Memorandum by The Garden History Society
(NT 19)
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Garden History Society is the national
amenity society for the conservation of historic parks, gardens
and designed landscapes, and a statutory consultee on planning
applications affecting parks and gardens on the national Register
of parks and gardens of special historic interest. We are particularly
interested in the Committee's investigation of, as described in
the terms of reference, "the extent to which the original
design of the New Towns is leading to concern about their long
term sustainability", and of "the balance between new
development and the regeneration of older parts of the towns".
2. THE DEVELOPMENT
OF THE
NEW TOWNS
2.1 The development of the New Towns in
the post-war period attracted the brightest and most able landscape
designers of their generation people like Dame Sylvia Crowe (1901-97),
who worked with the architect/planner Sir Frederick Gibberd (1908-84)
at Harlow, and also at Basildon; Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe (1900-96)
who prepared the masterplan for Hemel Hempstead; Brenda Colvin
(1897-1981) at East Kilbride; Frank Clark (1902-71) at Stevenage
and Peter Youngman at Cumbernauld. They made strenuous efforts
to involve themselves in the planning from the earliest stages
the Institute of Landscape Architects' evidence to the New Towns
Committee in 1946 referred to the "framework" of hills
and trees and described the "topographical formation"
as "the very skeleton of the plan with ribs of high ground
and woods".
2.2 We would like to stress the very strong
and pervasive design element which went into the landscape of
New Towns, not least because, as it was so pervasive and composed
so as to appear "natural", it can be difficult to see
today. Thus, while on the one hand Jellicoe admired the Gibberd
plan for Harlow as an abstract composition like a painting by
Ben Nicholson, Crowe admired "the idea of open space and
landscape flowing between compact housing areas" and admired
the result on the ground "a lovely, very humanised landscape
with a lot of little woodlands which Gibberd conserved in the
masterplan". What Gibberd and Crowe achieved was a new landscape
for new lives but one created through sensitive and understanding
of the existing landform and features.
2.3 It is also important to stress that
this "landscape without boundaries" is quite distinct
from the set pieces, such as the Water Gardens in the Civic Square
at Harlow. In addition to the use of existing landforms and features
as the framework to the New Towns, Crowe also worked on artificial
hills and mass planting to separate residential and industrial
areas and to ensure that features such as gasometers sat "naturally"
in the landscape.
2.4 The scale of landscape design in the
New Towns was often massive. While of Jellicoe's masterplan for
Hemel Hempstead only his Water Gardens were eventually built,
at East Kilbride Colvin worked on a massive scale, planting "a
continuous forest belt round the south and west of the built up
area"; similarly Crowe created mass planting at Warrington
and Washington, while at Telford the recovery of Ironbridge was
included in the landscaping, and at Milton Keynes, over 15 million
trees and shrubs were planted with several new parks and lakes
and a network of landscaped roads.
2.5 The New Towns embody what has been called
"an unshakeable commitment to design that a good physical
environment was good for people and also good for business".
The green environment, whether its design was noticed or not,
has repeatedly been one of the key features in the liveability
of New Towns people who moved to Warrington from Liverpool or
Manchester wrote to the manager to say how pleased they were to
be "living in the countryside"; at Redditch, research
by Shelagh Bussey on perceptions of the town highlighted the importance
of the woodland of the town it was a major reason for people chosing
to live there and to individual parts of which residents became
very attached.
3. THREATS TO
THE LANDSCAPES
OF NEW
TOWNS
3.1 The biggest threat to these landscapes
is a lack of understanding of their designed nature. It is essential
that in planning new development in New Towns the original spatial
master-planning is carefully identified and assessed. Without
such analysis there is a danger that the very real but subtle
contribution which it makes to the environmental quality of New
Towns will be damaged designed gaps and vistas blocked off whether
by buildings or new planting, links between the town centres and
the wider countryside severed, and the spacious flowing character
of the spaces confined or cramped. Changes in the scale of buildings
can affect the benevolent character of the spaces, as can ad hoc
removal or replacement of hard-landscape features or planting.
As with Victorian architecture in the 60s, we are too close to
the post-war period properly to appreciate its vision, which was
profoundly democratic and public-spirited, and could easily damage
it unknowingly.
4. HARLOW—A
CASE IN
POINT
4.1 The Garden History Society has been
particularly concerned about the destruction of the core of Harlow
New Town, which is arguably the most successful of the all the
New Towns in the terms described above. We believe that the regeneration
plans are misguided and will result in a serious diminution of
its special character and its environmental quality and distinctiveness.
4.2 The masterplan by Frederick Gibberd
was prepared in 1947 and the work was not completed until 1960;
yet when it was much of his vision of zones interlinked by landscape
in a comprehensive design was realized. Gibberd was a socialist
and a lover of the English countryside and his design not only
created a civic realm which dignified its inhabitants but which
also flowed outward into the Essex landscape, and allowed that
same landscape to flow up to and through the New Town.
4.3 The Civic Square and Town Hall was the
centrepiece of the New Town—the most important building
in the most important space. Via the Water Gardens drew a green
wedge of countryside was drawn into the heart of the piazza at
the upper end the Gardens comprise a series of formal terraces
with canals, water spouts and geometric compartments divided by
an intricate pattern of yew hedges. This overlooks the "Great
Lawn" before the view widens into a panorama of open countryside.
In form, the layout echoes the sequential design of an aristocratic
country house formal gardens, haha and landscape park, but transformed
into an urban and democratic context.
4.4 In 1992 the Gardens were added to the
English Heritage Register of parks and gardens of special historic
interest, and were later upgraded to II*. However the Register
boundary was drawn around the Gardens quite tightly and could
not do justice to the relationship between the Gardens, the buildings
in the Square and the open views. Although Conservation Area designation
could have been considered for the Square, boundary lines would
still have been problematic and it would have been unprecedented
in the absence of any listed buildings. Moreover the lack of research
on post-war buildings and landscapes made evaluation difficult,
even though the quality of the place was evident to any visitor
or inhabitant.
4.5 Proposals for redevelopment of the Town
Centre South, which includes the Civic Square were included in
the development plan prior to registration of the Gardens, even
though Sylvia Crowe advised the authority that "to destroy
these gardens in order to increase the area of retail trade would
be an act of vandalism" EH objected to a renewal of consent
for the redevelopment in 1992, and as a result the local authority
resolved that a "comprehensive design brief should be prepared
in order to safeguard and protect the water garden and its setting
and to help achieve a scheme of the highest quality for this important
town centre site". However, the gardens were viewed in isolation.
Despite objections from the GHS and the Twentieth Century Society
the Technical College was demolished and replaced with housing,
and the renewal of the outline redevelopment scheme was approved
in 1996-97 with a serious lack of consultation.
4.6 It was not until the authority's draft
brief emerged in 1997, with the statement that "there may
be an opportunity to relocate the formal Water Gardens" that
the threat to the Gardens themselves as well as the overall design
was recognised. By this date the condition of the Gardens had
deteriorated significantly and the juggernaut of commercial redevelopment,
including the demolition of half the Gardens and development that
will destroy the relationship between the Square and the countryside
beyond, seems unstoppable—a request last year from EH and
the GHS for a call-in was rejected by the Secretary of State.
4.7 Harlow illustrates the problem of New
Town landscapes they are under-recognised not only by local authorities
but also by English Heritage (only Harlow is registered; even
though Jellicoe's Water Gardens at Hemel Hempstead for example
are directly comparable; and Jellicoe's Civic Square in Plymouth,
is the only other post-war civic landscape on the Register). This
makes them vulnerable the Gardens at Hemel Hempstead have been
harmed by the development of decked levels on the original ground-level
carparks adjacent to the Gardens; the original curvilinear paving
in the Plymouth square is currently being replaced with rectangular
slabs). They pose particular difficulties for the existing conservation-regime
they are not easily given boundaries on a map, and yet their contribution
to the environment is such that some means of identifying them
needs to be developed by EH.
4.8 Given the currency of ideas on the public
realm and civic space, it is important to realise that these concepts
have been given form in the communal landscapes of the New Towns
unparallelled design thinking and resources went into them, and
it is reckless to forget or ignore such a historic legacy of ready-made
quality environments.
5. CONCLUSIONS
5.1 The contribution of the post-war generation
of landscape-designers to the environmental quality of New Towns
is poorly understood and needs to be recognised.
5.2 The special nature of the New Town landscape—"landscape
without boundaries"—needs especially to be understood.
Design, often of great subtlety and skill by the best landscape
architects of the post-war period, should not be mistaken for
nature.
5.3 New development or redevelopment in
New Towns should be on the basis first and foremost of a landscape
assessment which should identify the historic landscape elements
and their potential for a continued contribution to the environmental
quality of New Towns. Such assessments should include an analysis
of the original landscape design, as well as its current appearance.
5.4 English Heritage, as lead body for the
historic environment, but perhaps in partnership with CABE, should
undertake a study of the buildings and landscapes of New Towns
in order to identify their special historic interest, to give
guidance on their future conservation and development and to provide
research data which will inform decision-making.
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