COUNTRY LIFE
THE plan to Make Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City into what is to be virtually one township has a satiric emphasis in the ears of some residents. There was once a signpost between the two—the late Lord Salisbury went bail for the fact—which bore the legend, " The Way to Yesterday," on the arm pointing south. The other arm might well have carried the motto, " The Way to Tomorrow," for " Tomorrow " was the sole title of Ebenezer Howard's book, which started the Garden City movement. The title was afterwards extended, but so it stood originally. However, the junction does not fly in the face of history quite so violently as may be thought. The old Hatfield, with its. Tudor Hall and Jacobean house and garden, with its pleached alley and most glorious park, with its daffodils and rabbits and woodpeckers and cricket ground and Queen Elizabeth's oak, will remain happily outside the pale. They are the very crown of all that is meant by the English country house, where civilisation reached its very highest pitch, as even so modern a spirit as H. G. Wells argued. May yesterday continue to qualify tomorrow.
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