswick, near York. 



Attention was first directed to the ques- 

 tion of forming garden cities in connection 



w^ith industrial towns by Ebenezer Howai^d 

 in his book " To-morrow," published in 1898, 

 and in the following year (1899) the Garden 

 City Association was founded, its object 

 being to establis^h industrial towns on Gar- 

 den City li n e s , as ad vocated in. H ow a r d ' s 

 book. In 19<Ki, a pioneer company was 

 formed under the title, " First Garden City, 

 Limited," witli a capital of ^3(K},()00 to ac- 

 quire and develop an estate which had been 

 selected at Letch worth, near Hitchin. This 

 estate consisted of 3,818 acres, and the pur- 

 chase p r : ce wa s £Ai ) pe r ae re. When the 

 ground w^as purchased, the population was 

 approximately 450, and a population of 

 35,<KK) is ultimatelv aimed at. It is an in- 

 dustrial town, with, factories-, railway sid- 

 ings, water works, gas works, etc.^ but all 

 laid out on Garden City lines. Each house 

 has a separate garden, and there are parks 

 and open spaces, recreation grounds (cricket, 

 golf, et^.), schools, churches, halls, etc, 

 while the outlying parts of ithe estate, com- 

 prising about 2,5U0 acres, are devoted to 

 small holdings for agriculture. The land 

 will ultimately be transferred to the com- 

 munity, or to a trust on its behalf, and the 

 rents, wliich will increase wifth the citv's 

 progress, are expected to provide interest on 

 the purchase money and the cost of all ne- 

 cessary municipal undertakings, so that 

 there will l>e no rates. In France a Garden 

 City Association (Association des Cities- 

 Jardin de France) was formed in 19<)5, its 

 olbject being " to provide healthy homes for 

 Avorking men, encourage agriculture, check 

 migrat-on to towns, secure for communities 

 unearned increment on building land, and 

 cheapen industrial production," and, under 

 the recent Town Planning Act before re- 

 ferred to, quite a num^ber of town planning 

 schemes on Garden City lines are being -pre- 

 pared under the direction of local authorities 

 in various parts of the United Kingdom. 



Cheap Land and Cheap Houses. 



In Garden City schemes in connection with 

 existing industrial towns, the most impor- 

 tant lactors are therefore cheap dwellings, 

 cheap, easy, and rapids means of carrying 

 the workers to and from the scene of their 

 daily toil, and, above all, cheap land, for 

 on t he last factor t li e whole thing ha n g s . 

 Cheap dwellings and cheap means of transit 

 present no insuperaible difficulties^ but the 

 question of building sites is a more serious 

 one, for under a Garden City plan the num- 

 ber of houses to the acre will not exceed from 

 eight to twelve, whereas under some of the 

 existing bye-laws as many as fifty-six may 

 be erected. The difference in the rental and 

 rateable values ol the two systems is ob- 

 vious; therefore, to begin with, the land 

 must be cheap enough to justify the scheme 

 as a financial undertaking. This means, of 

 course, that Garden Cities in connection with 

 already existing towns must be removed some 

 considerable distance out into the countrv, 

 but this very necessity will in many ways 

 benefit the dwellers, for it will ensure to 

 them more healthy conditions^ as well as 

 more healthy conditions for plant life, with- 

 out which the term "Garden City" would 

 be meaningless. 



The Ideal Garden City. 



It goes without saying, I think, that the 

 ideal Garden Citv must have all the attri- 

 butes of a garden. I doubt if the ideal 

 Garden Citv is vet in existence. It cer- 

 tainly cannot come into being all at once, for 

 where plants come into the plan, as they 

 must do in this case. Nature requires time 

 to finish the work. Even the plainest of 

 brick buildings — the "little brick boxes with 

 slate lids/' as Mr. Burns, the autho^- of the 

 Town Planning Act, once called the brick- 

 and-slate roofed houses we see so often in 

 mining villages — may sometimes be made to 

 look prettier objects in the hands of an en- 

 thusiastic gardener than the more sui)«tan- 

 tial dressed stone buildings with which we 

 are familiar, and this is one of the \wA 

 cogent reasons why money should not 

 wasted on mere outward show in the con- 

 struction of houses of this sort. 



At New Earswick, the property of the 



Joseph Rowntree Village Trust, the most 

 rigid economy had to be studied. llie 

 founder desired that, while they should l)e 

 kept as low as possible in order to brinw 

 them within the means of ordinary working 

 people, the rents should yield a net return 

 on the capital of from 3 to 3^ per cent., so 

 that the tenants should not be placed in tlie 

 position of being recipients of a bounty. 

