please empty your brain below
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No mention of the secret underground city - The cycle ways!
David Cohen | 14.11.22 - 7:20 a.m. | #
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Correction - You have mentioned it briefly, but I think it would warrant a bigger mention, re a bit of background as to the why and the how etc.
David Cohen | 14.11.22 - 7:21 a.m. | #
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I grew up in another New Town, Hemel Hempstead, and half of your photos could have been taken of the same subjects there and you'd barely notice the difference. Except the high street (The Marlowes) is a lot wider.
Graham | 14.11.22 - 7:26 a.m. | #
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You've portrayed 'St. Evenge' in a favourable light. There's certainly interest around the town centre, but the majority is housing estate sprawl. Pin Green residents can at least be reassured that they don't live in Harlow or Hemel. Had you stayed until after dark, you'd have seen the Old Town area transformed into a heavily-policed hellscape that acts as a magnet for hordes of teens-to-early-20s overflowing from the many bars and food places.
Frank F | 14.11.22 - 7:48 a.m. | #
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The Waitrose branch wasn't in central Stevenage, but on the High Street in the Old Town (corner of Drapers Way).
Ian | 14.11.22 - 8:08 a.m. | #
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The composer Elizabeth Poston lived at Rooks Nest House from 1914 until her death in 1987 -much longer than Forster.
She wrote the music for the 1970 BBC television production of Howards End while living there (unfortunately one of the many tapes the BBC erased rather than archived). She also wrote ''Jesus Christ the Apple Tree" (popular at Christmas), and some lovely other stuff that should be better known, like this piece for flute, clarinet and harp.
Schlegel | 14.11.22 - 8:10 a.m. | #
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And from another new town resident this looks exactly like Bracknell did for many years until the developers moved in and rebuilt the town centre. Yes we still have the estate shopping centres (which look just like Stevenage's), underpasses, roundabouts, cycleways but the new town is now unrecognisable from its old form. Let's hope Stevenage don't follow the same path and destroy their heritage.
davews | 14.11.22 - 8:35 a.m. | #
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What a treat to read about Stevenage this morning! I've lived here for 25 years. You certainly did some walking of you visited all those places on foot!
The town centre is rather down at heel these days, although a huge M&S recently opened on the Roaring Meg retail park and seems to be doing well.
Surprised you took the slow train via Hertford rather than a fast one via the mainline. I wonder if you stopped off somewhere en-route (or did you need to tick off the recently built Platform 5 at Stevenage?).
dg writes: it was cheaper (and thanks to the pheasant, 60% cheaper).
Hadders | 14.11.22 - 9:04 a.m. | #
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Silkingrad!
Philip Downer | 14.11.22 - 9:08 a.m. | #
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The residents of Colestrete must find it tedious to have to correct the spelling of their address.
Kev | 14.11.22 - 9:32 a.m. | #
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When I worked in Stevenage in the 1990's there was a good outdoor market a couple of days per week, and good indoor market as well. Went back in the mid 2000's to find it had become a shadow of it's former self, haven't been back since.
There used to be several department stores in Stevenage (Debenhams, Littlewoods, Co-Op I think) but all gone, with M&S on a retail park on the outskirts. The nearest Waitrose is now in nearby Welwyn Garden City.
MilesT | 14.11.22 - 9:48 a.m. | #
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A typical new town characterless concrete shopping centre.
Barry Coppock | 14.11.22 - 9:54 a.m. | #
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Bus anoraks need to click on the 24 photos link.
ap | 14.11.22 - 9:58 a.m. | #
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There used to be such good shopping in Stevenage that we used to go there from South Cambs as a kid rather than going to Cambridge.
There used to be C&A (before Primark and after Co-op), a huge Woolies (now wilko) and Boots, Littlewoods and Index, M&S, Debenhams, and generally big versions of most other shops such as Mothercare, WHSmith and Argos, Currys, PC World and Toys R Us out on Roaring Meg.
I don't remember the outdoor market, but I do remember the indoor one, and still go there occasionally to get some stuff it is hard to find elsewhere. And the new M&S is brilliant. Haven't been into town other than the indoor market in two years though.
Kirk | 14.11.22 - 10:54 a.m. | #
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Funnily I was in Stevenage only last Tuesday, a briefer visit but I managed to get the flavour...
There's a definitely a common style of architecture amongst the towns built/expanded in the 60s such as Hemel (mentioned above). The railway station with its high level buildings over the track and walkways reminded me of Luton, for example.
Mikey C | 14.11.22 - 11:58 a.m. | #
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Thank you for this interesting gaddabout post!
It’s interesting to see just how alike the town centre and neighbourhoods look to the still remaining Crawley new town buildings but Stevenage seems a smaller scale.
Hope to read about other new town visits
Sinners | 14.11.22 - 1:36 p.m. | #
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Great read! Maybe it's time to list everything, before the vandalism starts. If it survived this long, why not longer...
cau1khead | 14.11.22 - 5:40 p.m. | #
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Long time lurker here, moved to comment by a post on where I live! I did wonder yesterday, with the mention of the interesting object in the corner of the churchyard and that row of trees that was familiar and yet unidentifiable at the same time.
We moved to Stevenage for the first time from Tower Hamlets back in 1982 when my husband got a job at what was then British Aerospace and we found to our surprise that we could actually afford to buy a house in Stevenage, having been priced out of East London (nothing changes). It's a very convenient place to live.
Apparently it's used as a transport case study of what happens when you make it so fast and easy to get around by car (e.g dual carriageways, separation of pedestrians, roundabouts, very few traffic lights) that even an excellent cycle path infrastructure becomes underused. New local road schemes that don't prioritise cars, plus the rise of the electric bicycle and the rising cost of motoring may see more use of the cycle network in the coming years.
ChrisW | 14.11.22 - 7:16 p.m. | #
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Restricted hours at the church IIUC
Lorenzo | 14.11.22 - 8:54 p.m. | #
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ChrisW - that's intriguing, given that Milton Keynes operates many of the same principles, and yet is always held up as a success of the segregated approach. I suspect the difference is that the regional centres in MK are bigger, and thus don't concentrate so much on a couple of neighbourhoods in the centre like in Stevenage.
Kirk | 15.11.22 - 8:24 a.m. | #
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