New Towns Act

1903 saw the launch of "First Garden City Ltd." and the purchase of development land near Hitchin. 50 years on, in Coronation year, Letchworth was worthy of another celebration.

An insider's guide to 1950s Harlow made for US audiences, with architect Frederick Gibberd interviewed from the top of the Lawn tower block.

"The most exciting thing going on in Europe, if not the world": welcome to Milton Keynes circa 1973.

Picturesque tour of Welwyn, England's second Garden City. A rural-urban idyll of spacious residential areas and green community spaces. A marvel of town planning design!

A May Queen pageant, Highland piping, and musical theatre. Letchworth's part in celebrating the 1951 Festival of Britain captured by the local Film Society.

Charley says (no, not that one) that Britain’s new towns are great

Anglia Television's 'Focus On' series looks at the Hertfordshire town of Stevenage, designated the UK’s first ‘New Town’ in August 1946.

What does it mean to be British in 1962? This highly controversial American documentary investigates by visiting Stevenage and the Isle of Dogs.

Maintaining, evolving and revolutionising the landscape on an industrial scale with one of Britain's biggest builders.

Teachers and pupils of 3 schools in Trafford, Stevenage and Coventry make the case for the acceptance of difference without discrimination.

Amateur captured Hertfordshire town centres, public gardens, market days, river journeys by boat or barge, and Whipsnade Zoo with wild animals from each corner of the globe.

Meanderers on sunny days! Capturing scenery 'round and about' Herts and Beds during the summer of 1959; the first of two amateur films with pleasing hand-created title cards.

The director of a documentary about British funk pioneers Cymande joins the band at BFI Southbank to talk about the film.

Plotting world domination, Devil Doctor Fu-Manchu steals plans for a new aero-torpedo in this earliest surviving thrill-a-minute serial instalment.

Filmmakers Jane Giles and Ali Catterall discuss their documentary Scala!!!, revisiting the legendary and inspirational cinema venue and some of the most notorious films that screened there.

Long thought lost, this Powell-directed promotional short for a veteran’s charity was only rediscovered in 2003.

A poignant, stirring letter from a recently deceased pilot to his mother is read by John Gielgud.

Former Bristol Poet Laureate, Miles Chambers reads a poem specially commissioned for the 75th anniversary of the NHS.