OUGD603 - Guidebook - Places of Interest

The Settlement (formerly known as The Skittles Inn):
- Letchworth Garden City held a ban on selling alcohol on public premises. In 1907, The Skittles Inn opened, known at the time as "the pub with no beer", which was said to offer fellowship, rest and recreation for workers until it became The Settlement in 1925. After a referendum, this ban was lifted in 1958, and the first public house opened known as The Broadway Hotel.
- The Skittles Inn combined the ideas of a continental cafe with that of an Old English inn. The bar sold cydrax (a non-alcoholic apple wine), Bournville's drinking chocolate, tea, and sarsparilla.
- The Inn was also home to a skittles alley, a billiards room, and a reading room.
- Now a Grade II listed building.

The Spirella Building:
- Also known as 'the factory of beauty', the Spirella company opened in 1920, holding one of the most prominent industries in the early years of the town in the manufacture of corsets. The company offered its employees facilities such as, baths, showers, gymnastics classes, a library, free eye tests and bicycle repairs.
- During WWII, the factory was also involved in producing parachutes and decoding machinery.
- Arts and crafts architecture.

The Cloisters:
- Originally built as a school for Arts, crafts and sciences in 1907, the school was dedicated to psychology, where students were taught skills from the Arts and Crafts Movement.
- The building is now a masonic meeting place (1950's).
- Grade II listed building.

Mrs Howard Memorial Hall:
- Built in memory of Ebenezer Howard's first wife who died in 1904, the hall became the first public building in the town, becoming a social hub with a focus on literary, musical and political life in the developing Garden City.
- Grade II listed building.

Howgill's Friends Meeting House:
- Built in 1907 as the meeting house for 'The Society of Friends' (Quakers), who initially purchased the land the town is now built on with the intention to farm the area.

UK's First Roundabout:
- The first 'gyratory traffic flow system' built circa 1909.

Broadway Cinema:
- Housed in a 1930's Art Deco building, opened in 1936.