History
Stevenage Ladies Choir
Stevenage Ladies Choir was formed in 1960, and made up of the wives of members of Stevenage Male Voice Choir. During the early years the choir took part in various competitions, and their greatest achievement was winning a Gold Cup at the Cheltenham Music Festival.
The Choir chooses to no longer enter competitions, preferring instead to raise money for charities both local and national and to regularly perform alongside Male and Female Choirs from around the United Kingdom and Europe. This encourages us to expand our repertoire, often learning new pieces, which can sometimes be in a foreign language, thereby stretching our creativity.
Our current repertoire is very varied, including pieces from classical through to modern day composers, examples being Bach-Gounod’s Ave Maria, Fields-Coleman’s The Rhythm of Life, and Sumner (Sting’s) Fields of Gold.
In the past the choir has toured France, Germany (to our twin town Ingelheim) and Holland, as well as extensively in the United Kingdom.
Stevenage Town Twinnings
Slow growth in town expansion in the UK continued until, after the Second World War, the Greater London Plan called for the establishment of a ring of new towns around London. Therefore Stevenage was designated the first New Town on 1 August 1946, and was planned with six self-contained neighbourhoods. The first two of these to be occupied were the Stoney Hall and Monks Wood "Estates" in 1951. Next to be built and occupied was Bedwell in 1952 - The Twin Foxes pub was Stevenage's first "new" public house and is still situated in the Monk's Wood estate. The public house was named after local notorious identical twin poachers (Albert Ebenezer and Ebenezer Albert Fox). Next came Broadwater and Shephall (1953), then Chells in the 1960s and later Pin Green .
The pedestrianised town centre was the first traffic-free shopping zone in Britain, and was officially opened in 1959 by the Queen. By the clock tower and ornamental pool is Joyride, a mother and child sculpture by Franta Belsky.
Next to the Town Gardens, the Church of St George and St Andrew is an example of modern church design and is also near Stevenage Museum.
A distinctive feature of Stevenage is its urban landscape. It has many roundabouts, a network of cycle tracks, and some of the tallest street-lights in Britain. Fairlands Valley is a large area of parkland with boating lakes. The town is a very green town, with avenues of trees (typically Norway Maple) throughout but also large woods such as Monks & Whomerley Wood, which is ancient semi-natural woodland. Indeed it is only matched for the ease of access to large woodland by places such the Forest of Dean (Woodland Trust data). There are also many playing fields (e.g. St. Nicholas playing fields near Ripon Road). The town's schools all have a substantial amount of ground; key examples are Ashtree Primary School, Moss Bury Primary School and Collenswood.
The Stevenage Leisure Centre contains the Gordon Craig Theatre and many sporting opportunities and the Stevenage Leisure Park has a multiplex cinema, clubs and restaurants. The main shopping area is around Queensway and the Westgate. At Roaring Meg there is an out of town shopping area know as the 'tin cans'. There is also shopping in the Old Town.
Separate from the residential parts of the town is the Industrial Area. For many years, British Aerospace was the largest employer in the town, but now Glaxo has a large pharmaceutical research laboratory complex, and there are many small to medium size firms as well.
The town is still growing, and is now set to expand west of the motorway. The new development of Great Ashby near Chells Manor to the northeast of the town (but actually in North Herts District) has continued the growth of the town.