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Welwyn Garden City is a town (not a city) in Hertfordshire, England. Welwyn Garden City is also known as WGC or, somewhat incorrectly, "Welwyn". This can cause confusion as the village of Welwyn actually lies a few miles to the northwest of WGC.
Welwyn Garden City, as its name suggests, is a garden city, founded by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the 1920s following his previous experiments in Hampstead Garden Suburb and Letchworth Garden City, and designed by Louis de Soissons. Howard had called for the creation of new towns of limited size, planned in advance, and surrounded by a permanent belt of agricultural land, as a role model for lower-density suburban development. Howard believed that such Garden Cities were the perfect blend of city and nature.
The BBC TV series Superstars was filmed in Welwyn Garden City throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
Famous former and current Welwyn Garden City residents include The Subways, David James (England goalkeeper), Artist Damien Hirst, Nick Faldo (golfer), Lisa Snowdon (model) and Rolling Stones' Mick Taylor. Sandra Marshall, one of the co-founders of the women's movement, Feminenza, is a local inhabitant.
Welwyn Garden City is well known by avid readers of the side of breakfast cereal boxes in Britain as the town where Shredded Wheat and Shreddies are made, at the former Nabisco factory (now part of Nestlé). The factory is due to close within the next few years, as Nestlé say that the current site is too small, and that production should be moved to Wiltshire.
One company that seems to be committed to Welwyn Garden City is Tesco, which has a substantial head office site in the north of the town. The former supermarket chain Fine Fare now part of Somerfield had its head office in the town at one time.
Welwyn Garden City has a strong industrial area bringing much employment to the area with companies such as Xerox and Threshers Group.
Welwyn Garden City has since local government reorganisation been part of the greater Welwyn Hatfield District. Whilst Hatfield has retained its own town council (albeit limited in responsibilities), Welwyn Garden City has not, and its position within the District is anomalous since (Old) Welwyn also has its own parish council.
One of the lesser known ideas of the Puritan architects was that all citizens of the town would shop in the same shop. Thus the Welwyn Store was established as a central landmark on the 'Campus' (centrally-located green semi-circular area in the town). Commercial pressures have ensured much more competition and variety since, and the Welwyn Department Store is now part of the John Lewis PLC group of stores.
Interesting Facts
- The main shopping centre is named after Sir Ebenezer Howard, known as The Howard Centre.
- The overline train station connects directly into the Howard Centre.
- The local newspaper is the Welwyn & Hatfield Times, edited by Terry Mitchinson.
- Until a mistake in 2005 there were no street names with the word "street" in WGC.
- The local radio station is hertbeat fm on 106.9 FM. They've done lots of outside broadcasts in the town including the breakfast show presenter Steve Folland leaping live on air from the top of the QE2 hospital for a local charity in 2004.
- The independent Music store, City Sounds was listed number 8 in the Top 10 independent stores in the country.
- A new Sainsburys development scheme is due to commence in November 2006.
- A European Market place visits on a monthly basis.
See also
External links
"Welwyn Garden City"