Stevenage Borough F

Stevenage ( ) is a large town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, about north of London. Stevenage is east of junctions 7 and 8 of the A1(M), between Letchworth Garden City to the north and Welwyn Garden City to the south. In 1946, Stevenage was designated the United Kingdom's first New Town under the New Towns Act.

Etymology

"Stevenage" may derive from Old English ''stiþen āc'' / ''stiðen āc'' / ''stithen ac'' (various Old English dialects cited here) meaning "(place at) the stiff oak".

The name was recorded as ''Stithenæce'' in c.1060 and as ''Stigenace'' in the Domesday Book in 1086.

History

Pre-Conquest

Stevenage lies near the line of the Roman road from Verulamium to Baldock. Some Romano-British remains were discovered during the building of the New Town, and a hoard of 2,000 silver Roman coins was discovered during house-building in the Chells Manor area in 1986. Other artefacts included a dodecahedron toy, fragments of amphorae for imported wine, bone hairpins, and samian ware pottery associated with high status families. Archeological excavations have confirmed the existence of a small Roman farmstead, a malting kiln and a Celtic round house in the Chells area, and a cemetery containing 25 cremations. The most substantial evidence of activity from Roman times is Six Hills, six tumuli by the side of the old Great North Road that are presumably the burial places of members of a local family.

The first Saxon camp, a little to the east of the Roman sites, was in a clearing in the woods where the church, the manor house and the first village were later built. Settlements also sprang up in Chells, Broadwater and Shephall. Before the New Town was established, Shephall was a separate parish, and Broadwater was split between the parishes of Shephall and Knebworth.

Middle Ages

According to the Domesday Book, in 1086 the Lord of the Manor was the Abbot of Westminster Abbey. The settlement had moved down to the Great North Road. In 1281 it was granted a Royal Charter to hold a weekly market and annual fair, still held in the High Street.

The earliest part of St Nicholas's Church dates from the 12th century, but it was probably a site of worship much earlier. The list of rectors (parish priests) is relatively complete from 1213. Around 1500 the church was much improved, with decorative woodwork and the addition of a clerestory.

North of the Old Town is Jack's Hill, associated with the legendary archer Jack O'Legs of Weston. According to local folklore, Jack stole flour from the bakers of Baldock to feed the poor during a famine, like Robin Hood.

The remains of a medieval moated homestead in Whomerley Wood comprise an 80-yard-square trench almost five feet wide in parts. It was probably the home of Ralph de Homle. Pieces of Roman and later pottery have been found there.

The oldest surviving house in Stevenage is Tudor House in Letchmore Street, built before 1500. During the 16th century it was a butcher's shop owned by a man named Scott. From 1773 onwards it served as the town's workhouse, and later became a school from 1835 until 1885.Herts genealogy
/ref> It was the headquarters of the local town gas company from c.1885 until 1936, when it was converted into a private dwelling.

Chells Manor, a medieval hall house located three miles from the Old Town, was built in the 14th century for the Wake family on the foundations of a much older moated manor house mentioned in the Domesday Book. The site of the lost village of Chells was redeveloped during the extension of the New Town in the 1980s, and a hoard of Roman coins was discovered. In the present day, Chells is a suburb of New Stevenage.

Tudor, Stuart and Georgian eras

In 1558 Thomas Alleyne, then the Rector of Stevenage, founded a free grammar school for boys, Alleyne's Grammar School, which, despite becoming a boys' comprehensive school in 1967, had an unbroken existence (unlike the grammar school in neighbouring Hitchin) until 1989, when it was merged with Stevenage Girls' School to become the Thomas Alleyne School. Francis Cammaerts was Headmaster of Alleyne's Grammar School from 1952 to 1961. The school, which has been since 1989 a mixed comprehensive school and is now an academy as of 2013, still exists on its original site at the north end of the High Street. It was intended to move the school to Great Ashby, but the Coalition government (2010–15) scrapped the move owing to budget cuts.

