The town on the eastern end of the border between England and Scotland was fought over for centuries.
With the eventual peace (I hope I don’t speak too soon) a road Bridge was started in 1610 by order of James I of England (VI of Scotland) and finished in 14 years. It cost £15,000 and was to carry the Great North Road, later the A1, between London and Edinburgh and it still carries traffic, albeit one-way but was closed for repairs when we visited recently.
I don’t know if it is because I spent a lot of my childhood in Welwyn Garden City but I really like towns that have been designed as ideal towns — one man’s dream — models of social engineering. I sense it the moment I enter — the street lay-out, the civic pride — the avenues of trees — the fountains!
Welwyn Garden City was the brainchild of Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928). He founded the Garden City movement that spawned Letchworth and WGC, probably in an ornamental pond surrounded by flowering cherries! He had a utopian vision — people living happily in harmony with nature, tamed by an enlightened municipal workforce — that is pretty well how I remember it as I grew up there.
Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642) also had a vision (I don’t know enough to examine his motives), but I wonder if Ebenezer ever visited the cardinal’s hometown in Indre-et-Loire, France. The moment we blundered into the small town which carries his name, we knew it was no ordinary place.
It reflects the social order of its time — there was a massive palace nearby that was demolished by 1805 when times had changed. The town though survives with its surrounding canals servicing the artisans dwellings and the centrally placed town houses built for the bourgeoisie (currying favour with Richelieu, the man). He was Louis XIII’s first minister — cardinal, politician, patron of the arts — a very powerful man who died of tuberculosis at the age of 57.
I am reminded of all this by our recent sojourn, birdwatching, in Grantown on Spey. As we drove into the town along its wide central vista with its impressive central buildings I thought “this is an ideal town!” And it was.
Sensibly he started with a linen mill to provide employment — this thrived and bought other trades and services to the town. By 1860 when Queen Victoria visited and stayed, as we did, at the Grant Arms, the population was about 1300. With the advent of the railway the town became a centre for tourists visiting the Highlands, made popular by the Queen.
If I couldn’t live in the country or a walled medieval hotchpotch, I think I might like to live in an “ideal” town.
dianaashworth 