book list

ALAN CASH - web pages

Collection of books on Welwyn Garden City

How to Plan Your House

Author: Martin S. Briggs

First published: 1937 by The English Universities Press

Format: Hardback 8½" by 6¾" with 210 pages

In the preface, the author says "This book is the outcome of a request from my publishers for a simple guide explaining the mystery of house-building to those who contemplate such an adventure."

The chapter headings are:

1. Where Shall we Build
2. Ready-Made or Made-to-Measure
3. Style and Materials
4. Arrangement of the Rooms
5. The Rooms One by One
6. Practical Hints
7. The Garage and the Garden
8. How to Modernise or Extend an Old House

Appendices:

1. Structural Precautions against Air-Raids
2. Model Specification Approved by the National House-Builders' Registration Council, 1937

The text is illustrated by 42 line drawings, and 16 black and white photographs. Half of the line drawings are plans of houses, some with a sketch of the finished building. The remainder are mostly drawings of architectural details. There is one (reproduced below) concerned with air-raid precautions.

The photographs are mostly of individual houses, a few of street scenes, and three are of house interiors. The photographs are on glossy paper and of good quality. A number of modern houses with flat roofs are featured.

There is a short discussion of Welwyn Garden City, and satellite towns in general, in the text, but the main subject of the book is how houses are constructed, written in a non-technical way.

	A house in Welwyn Garden City Architect: C. H. James F.R.I.B.A.
	Plans for the above house
	Houses in Welwyn Garden City designed by C. H. James.
	More of the same
	Precautions against air-raids, diagrammatic section