MODEL SUBURB

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22355, 28 February 1936, Page 8

MODEL SUBURB

HELPING THE POOR g||f ELDERLY WOMAN'S VISION PRESERVING NATURAL BEAUft [from our owx correspondent] LONDON, Feb. l One of the world's pioneer exp<ri- * ments in town planning will be cam. pleted when a new block of flats is built in Hampstead Garden Suburb. The estate was begun in 1906 with the idea of giving poor people in Lo fi . don a garden of their own. Some S!4O acres of fields, the property of Eton College, were bought: They now contain 2000 houses and a population of 12,000. Most of the credit for this achievement, which has been copied in many places abroad, is due to a woman of 84, Dame Henrietta Barnett, who ' lives in the suburb and to whom the residents have just sent a message of congratulation. Wife of Canon Barnett the founder of Toynbee Hall, she dpi cided to create the estate after help.' ing to acquire for public use an 80-acre extension of Hampstead, Heath. she and another Woman wrote 13,000 letters to save the land from speculative builders. She had four aims: To put within the reach of working people .a cottnge%' with a garden within a 2d fare of Central London; to lay out the whole area on an orderly plan; to promote better understanding between the classes; and to preserve natural beauty. ' All these aims have been realised.. The suburb, which was planned by Sir Raymond Unwin and Sir Edwin Lutyens, has houses worth from £SOO to £7OOO. Open spaces were left and hedgerows of briar, yew, holly and wild rose were planted instead, of fences. The estate was about half-built when the war broke out. Building was not resumed until 192 L The J'and is now worth £370,000.» None has been sold. House owners hold their sites on long lease. All building plans have .had to be approved by the architect to the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust, which, it was proposed, would pay a cumulative dividend not to exceed 5 per cent. The idea was to show that decent building could be made reasonably profitable. Dividends were, in fact, paid until 1915, and a scheme is now before the Courts to wipe off the 20 years' arrears due to the upset of war conditions by an issue of bonus shares. The secretary of the trust stated in an interview that foreign delegations still come to see the estate, with its school, churches, institute, club, tßßnis courts and bowling greens.