This poster advertises a book about the world’s first Garden City, inspired by social reformer Ebenezer Howard around 1900. The design aimed to eradicate squalor, enclosing residential and industrial areas within countryside to give a unique and healthy community. The proud claim was that only one tree was felled during construction.

Popular with Arts and Crafts enthusiasts and Quakers, early inhabitants were mocked as idealists and “health freaks”. The ban on alcohol meant that The Skittles Inn was a pub without beer. A design competition resulted in the Cheap Cottages Exhibition, the legacy of which is the Ideal Home Show.

Tower 12, Miscellaneous Leaflets box for ‘1908–’ (box 2)