Sir Edwin Lutyens had plans for a garden city that remained unfinished. Today’s redevelopment efforts could compromise its unique qualities.
While many are aware of Knebworth House in Hertfordshire, fewer know about the nearby Edwardian garden village designed with the help of Sir Edwin Lutyens. Considering the push for new garden villages around the year 2000 to address housing needs in the South of England, it’s quite surprising. A 2016 government publication highlighted this concept again. Knebworth was a key project in Lutyens’s career, preceding his major work in New Delhi, after his work at Hampstead Garden Suburb in London.
Lutyens had a strong but subtle influence on Knebworth’s design, observable by those who know where to look. Disappointingly, local planning authorities seem poised to overlook his legacy, overlooking local contexts in favour of national policies.
Lutyens connected with Knebworth through his wife, Lady Emily Lytton, whose ancestral home was Knebworth House. Though Emily didn’t spend her childhood there due to her father’s diplomatic role and limited income, she and her husband, Victor, took over the estate shortly after their marriage. Lutyens was essential in updating the house to be suitable for the 20th century, simplifying its interior excesses while preserving the exterior’s design.
The need for financial viability motivated Victor Lytton to consider possible uses for his property. Like many of his peers, he faced revenue issues from his land because of a lasting agricultural downturn. Taking inspiration from the Letchworth Garden City nearby, the notion of Knebworth Garden Village was born in 1904.
Lytton enlisted Lutyens’s aid in the project, despite concerns about Lutyens’s extravagant reputation. A frank exchange of opinions ensued, with Lutyens directly criticizing initial designs. Eventually, he and planner Thomas Adams proposed a ‘comprehensive scheme’ for the development.
Already involved in the Hampstead Garden Suburb’s Central Square, Lutyens struggled against perceived poor taste there. Yet at Knebworth, emboldened by a truly rural setting, he planned to organize the area with geometric precision. Promotional materials favoured the rural idyll over architectural specifics, with images of children in nature hinting at the life that could be enjoyed there. The first text emphasises the advantage of plentiful sunlight in the countryside compared to the smoggy cities.
One section of the Knebworth estate, which initially housed just a few farms and small dwellings, was transformed by bounding homes with green hedges and front gardens. Amid a particularly busy period in his career around 1911, Lutyens oversaw the garden village, advocating for the preservation of a pond that contributed to the area’s charm, rather than filling it in as suggested due to health concerns.
By 1914, four parts of the garden village were developed and remain well-preserved, featuring shared lawns and houses set back behind hedges. Two areas, Stockens Green and Deards End Lane, are now protected as conservation zones. Lutyens himself designed a golf club house with a Georgian flair and the St Martin’s Church in a Greek cross shape (see Figure 4). World War I paused construction, and although the west end of St Martin’s was finished quickly with a plain brick wall, it was later replaced with a more fitting façade in the 1960s.
Post-war, development slowed, possibly influenced by Lytton’s time in Bengal from 1922 to 1927. Yet, the Lutyens designs prevailed even through the tough 1970s when some land saw standard housing fill the undeveloped areas, continuing more heavily in the 1980s. In 2019, a retirement home was built on the village high street, with an entryway too low for ambulances.
Residents of Knebworth still cherish the garden village aesthetic, reaffirmed in numerous community meetings. They value the lush environment, a sentiment that aligns with the original 1911 promise of quality development. This legacy is also honoured by current landowners, who have offered detailed guidelines for new construction as part of the recently approved North Herts Local Plan 2011–31. However, current planning tends to favour higher density and discourage car use, which may not be suitable for rural areas like Knebworth, where the local terrain and resident needs, including those of the elderly, must be considered.
Knebworth has a distinct identity rooted in the garden city movement, and despite some degradation, it would be better to enhance this legacy rather than impose an incongruous modern plan. Current planning risks compromising the village’s unique character, questioning whether local decision-makers are truly comfortable with these changes.