During the 17th century, the Elizabethan house at 37 High Street was the home of greengrocer and churchwarden Henry Trigg. Trigg was a philanthropist who donated another of his properties to serve as Stevenage's first workhouse. When Henry died in 1724 his coffin was placed in the rafters of the adoining barn to prevent resurrection men from stealing his remains. In 1774, Trigg's house became the Old Castle coaching inn, and was used as a staging post by the Royal Mail. From 1999 until 2016 it served as a branch of NatWest, and as of 2022 it has been converted into a dentist's surgery.

Stevenage's prosperity came in part from the Great North Road, which was turnpiked in the early 18th century on the site of the Marquess of Granby pub. Many inns in the High Street served the stagecoaches, 21 of which passed through Stevenage each day in 1800. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the road now known as Six Hills Way was the haunt of highwaymen who would use the ancient burial mounds as a hiding place. James Whitney, the namesake of the Highwayman pub in Graveley, was hanged at Newgate in 1693 for robbing travellers in this area.

On 10 July 1807, the Great Fire of Stevenage destroyed 42 properties in Middle Row, including Hellard's almshouse of 1501. The fire is believed to have been started when a young girl employed as a chambermaid at one of the coaching inns emptied embers from the fireplace into the street. Sparks from the embers ignited the thatched roof of a nearby wheelwright's shop, and quickly engulfed the other timber framed buildings in the north end of the Old Town due to a strong North wind. The conflagration was only stopped from engulfing the entire street by demolishing a house to serve as a firebreak. After the fire was extinguished by Stevenage's volunteer firefighters using a hand-operated fire engine made in 1763, the houses and inns were rebuilt with brick facades and tiled roofs. Troopers from the Hertfordshire Yeomanry assisted the firefighters in the operation.

Victorian era to 20th century

In 1850 the Great Northern Railway was constructed and the era of the stagecoach ended. Stevenage grew only slowly throughout the 19th century and a second church (Holy Trinity) was constructed at the south end of the High Street. In 1861 Dickens commented, "The village street was like most other village streets: wide for its height, silent for its size, and drowsy in the dullest degree. The quietest little dwellings with the largest of window-shutters to shut up nothing as if it were the Mint or the Bank of England."

At the turn of the century, the twin poachers Albert and Ebenezer Fox were active in the area. While in jail, they were studied by police commissioner Edward Henry to confirm his theory on the usefulness of fingerprinting in forensic science.

In 1928 Philip Vincent bought the HRD Motorcycle Co Ltd out of receivership, immediately moving it to Stevenage and renaming it the Vincent HRD Motorcycle Co Ltd. He produced the legendary motorcycles, including the Black Shadow and Black Lightning, in the town until 1955.

Stevenage New Town

Slow growth in Stevenage continued until just after the Second World War, when the Abercrombie Plan called for the establishment of a ring of new towns around London. On 1 August 1946, Stevenage was designated the first New Town under the New Towns Act.

The plan was not popular and local people protested at a meeting held in the town hall before Lewis Silkin, minister in the Labour Government of Clement Attlee. As Lewis Silkin arrived at the railway station for this meeting, some local people had changed the signs 'Stevenage' to 'Silkingrad'. Silkin was obstinate at the meeting, telling a crowd of 3,000 people outside the town hall (around half the town's residents): "It's no good your jeering, it's going to be done." Despite the hostile reaction to Silkin and a referendum that showed 52% (turnout 2,500) 'entirely against' the expansion, the plan went ahead. The first significant building to be demolished to make way for a gyratory system was the Old Town Hall, in which the opposition had been expressed, in 1974.

In 1949 the radical town planner Dr Monica Felton became Chairman of the Stevenage Development Corporation but she was sacked within two years. There were a number of reasons for her dismissal by the government but a lack of hands-on town planning leadership and her opposition to the Korean War (for which she was later awarded the Lenin Peace Prize) sullied her reputation. Felton was replaced first by Allan Duff and later Thomas Bennett, who carried the project to completion. Gordon Stephenson was the planner, Peter Shepheard the architect, and Eric Claxton the engineer. Claxton took the attitude that the new town should separate bicycles from the automobile as much as possible. Mary Tabor was the Housing Director of Stevenage New Town from 1951 until 1972. Tabor was a member of the Society of Women Housing Managers, which was founded by women trained under Octavia Hill. Mary Tabor, with the support of more than 40 housing management staff by 1960, provided a notably personal and caring service to tenants of the town. Many early residents of the town would recall with gratitude how much she had done for them and the town as a whole.

