Tower and Town, June 2023 (view the full edition)Letchworth Cheap Cottages CompetitionsAbout 15 years ago I was at work reading a rather dry technical report on Arts and Crafts housing in Hertfordshire. I turned the page and saw a photograph of what I thought was our house in St John's Close, Marlborough. Once I got over the shock, I saw that the terrace of houses was actually in Pixmore Way, Letchworth, Hertfordshire. The text of the report referred to the terrace as "an award-winning entry" from a housing design competition held in Letchworth Garden City in 1907. I was intrigued and started researching the background to the competition and the houses. I visited Letchworth to look at "our" house in Pixmore Way. I was convinced that our 1908 Marlborough terrace was a copy of 1907 Letchworth Terrace. I was lucky enough to find estate agent's particulars for one of the houses in Pixmore Way. Its layout and original features are replicated in our house and others in the terrace. Neighbours became similarly interested in the links between St John's Close and Pixmore Way, carrying out additional research, both in Marlborough and Letchworth.  Below is an overview of the housing design competitions held at Letchworth in 1905 and 1907. The competitions aimed to improve access to affordable housing in both urban and rural environments. The 1905 Cheap Cottages Exhibition The first Letchworth housing competition was held in 1905, in response to a shortage of housing for agricultural labourers. Many farm workers had moved to towns, which resulted in rural labour shortages. Part of the problem was that there were bye-laws and other restrictions on the materials that could be used to build new cottages. In 1904, the editor/owner of the Spectator and The Country Gentleman magazines campaigned for a "£150 Cottage". He proposed a competition to demonstrate that a sound house could be built for £150 (excluding the land cost). He proposed that cottages could be built of cheaper materials, using alternative forms of construction and then let to rural farm workers for £8 per year. The owners of the newly created Letchworth Garden City offered land for a competition site. As it was privately owned, it was not subject to restrictive bye-laws. Approximately 131 individual houses were constructed for the 1905 exhibition; 120 of which still stand today. The competition caught the imagination of the public, attracting 60,000 visitors between July and September 1905. The 1907 Urban Cottages Competition Following the success of the 1905 competition for individual houses, a second competition for groups of houses was proposed. The intention of the 1907 competition was to demonstrate designs that could be easily replicated and built as groups on estates in urban areas. There were four classes in the Urban Cottages competition. First Prize in each class was £30 and a medal. Fifty two cottages were built, with cost of construction ranging from £144 to £275 per dwelling. The renowned Garden City architect, Courtney Melville Crickmer, designed several entries for the 1907 competition. His terrace of six houses at 110-120 Pixmore Way, Letchworth, won the First Prize for Class II. This competition class was for "3 bedrooms with parlour, kitchen with sink and outside wash house with copper. Cost not to exceed £200." The award-winning Pixmore Way terrace is almost identical to the terrace at 13-18 St John's Close, Marlborough. The most noticeable difference being the hanging tile arrangement on the Marlborough houses - presumably a nod to the local building style found throughout the town. The terrace at St John's Close was officially declared open in May 1908 by Caroline E Tosswill, a niece of Henry Richardson. Hilary Degnan |