J BOOKS Walter Crane, Ben Tiller, H G Wells, GB Shaw and probably Dickens as progenitors or supporters, and Cadbury and Lever, who might have laid claim to the "first" themselves, amongst the principal benefactors. Although many important architects, including R Norman Shaw, W R Lethaby, Halsey Ricardo and Sir Aston Webb, were considered for the job of planning the new city and designing its houses (Lerhaby and Ricardo submitted proposals and Ricardo, Baillie-Scott, Crickmer and many others built houses there), it was to be the team of Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker who would be remembered as the masters of town planning and design. It is clear from the evidence of this book that the legacy they left was not based on some arbitrary aesthetic feeling, but on a carefully worked out philosophical and practical framework. Seldom if ever has the combination of organisational skill, design excellence and social purpose been egualled. Within a few years the fledgling Garden City was being lampooned as the Hippie Colony of its day, for the "eccentric behaviour of its middle-class 'simple-lifers' with their cult religions, vegetarianism, Esperanto, smocks and sandals." Planners and designers Parker and Unwin may have been, but there is no mistaking the principal architectural inspiration for those gloriously simple, economical and instantly homey cottages of early Letchworth - CF A Voysey. But, like many others the aurhor can shed no light on why it was that the man himself, then in his heyday, was not called upon to build at Letchworth, Hampstead, Welwyn or any other similar place. Mervyn Miller is however superbly and possibly uni9uely 9ualified to chronicle the origins, development, flowering and ultimate tarnishing of this Grail. He is an architect, has a PhD for his work on Unwin, was a planner with North Hens for fourteen years, where he fought for the Conservation Area, finally designated in 1974, and for enhancement measures, has written and delivered numerous papers on Letchworth and related subjects, organised the 1978 commemorative exhibition and is a Trustee of the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust. Miller's treatment of the epic tale is wonderfully contextual and jam-packed with so much information as to be an indispensible CONTEXT 29 reference book, yet extraordinarily even-handed for a subject so evocative and open to analysis and attempts to appraise its Place in History. From being taken through the excitement felt by the pioneers, one is left with the feeling in the second half of the book that, having lost any architectural, social, economic or planning edge in the post-war period, there is little to stimulate the imagination, apart from the take-over bids and financial/philosophical/political dilemmas, so a certain amount of trivia, such as the number of floats in the 12th annual town carnival, has crept in. With the realisation, despite the Radburn planning experiments, that architecture in Letchworth had become so crass and boring by 1950 that it would correlate exactly with the rate of Valium dispensing, comes a· sense of depression and a foreboding of ultimate historical obscurity about the place today. Afrer this, only a two page attempt to draw the lessons at the end of the book, together with current efforts to conserve the groups of early cottages, are offered to light up the dedicated practical conservationist. So impressive is some of the conservation work, however, that one must wonder why it is not more widespread, instead of the Council allowing and even promoting the use of upvc single-sheet windows. Personally, I wish that the book had looked longer at the architectural and planning contribution of the early greats, been more critical of the loss of unity, cohesion and sense of purpose, examined the plight and promoted the re-use of the brilliant and derelict industrial architecture to a greater degree, and made a heart-rending plea for a revival of the great humanistic thought and feeling which gave rise to Letchworth. But then, I always do think such things. Perhaps the cool approach is the author's way of getting us to do the creative thinking for ourselves, with the advantage of the facts at our fingertips, which he has provided in abondance. It should also stimulate the reader to visit or revisit Letchworth and compare it with both other garden cities and examples of planned settlements employing alternative, or opposing concepts. I wouldn't have missed reading this thoroughly researched, well referenced and illustrated volume, unless I were offered invisibility and a stick of dynamite to place under the ICL building in Letchworth' Jack Warshaw Perfect forevery detail Traditional castleadprotectedBritain'scastles, churchesandstatelyhomesfor manyhundreds of years.Today, MidlandLeadcontinuouslycast leadsheetis providingthesameoutstanding protectionon modernofficeblocks,countless homesandmanynotablebuildings. Agrement Boardapproved, MidlandLead ✓sheet is madein all BSCodeweightsand suppliedcutto anystandardor non-standard width,upto 1400mm. Excellentresistanceto creepandfatigue ✓makes castleadsheetidealfor allflashing work,full roofcoverandcladding applications. 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