In May 1953, Sir Roydon Dash took over the position of chairman from Bennett. In 1962, Sir Arthur Rucker was appointed Chairman of the Stevenage Development Corporation, retiring from the position in 1966. He was succeeded by Evelyn Denington, Baroness Denington, who joined the Board in 1950. Denington remained the chairman until the dissolution of the Corporation in 1980. Having become a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1974, Denington was elevated to the peerage in 1978, choosing to assume the title of Baroness Denington of Stevenage.

In keeping with the sociological outlook of the day, the town was planned with six self-contained neighbourhoods. The first two of these to be occupied were the Stoney Hall and Monks Wood 'Estates', in 1951. The ''Twin Foxes'' pub, on the Monks Wood estate, was Stevenage's first 'new' public house and was named after local notorious identical-twin poachers ( Albert and Ebenezer Fox). It closed in 2017. At least two other public houses have a direct relationship to local history. The "Edward the Confessor" pub (closed 2006) could have had a connection to St Mary's Church in nearby Walkern as King Edward reigned from 1042 until his death in 1066 and Walkern's church dates from this period. The second pub with a link to local history is the "Our Mutual Friend" in Broadwater. The name of the pub is the title of a novel by Charles Dickens. Dickens was an occasional guest of Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton in nearby Knebworth House and knew Stevenage very well.

Next to be built and occupied were the neighbourhoods of Bedwell in 1952, and then came Broadwater and Shephall (1953), Chells in the 1960s and later Pin Green and Symonds Green. Another new development to the north of the town is Great Ashby. it was still under construction. The Government gave almost £2 million for a purpose-built homeless shelter, which will serve a large part of Hertfordshire.

Industrial area

Adjacent to, yet separate from, the residential parts of the town is the Industrial Area. For many years British Aerospace (now MBDA) was the largest employer in the town but now GSK has a large pharmaceutical research laboratory complex (which is known as 'The Palace' to many of its inhabitants). A smaller but interesting enterprise is Astrium, which for some decades (as part of British Aerospace and its predecessors) has manufactured spacecraft, both as prime contractor and as equipment supplier.

There are many small- to medium-size firms as well. Stevenage BioScience Catalyst, a new science park aimed at attracting small and start-up life-sciences enterprises, opened in 2011 on a site next to GSK.

Stevenage town centre

The pedestrianised town centre was the first purpose-built traffic-free shopping zone in Britain, taking its inspiration from the Lijnbaan in Rotterdam, and was officially opened in 1959 by the Queen. A landmark in the town centre is the clock tower and ornamental pool. Nearby is ''Joyride'', a mother and child sculpture by Franta Belsky.

Next to the Town Garden, the Church of St Andrew and St George is an example of modern church design and has housed Stevenage Museum in its crypt since 1976. The church is a Grade 2 listed building. It is also the largest parish church to have been built in England since World War Two. Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother laid the foundation stone in July 1956 and was also present at the consecration of the Bishop of St Alban's, the Right Reverend Michael Gresford-Jones, on Advent Sunday 27 November 1960. The frame is constructed from a continuous pour of concrete into moulds, creating interlacing arches and leaving no apparent joints. There are twelve Purbeck-marble columns around the high altar and the external walls are clad in panels faced with Normandy pebble. The campanile houses the loudspeakers for an electro-acoustic carillon. A popular sculpture, 'The Urban Elephant' by Andrew Burton, was commissioned in 1992.

Although revolutionary for its time, the town centre is showing signs of age and, in 2005, plans were revealed for a major regeneration to take place over the next decade. Details are still being debated by the council, landowners and other interested parties.
Multimillion-pound plans to redevelop Stevenage town centre were scrapped owing to the financial crisis of 2007–08 and the lack of interested private-sector partners. On 24 May 2012 Stevenage Borough Council announced that a £250m scheme for the shopping area has been pulled by Stevenage Regeneration Limited (SRL) because of the continuing adverse economic conditions. The plans, which included realigning streets, moving the bus station and building a new department store, cinema, hotel, restaurants, and flats, had been given council planning approval in January 2012.

