Correcting Infringements Makes a Major Difference
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Dr Mervyn Miller revisits ‘Wyldes’ Connecticut Hampstead Registry Office, where my parents also had married’. The house at Grassy Hill, Lyme has now passed to Ning; it was built mid 18th century, and its elegant timber framing and clapboarding conceal a rugged stone chimney and fireplaces at its heart. The beamed rooms and open stair recall, not only ‘Wyldes’ itself, but also the early sketches made by Parker and Unwin of ‘the Artisan’s Living Room’. The dining table is a robust oak trestle table designed by Raymond Unwin for ‘Wyldes’, and was made by Stanley Parker, Barry’s ‘Wyldes’ Connecticut Joan ‘Ning’ Rich at ‘Wyldes’ The living room at ‘Wyldes’ Craftsman brother, who had been Last October, after attending a post teaching economics at Raymond was a baby) remembers April 1: We have just left Ann housing under the Roosevelt New educated at Bedales. conference on urban planning Chicago University, returned to ‘when Granddaddy took me up to Arbor. I know all about housing. Deal in the early 1930s. In the restoration of the history in Portland, Maine, I took marry Peggy the following year, Whitestone Pond to sail a toy I’ve heard 4 lectures and oh was Ning didn’t visit ‘Wyldes’ building, Peggy acted as her own the coastal Amtrak train through in a civil ceremony at Hampstead boat, and I fell in’. I bored. again until 1950, shortly after architect. The spirit that designed the glorious New England Fall to Town Hall. During the later 1930s the Ning now recalls it as a Ettie Unwin’s death, and the Letchworth Garden City and New London, Connecticut. Here I Raymond Unwin developed Unwins regular visits to the wonderful trip, which opened her house was presided over by Aunt Hampstead Garden Suburb, and renewed my acquaintance with professional and academic United States strengthened the eyes to social and housing Jane (Jennie Unwin, Edward which created the ‘plain living Raymond Unwin’s granddaughter contacts with the United States bonds and in Spring 1939, she problems on a national scale. Unwin’s widow). and high thinking’ at ‘Wyldes’, Joan ‘Ning’ Rich and her husband, and there were frequent visits, accompanied her grandparents That family concern for social ‘Of course the war kept us seems to have been handed Norman, a retired professor from particularly after the early death on a tour of cities across the equity was passed down through apart until 1950, when I lived through the generations, to Brown University. It was almost of his son, Edward, in 1936. That country (and into Canada for a the generations. During the late there for about 5-6 months at flourish in the distinctive 30 years ago that I met her mother, same year, Raymond Unwin was family visit). She was 11 at the 1970s I struck up correspondence which point I joined an old friend ambiance of its American cousin Peggy Unwin Hitchcock, who had appointed Visiting Professor of time, and recorded her with Peggy Unwin Hitchcock, in Highgate. Norman and I met at in Connecticut. lived at ‘Wyldes’ with her elder City and Regional Planning at impressions in a diary and who provided me with many ‘Wyldes’ and were married in the DR MERVYN MILLER brother Edward, after Raymond Columbia University, New York. photographs. She was nothing if insights into the Unwins’ family Unwin had been appointed In August 1939, as ever not frank (but rather proud of life as I commenced work on my Consultant Architect to accompanied by his wife, Ettie the celebrity of her grandfather, PhD. Peggy had worked for the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust (Ethel Parker, elder sister of who was feted by the great and Unitarian Service Committee to in 1906. Barry) he sailed for New York, to the good representatives of develop modern education Peggy, who had a dark prepare for the new academic socially progressive thought, at programmes in Korea and Pre-Raphaelite intensity as a girl, year: the Second World War broke each stopover). Typically the tour Cambodia in the late 1950s/early met Curtice Hitchcock, when he out shortly after his arrival. In also included craft guilds, 1960s. For many years, she served visited ‘Wyldes’ as secretary to Spring 1940 he fell ill and died on including Cranbrook, Michigan. on the Lyme Planning and Zoning Edward A. Filene, Boston June 28, in a clapboarded cottage, March 31: Prof. Whittemoor took Board and was President of the department store owner and close to the Hitchcocks’ summer us to Detroit. It’s an awful place, local League of Women Voters. philanthropist. Filene funded an home in Old Lyme, Connecticut. worse than New York... Grandpop Curtice died young. I hadn’t investigative committee on social It was 1943 before Ettie succeeded gave a talk. We saw the slums. realised until my recent visit how policy, who came over to Europe in obtaining a passage home: she Then Prof. Whittemoor took us to important he was in pressing for in the wake of President Woodrow died at ‘Wyldes’ in 1949. Cranbrook to see a school where the adoption of an Emergency Wilson’s Peace Delegation to ‘Ning’ first visited her they teach different arts. I thought Naval Housing Program, after Versailles in the Summer of 1919. grandparents at the age of three, we’d never get out of the architect America entered the War in 1917. First impressions were lasting, and on the next visit, two years part. Mr [Eliel] Saarinen showed This laid the ground for the and Curtice, who had obtained a later (when her brother John us around. revival of state aided public Peggy Unwin Raymond and Ettie Unwin Correcting infringements makes a major difference There are lots of ‘infringements’ known to the Trust which were perpetrated some time ago when householders were less likely to be stopped. Reinstating the original features improves both the property and the Suburb. The Trust actively encourages residents to put things right especially when houses change hands and new owners are keen to improve the appearance of their new homes. Inappropriate concrete wall and paving replaced by characteristic privet hedge and lawn. Ugly plastic windows and porch replaced by attractive timber windows (The front door is to be reinstated in the original style shortly.) appropriate to the building. 862 Finchley Road, Hampstead Garden Suburb, London NW11 6AB · 8455 1066 · [email protected] · www.hgstrust.org 8 SUBURB NEWS IS PRODUCED AND DELIVERED TO YOU BY RESIDENTS ASSOCIATION VOLUNTEERS.