Golders Green tube station, NW11 7RN
Hampstead Garden Suburb is the UK's exemplar garden suburb, the suburban version of the garden city movement. It is significant for its varied, high-quality architecture and its influential role in the development of twentieth-century town planning in Britain and abroad.
East Finchley, Golders Green
102, 13, 460
This is a wheelchair accessible tour.
This is a quiet neighbourhood, seating is available on public benches.
Walking tour
14:00–15:30
How to book
Please create a free visitor account to book your festival tickets.
Walking tour
14:00–15:30
How to book
Please create a free visitor account to book your festival tickets.
Hampstead Garden Suburb is an exemplar of twentieth-century town planning. Founded by social reformer Henrietta Barnett in 1907, its early masterplan was developed by the socialist architect Raymond Unwin, and the two found common cause creating a utopian settlement where all classes could live together. Together they helped establish a Trust to create one of the first suburban offshoots of the garden city movement.
The Suburb’s character began in the style of the Arts & Crafts school, though subsequent interventions by Edwin Lutyens in the centre contrasted this with grander set pieces. Unwin and Lutyens took inspiration from English vernacular architecture, real and imagined. They were reacting against what they saw as the monotonous sprawl of Victorian speculative development.
The Suburb continued development until 1939, by which point it was mostly complete as an estate. The expansion of the area under the Trust in the interwar period witnessed a new generation of architects - many from continental Europe - contributing to a diverse range of architectural styles, among them Neo-Tudor, Neo-Georgian, Art Deco and Modernist.
Today the Suburb is managed by the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust, a charity set up in 1968 to protect the character of the estate. The Trust is a conservation body replacing the development vehicle that was the original Trust. Through restrictive covenants and leases, the Trust exercises planning control over the area separate to the local authority, with an architectural team to support this.
This walking tour will be led by an Architectural Adviser at the Trust. Starting at Golders Green tube station, we will explore the historic core of the Suburb that is framed around the Hampstead Heath Extension. We will see the Arts & Crafts ‘Artisans Quarter’, as well as the more formal work of Lutyens in the central three squares. We will look at the planning and architectural detail of the area, and the influence of garden suburbs on architecture and town planning through the twentieth century to the present day.