Development of the English Town (1942-43)
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- Опубликовано: 10 июл 2024
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The British Council Film Collection is an archive of more than 120 short documentary films made by the British Council during the 1940s designed to show the world how Britain lived, worked and played. Preserved by the BFI National Film Archive and digitised by means of a generous donation by Google, the films are now yours to view, to download and to play with for the first time.
Development of the English Town leads us on a swift journey through the ages, examining the motivations of town-builders from the Romans at Silchester right thorough to the modern designers of 1950s new towns. A promotion of the virtues of today's well-considered community blueprints, this film demonstrates the advances in town planning through a critique of our ancestors' built environments.
This film illustrates the main concepts behind town planning in England in every major era from the Roman period to the modern day, extolling the virtues of consideration of factors, exemplified in modern town planning. It unrepentantly presents all earlier 'organic' towns as unhealthy, or horrible, asking 'What kind of life must the inhabitants have had?' However, it also features the 'ghosts' of a Norman, 18th century footman, and a Victorian gentleman, who tend to challenge this view; but they are gently overshadowed by the narrator's opinion.
The 'London Overspill' policy was instigated in the 1930s to move people out of London, but started in earnest after World War II, as a reaction to the housing shortages caused by bombing and large amounts of substandard housing in the capital. In fact, it seems to suggests that war is useful in clearing overcrowded areas, as is now an opportunity to build more pleasant towns. The film finishes very much looking to the future, perhaps encouraging people to move into these new planned towns; presenting them as the ideal.
Locations featured: Roman Silchester (Between Basingstoke, Newbury, & Reading), Norman Rye (Near Hastings), Chipping Campden (Near Evesham), 18th c. Bath(?), Port Sunlight, Bournville, Letchworth, Welwyn Garden City and many other unnamed locations, including Nottingham, Hanger Lane Tube Station, etc.
NB. Film mentions Welwyn Garden City, which was 'finished' in 1948.
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Remarkable wartime film - promising a better tomorrow for the urban dweller. Many thanks for this informative and delightful film
What a lovely and thoughtful way of planning, building and living in harmony in a such a beautiful and well designed environment. A pleasure to look back at all those years. Very interesting.
Very interesting film. One can't understand modern Britain - our towns and cities, our housing, our economy, our planning system, and our culture - without grappling with the way people felt about towns and planning in the 1930s and 40s. They created the legal framework and built much of the physical environment in which we live and work today. We live with the consequences of their successes and failures, and we live in the shadow of their opinions, aspirations, and biases.
Like wanton boys are to flies, those whom ignore such delightful documentaries such as this shall lose out and join what is becoming an ever-growing penumbra.
Thanks to British Council for providing videos about Britain.🍊🍎🇬🇧
The commentary for this film was spoken by Frank Phillips.
I recognised his voice as he also narrated on the film Little and Often which was also made by GB Instructional Films.
Can't help watching this with a great sense of irony, knowing how wretchedly poor planning would be in the 1960s and 1970s when towns were sacrificed to concrete, king car and social theories borrowed from communism in the work of trendy architects.
This place called England sounds lovely. Where is it?
MrAlwaysBlue Jamaica
Whato all,
Nice to see the Council House in Nottingham and the Old Market Square before it was boggered in the 2000s.
Totally agree with you!
In retrospect--planning by commities never works, we ended up with sterile soulless architecture , by those who think they are Frank LLoyd Wright. with concrete tower blocks that were hell on earth. And huge open windswept areas that nobody wants to use. Time is the factor, all those quaint towns EVOLVED and developed slowly, over centuries.
Several parts of the film look like the Welwyn Garden City I remember from the late sixties. A great place to live at that time.
I thought the same!
Imagine if housing on new estates should've been related to factories as in today?
I wish we young'uns still knew the value of prosperity, integrity, dignity community, and grace. Helping each other when in need and not endlessly rebelling against each other for so called justice while doing nought for our own local community.
Not that this is new and has never occurred before in history, it has. But we're not making it an effort to strengthen bonds and get off that goat daim internet for once.
Perhaps the key to harmony is to have one of a town's nodal points reserved for church and community centres.
Oh my god, how housing has changed now, now they build houses anywhere
who was the city planner in this video??
Alan Cao If you mean the new towns featured near the end, it was Ebenezer Howard. He designed Letchworth Gdn City first, then Welwyn Gdn City in Hertfordshire.
Dear Aptitude,
As far as one can draw conclusions and assess present-day real estate trends in most countries, it's the sort of Corbusian and Rationalist gospel that shook hands with 19th and early 20th century unrigged capitalism the real cause of dull gridiron (or supposedly loose-pattern) plans that have effectively ruined the urban landscape of many an Old-World town.
The pursuit of maximum land-occupation led to blind cloning, to the utter oblivion of the benefits of diversity.
See that hat, over there? The one with the top cut right off? That' hat is for the narrator to talk through as he's certainly talking through his hat! - Peter age 72
dont like it, like things as they were, things went rotten when you put townies in country.
Don’t blame “communists’ blame money grubbing capitalism