Identification and description | |||||
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Name | Garden at Turn End | ||||
Location |
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Localisation | Latitude: 51.771830 Longitude: -0.92976616 National Grid Reference: SP7394308670, SP7395008650, SP7396008663, SP7398208676, SP7399408673 Map: Download a full scale map (PDF) |
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Overview | Heritage Category: Park and Garden Grade: II List Entry Number: 1445345 Date first listed: 30-Nov-2017 Statutory Address 1: Turn End, Townside, Haddenham, Aylesbury, HP17 8BG |
Peter and Margaret Aldington bought the site, 7 Townside, chosen for its mature trees
and walls in the village setting, in April 1963. Already with outline consent for
three conventional bungalows the site, between High Street and Townside, was once
the garden of a large Victorian house on High Street and included an old orchard,
wichert walls (built prior to a map of 1820) and mature specimen trees which they
were determined to keep. Following their planning application for three linked single-storey
houses, debate about local policy on road widening versus historic roadside trees
and walls dragged on. They eventually gained consent to build a single house on the
site in May 1964 and promptly started work building Turn End for themselves, moving
into its shell by the end of the year; Middle Turn and The Turn followed in 1965-1968
once the planning debate was resolved.
All three houses share a common Forecourt and garage Court with a rear access service
area off Townside. The private gardens of Middle Turn and The Turn are not included
in the registered landscape.
During 1965 Aldington built the courtyard garden within Turn End, while work began
on the main garden in autumn 1967, helped by one of the two former students who had
worked on the houses, creating the central glade the following year. At the end of
1968 the Aldingtons were able to buy 8 High Street, adding a further strip of land
to the east, bounded by tall conifers and the coach house, and in 1971 they acquired
land to the north beyond the Horse Chestnut tree, with 6 High Street, which in 1979
became the practice office for Aldington and Craig. A series of garden rooms evolved
in the new spaces, created between 1970 and 1976. In 1970 John Craig had bought 16
High Street, and part of that garden was retained by the Aldingtons, becoming known
as No-Mans, to the south of the house.
The interweaving of house and garden is integral to Aldington’s belief in the indivisibility
of landscape and building design, breaking down barriers between the external and
internal in the tradition of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe, whilst being
informed by existing features - in this case small sturdy cottages. While planting
plays a strong part in the underlying design and ongoing evolution of the garden,
reflecting Peter Aldington's horticultural skills and interest, the plan and structure
are evident in the fabric and form of the garden rooms and spaces, using the village
plan, existing buildings, wichert walls and mature trees as a framework. Strongly
evident is the two-way relationship with the house, and journey through and round
them, 'a superb composition of widely different spaces of which one is always aware
from the house' (Peter Shepheard in Brown, 1999 p7), creating 'a ''magical union''
of indoors and outdoors, making them extraordinary, precious and rare' (Dan Cruikshank
in Brown, op cit, p15). It is not contrived, or fixed in time, but is a very natural
evocation of an evolving garden created within the heart of a village, an expression
of Aldington's hands-on philosophy, experience and deep understanding of materials
and plants, the local climate, geology and ecology.
The Turn End Charitable Trust, now Turn End Trust (a charitable incorporated organisation),
was set up in 1998 to secure the future of the houses and garden, its aims being:
their sympathetic conservation, protection and maintenance; the advancement of education
and scholarship in fostering the integration of building and garden design, and the
promotion of public perception and understanding.
The garden has been widely discussed and published in both the architectural and gardening
press. A short bibliography is given below. A very detailed history of the garden
has been curated and archived and is available in a Resource Pack.
A garden of interlinked informal spaces and garden rooms with naturalised planting
around existing trees and an orchard, interwoven with the house - Turn End - designed
and created by the architect Peter Aldington, principally from 1965 to 1976.
The private gardens of Middle Turn and The Turn are not included in the registered
landscape.
LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM AND SETTING The three houses and their gardens
lie between High Street to the east and the entrance forecourt on Townside to the
west.
The garden of Turn End, on a site of little more than half an acre, wraps around the
house to its south, east and north. The site is in the middle of the village, screened
from the roads by tall trees to the east (themselves part of an important and historic
streetscape) and by wichert walls to the north and to the south. The ground rises
gently from the south-east. Geology is limestone, with a shallow limey soil which
has necessarily been improved to create the garden. The garden comprises two sunken
gardens, raised beds, formal box garden, richly planted borders, two small pools and
a central glade framed by the ancient walls, hedges and mature trees.
ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES AND VIEWS The houses are set back from Townside around a
shared court, the entrance defined by 9 Townside, the important visual pivot for the
design of the three houses. Natural rendered wichert and white-painted roughcast walls
with pantile roofs enclose this forecourt of Oxfordshire shingle accommodating visitor
parking, with a path of inset pavers leading to each house. A walnut tree (transplanted
from the house court) casts dappled shade; roses, Clematis and Euphorbia are planted
against the houses, some in planting boxes; the setting, and Kerria, Hydrangea petiolaris,
wisteria and forsythia, evoking an oriental courtyard.
This Forecourt leads to the Garage Court, from which a gateway leads to No-Mans.
No-Mans is the only open area of the garden, with a view of the southern side of the
house and over walls to the High Street roofscape. Arches lead to the House Court
and to a shaded triangular lobby, the Small Court. This in turn opens into the main
garden, which is enclosed and fully secluded by walls and mature trees. Stone and
gravel paths wind initially through a wooded Spring Garden, to lawn glades surrounded
by curving, deep borders. Beyond, to the north-east are a series of paved courtyard
gardens on different levels. These are bounded by the Victorian buildings, linked
by steps and strong visual axes through arches and openings. GARDEN The garden is
continuously evolving in response to the passage of time and changing climate but
is essentially a series of interlinked informal spaces and garden rooms with naturalised
planting around existing trees and orchard, interwoven with the house.
No-Mans, considerably warmer by several degrees than the main garden, has gravel paths
reflecting light; its successional planting is overall more delicate, reflective of
seasons and, like the contiguous house court, has winter structure. Its rectangular
raised beds are edged with a double layer of railway sleepers and planted with heat
loving plants such as Lavender, bearded Iris and a succession of bulbs, grasses, silver
leaved and other Mediterranean plants with succulents and alpines in troughs pans
and an alpine bed. The backdrop at the southern end is a pergola with pale flowered
climbing roses and Actinidia chinensis, and the secretive greenhouse. Arches lead
to the House Court and to a shaded triangular lobby, the Small Court, where wichert
walls are planted with vigorous climbing roses, Cecile Brunner and Felicite´ et Perpetue,
and bamboo. This in turn opens into the wooded Spring Garden.
However, given that the architect’s belief is that architecture and landscape design
are an ‘indivisible whole’, it follows that the best way to access the garden is through
the house.
From the front door there is a sight line, past the dining area, through the living
room, and out into the garden via the glazed door which pierces the east wall, to
a large Urn by Monica Young. This Urn is also on sight lines from beyond the chestnut
tree as well as the Sittery area, so it forms a visual focus and reference point for
both garden and house.
The eastern door opens onto the cool, shady woodland Spring Garden, and the remnant
120 year old orchard with its underplanting of successional bulbs, bluebells, native
violets and primroses. Subsequent plantings of birch and bamboo maintain an airiness
of foliage contrasting with the further garden, as well as emphasising the contrast
with the warmer Small Court and No-Mans to the right.
The House Court is embraced by the house on three sides and an old wichert wall on
the fourth, pierced to provide a view out to the armilliary, the central feature of
No-Mans. Large terracotta floor tiles are used seamlessly inside and outside. Beneath
the shade of a Robinia is a pool (created by the hole left by the walnut tree replanted
in the entrance forecourt). Large rocks are adjacent to and in the pool which is planted
with white water iris, water-hawthorn and waterlilies. A concrete bench extends from
the wall of the house over the pool.
This intimate linkage of house and garden is considered rare in mid-C20 house design.
A meandering path of found limestone and gravel winds through the Spring Garden leading
to the central grass glade. Beyond to the east is a group of substantial sheltering
trees including a Holm Oak, the giant Sequoia and a gate by the former dairy leading
to High Street. ‘From the Sequoia the grass rolls gently upwards and westwards as
the sunny glade’ (Brown, 1999, p79). The meandering lawn leads northward past a walnut
tree to the horse chestnut, and to the wichert boundary beyond, which is planted in
curving beds with green and gold foliage with primarily yellow and white flowering
perennials. Opposite a beech and yew hedge defines this area from the lower Box Court,
Coach House and Daisy Garden, whilst to the left, the west border under the trees
adjacent to the boundary wall with Middle Turn, is planted with hellebores.
