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Article: Letchworth -- a ticket to utopia: in the first article in a new series looking at places in Britain, Dennis Hardy visits Letchworth in Hertfordshire, the `World's First Garden City'. (Hardy Country).
- Article from:
- Town and Country Planning
- Article date:
- March 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Town and Country Planning Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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So how, asked a bemused visitor to a 19th-century community experiment, do you find your way to this utopia, 'by railway or by rainbow'? The question in this case was not asked of Letchworth, the first garden city, but at the time of its inception it might well have been. Was this utopia at last, or just another outpost of London?
Nearly a century later, the question is no longer asked, and the prospect of arriving by rainbow no longer an option. For, now, Letchworth, in Hertfordshire, is a far cry from what was intended, and arriving at the railway station -- where on the platforms are signs welcoming passengers to the `World's First Garden City' -- one is met ...