Hitchin Rural District

The link with the poor law union continued, with all the elected councillors of the rural district council being ex officio members of the Hitchin Board of Guardians.

Most of Hitchin Rural Sanitary District was in Hertfordshire, but the single parish of Holwell was in Bedfordshire.

The Local Government Board agreed to allow the new Hitchin Rural District to initially straddle Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire.

Much of the early development of the garden city was therefore carried out under the byelaws and supervision of Hitchin Rural District Council.

The enlarged Letchworth parish remained part of Hitchin Rural District at that time.

[17][18] Around 1961 the council took over the former Society of Friends' Meeting House at the junction of Grammar School Walk and Bedford Road in Hitchin, which the Society had recently vacated following the construction of their new meeting house on the opposite side of Bedford Road.