Planned Town

A film made in 1949 focusing on the benefits of a town like Welwyn Garden City

By Robert Gill

The failings of industrial towns are listed, before an alternative is proposed: Welwyn Garden City.

 

The film begins with an overhead shot of ‘back-to-back’ housing in a typical mining town, followed by shots of miners in dirty uniforms leaving a mine, a slag heap and a factory. The narrator laments at how dirty, polluted and overgrown most towns are. 

He then proposes an alternative philosophy, the ‘Garden City’, as developed by Ebenezer Howard in his book ‘Garden Cities of To-morrow’. We see an animated map highlighting the advantages of such a settlement, including small size, proximity to the country, ordered development and a sense of space. 

We are then introduced to Welwyn, beginning with an aerial shot of ordered-looking roads, housing estates and greenery. There is a montage of industries including factories, a chemical plant and a film studio. After shots of workers cycling and walking from work, Joe Dawson, the narrator’s ‘friend’, is introduce as an example of someone who has moved into this new town to work. 

Shots of suburban utopia, including large, spacious buildings in cul-de-sacs, where the house and its garden ‘become one’ and give the people ‘room to breathe’. Footage of the planned town centre, with pedestrians shopping in wide streets, and then the town hall, with a Classical-style colonnade. The narrator then shows us how the town will be further developed, with empty space waiting to be turned into a civic centre. 

There are shots of happy-looking children busy at school, the narrator claiming the town is perfect for children – and also adults, as we then see people taking part in a variety of sports including cricket and rugby. The pace slows with scenes of families and friends taking tea, picnicking and walking against idyllic backdrops. The narrator proclaims that the town is remembering the ‘simple truth’ that people are ‘as valuable as factories and bricks and land’ and must also be catered for. We have a closing aerial shot of the town before the credits roll over the animated map.

Featured People:

Joe Dawson – example of a Welwyn Garden City worker

Featured Buildings:

Andrew Buchanan factory; British Lead Mill; Welgar Shredded Wheat factory

 

The film can be seen on the East Anglian Film Archive web site by following the link:

Planned Town

This page was added on 24/07/2016.

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  • My mother, Mildred Childs, appeared in the film ‘Planned Town’. She was 46 at the time, and was cast as the wife of Joe Dawson, who, on leaving work at Welgar Shredded Wheat factory, cycled to his home along streets empty of cars, including Parkway. The garden sequence was shot in the back garden of the house owned by Sir Frederick Osborn at 16 Guessens Road. My mother is seen seated in a garden chair in the back garden busily shelling peas for dinner, when Joe arrives home with his daughter. I was ten years old at the time the film was made and I remember being there with my father, after school, during the filming of this sequence.

    By Colin Childs (18/12/2023)