To the northeastern periphery of Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire, sits the neighbourhood of Panshanger. Known for its mid twentieth century detached and terraced housing interspersed with apartment blocks - the neighbourhood is named after the 400 acre plot of protected natural land at Panshanger Park. Built with the essential design philosophies of Sir Ebenezer Howard’s garden city concept entrenched throughout all of Welwyn Garden City, Panshanger has become a desirable enclave within the wider town.

The history of Welwyn Garden City is the history of Sir Ebenezer Howard. Howard, born in 1850, is one of Britain’s most influential urban planners of all time - influencing projects around the globe and here in the UK. In the 1890s, following a trip to the U.S where he met poets such as Walt Whitman, he wrote ‘To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform’, which outlined his garden city concept. The concept, an egalitarian one, was to design a town which provided a stellar quality of life to its inhabitants - by focusing on ample greenspaces, smokeless zones, and affordable housing. Following his experiment at Letchworth Garden City in 1903, in 1920 Howard acquired land and funding for the founding of Welwyn Garden City and by December of 1920, the first residents had moved in. Howard’s garden city principles were monumentally influential and a cornerstone of British planning history. So much so, that following WWII and its infrastructural devastation, the historic 1946 New Towns Act was passed designating areas for new towns to be built. Many of these new towns were heavily inspired by Howard’s garden city principles, including Harlow Town and Milton Keynes!

Howard’s essential vision was to repopulate the countryside, following the mass influx of countryside populuses migrating to large cities during the Victorian industrial boom. It was also, from its onset, designed to be a commuter town - which it still is today, with over 46% of the population commuting elsewhere for work, and 31% of which commuting directly to London!

Welwyn Garden City’s design philosophy, principles, and patterns is a core fixture of the identity and history of the town. Residents and council members alike are fiercely protective of this unique history, and are resistent to developments which do not follow the garden city principle. Therefore, new developments must adhere to and complement the unique surroundings of Welwyn Garden City in order to be considered for approval - including affordable housing, concentric design patterns, and of course the requisite garden space. However, especially in Panshanger, huge development projects are imminent. The Welwyn and Hatfield Borough Council has approved the development of over 800 new homes in the Panshanger neighbourhood, developed in strict accordance to the garden city principles of the rest of the town, on the site of the disused Panshanger Aerodome!