Events

Stevenage holds a number of annual events, including Stevenage Day and Rock in the Park. In past years Stevenage Carnival has also been held, with a number of attempts to revive it. In June 2022, Stevenage Day returned to the King George Playing Fields to celebrate the platinum jubilee of Elizabeth II. It was the first carnival held in Stevenage since 2019, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In 2016, Stevenage "celebrated" its seventieth anniversary as a New Town.

Later schemes

The Town Centre Regeneration Strategy (2002) called for better-quality shops (including a major department store), improved public transport with a combined bus and rail interchange, high-density town-centre living, substantially improved civic facilities, increased office space and an improved 'public realm'. YMCA Space Stevenage (a youth and community centre) was evicted and replaced by Paddy Power (a betting shop). Other well-known stores, such as Maplin Electronics, and Marks & Spencer have also disappeared from Stevenage town centre.

The town has a large central library in Southgate, at the southern end of the pedestrian precinct, with facilities including printing, fax and photocopying, children's events, study space, a carers' information point and a large public computer suite, as well as a small branch library at the northern end of the High Street in the Old Town. There is also a public library in nearby Knebworth, located in St Martin's Road.

The town is still growing. It is set to expand west of the A1(M) motorway and may be further identified for development. The main area of more recent development is Great Ashby to the north-east of the town (but actually in North Hertfordshire District). A considerable amount of in-borough development has been undertaken at Chrysalis Park on the old Dixon's Warehouse site adjacent to the Pin Green Industrial Estate.

Regeneration

The town and the Stevenage First partnership has now launched a new, £1bn, 20-year regeneration programme designed to transform central spaces and introduce new residential, commercial and retail facilities, amongst others. The programme is formed of a number of individual schemes including the £350m ‘SG1’ programme being led by Mace and the £50m redevelopment of Queensway North, the former site of Marks & Spencer. In addition, Stevenage's Town Square is also being regenerated with new bars, restaurants, flexible working facilities and shops being introduced to the area. The plans are based on the local government authority's Local Plan which was given approval on 26 March 2019. The town is also introducing a new public services hub which will consolidate services that are currently spread across Stevenage into one central space and relocating its existing bus interchange to a site closer to the railway station. A number of other developments, including the conversion of a series of commercial spaces into residential facilities, are already completed or underway with a series of additional programmes set to launch in the coming years.

Geography

Climate

Stevenage experiences an oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification ''Cfb'') similar to almost all of the United Kingdom.

Governance

Stevenage was an ancient parish in the hundred of Broadwater. From 1835 Stevenage was included in the Hitchin Poor Law Union. As such it became part of the Hitchin Rural Sanitary District in 1872, with local government functions passing to the Hitchin Board of Guardians. The following year the town voted to become a Local Government District governed by a Local Board, which would have the effect of also making the town an Urban Sanitary District, independent of the Hitchin Rural Sanitary District. The Stevenage Local Government District took effect on 2 October 1873, covering the whole parish of Stevenage. The first meeting of the Stevenage Local Board was held on 4 December 1873 at the recently built Town Hall on Orchard Road. The first chairman of the board was George Becher Blomfield, who was the rector of the town's parish church of St Nicholas.

Under the Local Government Act 1894, the Local Board became Stevenage Urban District Council on 31 December 1894. Stevenage Urban District was enlarged several times, notably in 1953 when it absorbed the neighbouring parish of Shephall. Until 1964 the council met at the Town Hall on Orchard Road. With the designation of the New Town, several plans for a civic centre in the new town centre were put forward, but none came to fruition. In September 1964, the council moved its offices and meeting place to a recently-built office building in the new town centre called Southgate House (later renamed Vista Tower). The old Town Hall was demolished shortly afterwards to make way for Lytton Way. The council was based at Southgate House until 1980, when it moved to Daneshill House, which had previously been the headquarters of the New Town Corporation.

The Local Government Act 1972 reconstituted Stevenage Urban District as a non-metropolitan district with effect from 1 April 1974. The town was awarded borough status on the same date and has been governed by Stevenage Borough Council since