General Scheme.
Port Sunlight village (founded in 1888), apart from the Works, covers 222 acres, on which the houses may approach 2,000 for a population of 10,000. The tenancies of the houses are limited to employés of the Works. Already over 1,000 houses have been built or are in process of building, and the length of broad roadways exceeds five miles. The first block of cottages built in 1888-1889 was reproduced at the Brussels Exhibition of 1910, and was awarded the Grand Prix. It is intended to limit the number of cottages to ten per acre, and it is hoped to keep below that maximum.
W. & S. OWEN,
Architects.
26. GLADSTONE HALL.
The general width of the roadways is 40 feet, giving 24 feet to the road, and 8 feet for each footpath; but there are roads 48 feet wide, including footpaths. The paths are flagged along the central portion only.
In a progressive world, and especially in such a progressive part of it as Port Sunlight, one cannot hope to give a record which will for long represent existing facts. The arrangements which have been made for the benefit of the inhabitants of this village have necessarily been altered or modified. At the present time the buildings for general use include Christ Church (No. 6 and Pls. 31-33), an admirable Late Gothic building in a central position, the Schools, which accommodate about 1,600 children, a Lyceum, a Cottage Hospital, a Gymnasium (No. 29), an open-air Swimming Bath (Pl. 26), Post Office (Pl. 19), a Village Inn (No. 36 and Pl. 24), Village Stores, a Fire Station, the Auditorium, to seat 3,000, the Collegium (No. 11), the Gladstone Hall (No. 26), the Hulme Hall (No. 25), Co-Partners’ Club with billiard rooms and bowling green (No. 8), a Village Fountain, and, finally, the Hulme Art Gallery (Pl. 29), which is destined to hold the Public Library as well as fine collections of Pictures, Pottery, and Furniture.
27. PARK ROAD BY POETS’ CORNER.
Port Sunlight has been an object of attraction to visitors for years, and this is not only due to the interest and variety of its cottage houses, and as a model for town planners the world over, but to the whole-hearted endeavour to meet all the practical and social needs of everyday life which is expressed in its various public buildings. But another source of great and enduring attraction lies in its Art Gallery. Here it outdistances every other village of the kind, for this Art Gallery holds no fortuitous collection of odd things, but carefully chosen examples of fine art got together by expert knowledge. The pictures, china, furniture, etc., would alone bring many visitors to study such a superb and finely-housed collection of works of art.