Building record 1340800000 - Askett Green, Crowbrook Road

Grade II. Private house and adjoining walls. 1961-2 by Peter Aldington for Michael and Celia White. Painted Fletton brick, with brick and timber internal partitions; steep slated roofs with a single stack and exposed rafters. Staggered plan constrained by narrow site, with double-height living room giving on to single-storey snug, kitchen and dining room, two first-floor bedrooms, and projecting extra bedroom with store over. Deeply set, thick timber windows and heavy timber doors under concrete sills designed by Aldington with characteristic care for carpentry details and to emphasise `cottage' feel of the dwelling. Full-height window over pivoted door lights double-height living space. Front double door with built in latch and timber letter-box by Aldington, with a wall light alongside which subsequently became a standard design on all his houses. INTERIOR. Quarry tile floors to ground living floor, slate paving to kitchen and dining room, all with underfloor heating. Living room with central fireplace, whose ceramic overmantle and black-stained chimney serves as a room divider between the double-height space and lower snug with built-in brick seating. Kitchen entirely built in, with a multiplicity of dexterously devised cupboards incorporating fridge, cooker, and sinks, the latter within brick and concrete dresser (with further timber shelves and cupboards over) separating kitchen from dining room. Further exposed timberwork in open-tred cantilevered stair of aformosia wood, and partitions and cupboards to upstairs rooms. The principal bedroom originally had an open clerestorey above the cupboards, but this has been infilled; cantilevered built-in dressing table. The bathroom with fitted suite and blocks of colour providing a contrast to the otherwise natural finishes. Ground-floor bedroom with storage area above reached via fixed ladder.`This is a house which settles down well in the village and repays the care which has been given to the simple detailing and the choice of materials' (Penelope Whiting, New Houses, p.92). Ideal Home admired it as a `country cottage in the modern manner', cleverly mixing new and old. The house is important as Aldington's first independent work, in which many of his distinctive ideas on house design were first formulated: including the emphasis on clients' specific needs, the carefully crafted and inventive use of changes in level, joinery, and built-in elements, and honest use of materials. The extensive use of timber also reflects Mr White's career as an entomologist with the Building Research Station. Aldington felt that the house should be `as basic as possible' to reflect its image of a humble cottage within a traditional village, but he was also inspired in its detailing by the work of Gerrit Rietveld, which he had seen while on National Service, Stirling and Gowan's Ham Common flats, and Howell and Amis's terrace in South Hill Park. The total cost of the house was £5,106. