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Town planning and architecture

Utopian planning

Hampstead Garden Suburb sits within a lineage of utopian garden settlements ranging from Robert Owen’s New Lanark, founded in 1800, to Ebenezer Howard’s Welwyn Garden City founded in 1919. All were a reaction to the extreme poverty, overcrowding, ugliness and lack of amenity found in the uncontrolled urban development of their day. The Suburb differs from the classic Garden City promoted by Howard because, recognising the proximity to places of work in London, it contains no industry but is truly a suburb. Persons of all classes and income levels were to be welcomed and provision was made for the elderly, widows, orphans and single women.

Illustration from Unwin’s book

The Hampstead Garden Suburb act 1906

The ideas of Ebenezer Howard and the ideals of Henrietta Barnett were put into practice on the Suburb by the architectural practice of Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker, working in collaboration with Sir Edwin Lutyens. The Hampstead Garden Suburb Act of 1906, the first modern town planning act, freed the Suburb from the building bye laws of the local authority, Hendon Urban District Council, and enabled Parker and Unwin to prepare their own building byelaws for approval by the Home Secretary. For example, the uniform urban grid of bye law streets could be replaced by the organic hierarchy of road widths which permitted the charming cul de sacs of the Artisans’ Quarter and the Heath borders. Similarly the normal bye law requirement for party walls to be extended above the roof line as visually divisive parapets could be ignored; enabling groups of houses to be treated as a visually cohesive whole, as in Asmuns Place and Reynolds Close (below).

Influences on planning

Parker and Unwin’s early Suburb layouts make use of the site contours to create gently curving streets with junctions and entrances marked by architectural features to catch the eye and punctuate views. Gradations in the scale of houses and plots to accommodate the wide social mix were skilfully woven into overall design. The principles of their planning are described in Unwin’s “Town Planning in Practice” (1909) which is illustrated with numerous examples from the Suburb.

The influences of Lutyens include a grander, more formal approach to planning with axial views; for example along Northway and Southway swinging at the bend in each road from the cupola of the Institute to the dome of the Free Church and the spire of St Jude’s respectively. Lutyens’ work on the Suburb effectively ended in 1912 when he began to concentrate on the government buildings in New Delhi. Other influences on Parker and Unwin include their study of continental towns, particularly hill towns, through Barry Parker’s sketching tours and through the published work of Camillo Sitte. This can be seen in the German influences in the gateway buildings at Temple Fortune and in the device of the “Great Wall” which demarcates the “town” of the Suburb from the “country” of the Heath extension. The archive photograph from the 1950s (above) shows the features of the wall which are now hidden by vegetation.

Following Unwin’s retirement as Trust architect in 1914, from 1915 to 1951 the Trust architect was John Carrick Stuart Soutar, ensuring a consistent approach to the later development of the Suburb, seen for example in Ingram Avenue. Within the overall framework laid down by Parker and Unwin are building groups and individual houses designed by many of the best architects of the day, working in a variety of domestic styles to produce a harmonious whole.

The Arts and Crafts movement

There are extensive and accomplished examples of the Arts and Crafts philosophy applied to buildings in the Suburb by Parker and Unwin themselves but also by many of the best architects of the day. The rediscovery of traditional building crafts is manifest in, for example, the tiled arches of Asmuns Place and the beautifully detailed chimneys of houses in Wildwood Rise. The renewed interest in vernacular building types is reflected in designs for groups such as Litchfield Square, reminiscent of rural cottages and is expressed in the steep tiled roofs, picturesque outlines, large chimneys and prevalence of gables across much of the Suburb. The relatively simple but ingenious detailing is typical of the arts and crafts movement’s reaction against elaborate Victorian architectural decoration.

In parts of the Suburb the pure arts and crafts approach develops into neo-vernacular; a more romantic re-invention of Tudor and other early English architecture. Examples include the “Merrie England” of Edmunds Walk, mostly by R.H Williams, using reclaimed materials including timber frames, bricks and tiles from vernacular buildings (below).

Georgian Revival

The Georgian Revival (Neo-Georgian) style is used to great effect on the Suburb by Lutyens and later, under Soutar. The inventive and sometimes playful classicism of Lutyens is seen both in the major public buildings on Central Square and in the houses of North Square and Erskine Hill (below). Later, restrained and elegant Neo-Georgian mansions set in generous gardens and leafy streets were designed in Soutar’s office for wealthy residents. The style usually features sliding sash windows, symmetrical, ordered elevations, sometimes with modest pediments, doorcases and other decorative features.

Modernism

There are fine examples of the stylistic influence of the Modern Movement on Suburb buildings in places such as Lytton Close by C.G. Winbourne and Belvedere Court by Ernst Freud (both of which are grade II listed). This tends to be “Moderne” - restricted to exterior treatment - rather than extending to the open plan forms of true Modern Movement architecture. Nonetheless the clean, horizontal lines and stripped details are an attractive foil to the ubiquitous Suburb hedges.

Art deco

Similarly the influence of Art Deco in the Suburb is applied rather than inherent. However, there are very attractive elements of in-built and applied decoration in many of the later Suburb flats such as Lyttelton Court and in individual houses (below).

Hampstead Garden Suburb is celebrated today for the combination of planning and architecture which produce its strong sense of place, and for the way in which its built form still supports an unusual level of community activity.

Text and images taken from 'Character Appraisal Statement Introduction', section 5 - available in full here.