Welwyn Garden City was the brain child of Ebenezer Howard (later Sir Ebenezer Howard), a self contained town providing an escape from overcrowded London to a pleasant environment with wide streets with grassy verges and trees and affordable comfortable houses, each with its own garden. People were to work within easy reach of their homes in either agriculture, the town is surrounded by farms and pastures, or at the many factories which were established to provide employment.  And so it remains today, although it has to a large extent become a middle class neighbourhood many of its inhabitants working in the City of London with frequent trains. Kings Cross Station is just 26 minutes away, and Findsbury Park where the main line meets the London Undergroung just 20 minutes away. Not quite what Sir Ebenezer had in mind perhaps, but a very pleasant place to live with an excellent shopping centre and lot a large park and woods for outdoor activities.

This panorama was made in a street named for the founder of Welwyn Garden City. It is Howards Gate, a wide avenue with gardens at its centre and surrounded by shops. At one end is a fairly recent addition, the Howard Centre shopping mall (which also houses the railway station) and at the other the a fountain commemorating the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.