The bed in the centre and brightest part of this garden, planted as a summer garden
with a cool colour palette, weaves north towards the coach house, encompassing a square
pergola, which marks the junction with the route from the central grass glade. A sequence
of garden rooms starts here. The axis from this pergola runs through the sunken ‘daisy’
garden and the open part of the old coach house to the large cast iron mixing bowl
(from the old bakery) in the Box Court, both areas paved with ‘found’ materials from
the old bakery. A cross axis is suggested (Brown, 1999, p71) by the timber seat in
the Daisy Garden, through the gap in the hedge opposite, to the fluted urn, also by
Monica Young, just beyond the chestnut tree.
From the pergola another gravelled path with steps angled by railway sleepers descends
to the eastern glade, a narrow grass area flanked by climbing roses, golden ivy and
ferns against its eastern wall and the Cupressus, shrubs and varied planting of the
summer border opposite and above. Terminating the northern end of this glade is the
secluded Sittery.
Returning through the Daisy Garden, behind the coach house, a stone, witchert and
brick building with tile roofs and sett floor used as a potting shed, is the Box Court.
A north-facing enclosed garden room, it has a geometric arrangement of box-edged beds
housing colourful displays of seasonal annuals, while the outer walls are covered
by Ceanothus, fan-trained golden gage, Morello cherry and a Himalayan Giant blackberry.
Importantly, above the northern wall are the borrowed landscape of Irish yews from
the garden of the listed adjacent Dove House.
From Box Court the conclusion of these garden rooms is the Office Court, defined by
the walls of 6 and 8 High Street. In keeping with the ethos of ‘inside/outside’ this
garden was an outdoor office - at one with the glass wall of this part of 6 High Street,
the former practice office. It is a quiet water court with a raised circular pond
at the centre. Raised beds of imported soil accommodate lime-hating plants - Rhododendron,
Camellias and Skimmia, underplanted with Hepatica, fern, ivies and wood anemones,
backed by a Fig, Magnolia grandiflora and Wisteria.
Throughout, the garden is enriched with stoneware pots by Svend Bayer and Monica Young,
found artefacts from the bakery once on site, and seasonally planted containers.
PRINCIPAL STRUCTURES Turn End, Middle Turn and The Turn, a geometry of white rendered
walls, pantiled roofs and timber joinery are listed as a group at Grade II*.
NOTE: while reference is made to the non-structural planting above as it illustrates
the design intention, this is not included in the registration which is confined to
the garden layout, structure and structural planting.
A garden of interlinked informal spaces and garden rooms with naturalised planting around existing trees and an orchard, interwoven with the house - Turn End - designed and created by the architect Peter Aldington, principally from 1965 to 1976.
This garden or other land is registered under the Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments Act 1953 within the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens by Historic England for its special historic interest.
The garden at Turn End, designed and created by Peter Aldington from 1965 to 1976
in conjunction with the house, is included in the Register of Parks and Gardens at
Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Design interest:
* a post-war garden of interlinked informal spaces and garden rooms with naturalised
planting around existing trees and orchard, interwoven with the house, it reflects
Aldington's hands-on approach, spatial skills as a designer and deep understanding
of materials and plants; * created in conjunction with the house, it is an expression
of the architect's belief that architecture and landscape design are an indivisible
whole; * this intimate linkage is rare in a later C20 scheme, here devised by the
same hand; * the houses and garden are exemplary as a model of later C20 intervention
in a historic environment and are held in high regard by the architectural and horticultural
professions. Historic interest:
* created by a nationally acclaimed architect, for himself and his family, it is an
evolving garden within the heart of the historic village of Haddenham.
Group value:
* with the Grade II* listed Turn End, Middle Turn and The Turn, with which it is indivisibly
connected.
Books and journals
Brown, Jane (words), Bryant, Richard (pictures), a garden and three houses, (1999 reprinted 2010)
Harwood, E (editor), Davies, J O (photography), England's Post-War Listed Buildings, (2015), 344
Powers, A, Aldington, Craig and Collinge, (2009)
Aldington, P, Bryant, R, Einzig, R, 'Post War Houses, Twentieth Century Architecture 4, Architecture and the Landscape Obligation' in Twentieth Century Society Journal , (2000), 20-28