 Many of the designs submitted by the archi- 

 tect were rejected solely on the ground of 

 cost. The problem, too, was rendered more 

 difficult and costly owing to the want of a 

 sewerage system, and to the flatness of the 

 ground adding to the difficulty of its dis- 

 posal. Notwithstanding this, the desire of 

 the founder, Mr. Joseph Rowiitr^e " to make 

 a practical contribution to the housing ques- 

 tion " has been successfully realised, for here 



we have cottages of substantial construction^ 

 each with a garden of 350 square yards 



(which is the size the experience of the 

 trustees has shown to be what a man can 

 properly cultivate by spade labour in his lei- 

 sure time), the cheapest of which are rented 

 at 4s. 6d. per week, or with rates (including^ 

 water) 5s. 6d. per week (i>14 Is. 8d. per year). 

 A house of this sort contains a living-room 

 14ft. 6in. by 10ft. 9in by 8ft. high; a scul- 

 lery 10ft. 6in. by 6ft. 9in. ; three bedrooms 

 (1) lift. 6in. by 10ft. Bin.; (2) lift. 6in. by 

 6ft. 9in.; and (3) 10ft. 9in. by 6ft. 3in., all 

 8ft. high; and larder, coalhouse, and w.c; 

 with, of course, a garden of 350 square yards. 

 The cost of building a house of this sort, in- 

 clusive of cost of land (i^lO), share of sewer* 

 age and roads (^28), and architects and clerk 

 of works' and other expenses (^19 6s. 9d.), is 

 mAk) 14s. 5d., and there are 12 to the acre. 

 The highest rented of these houses is 7s. 6d. 

 per week, or with rates 9s. 3d. (£24 Is. per 

 vear). A house of this sort contains a living- 

 room, 15ft. bv 12ft. bv 8ft. high; a parlour, 

 lift, by lOft^; 9in.; a scullery, 8ft. 9in. by 

 8ft. 9in., and three bed- rooms (1\ 12ft. by 

 15ft.; (2) lift, by 10ft. 9in.; and (3) 13ft. 

 6in. by 8ft. 9in., all 8ft. high; bath-room, 

 9ft. by oft. 6in. (with hot and cold supply); 

 larder, coal house, and w.c. 



The Gardening: Aspect. 



Having said this much about the houses, 

 let us now turn to their surroundings. I 

 do not hold out to you such Utopian ideas 

 as were put before you by one of my pi"^- 

 decessons in this chair six years ago, when, 

 in referring to the changes of climate which 

 he imagined were then in progress, he stated 

 that he might live to see the day " wlit n 

 Princes Street may be turned into a tro])i- 

 cal boulevard, planted with exotic palm- 

 and the air scented with the sweet fiagraiio 

 of the stephanotis, the allamanda, and tlio 

 bougainvillea ; when the Castle Rock would 

 be covered with jasmine, the honeysuckU'. 

 and the wistaria ; "when Arthur's Seat woula 

 be covered with Eastern pagodas, and when 

 the roof garden of the Waverley Marker 

 would be fragrant with the tK-ent of the 

 orange and the lemon," but I do think that 

 horticulture has a very important part to 

 play in the development of these garden 

 cities, and it is to associations such as oui^ 

 that people will naturally turn for li^lj* 

 and leading in their development. 1 hi^ 

 association has already made a move in tin* 

 direction, for a proposal to offer a prize tor 

 villa gardening and one for window garden- 

 ing in the city has been adopted by the 

 committee which deals with thecse mattea-. 

 and we are to have papers read on these 

 suV)jects at our November meeting by our 

 friends, Messrs. Eddington and Hay. 



These are steps in the right direct. on. 

 by action of this sort, and in otlier way^ 

 stimulating a taste for floriculture among t^e 

 citizens, this and other associations can 

 much to forward the Garden City movement- 

 In a city like Edinburgh, or, in fact, m 

 other large citv, the Garden City must t?e 

 largely of the character of a garden suburb 

 surrounding the civic centre. As a matter o 

 fact, Edinburgh does already possess soin« 

 (rf these garden suburbs, but, alas! they are 

 disappearing, and there seems to be no po^ 

 to stay the hand of the despoiler. 



(To be continued.) 



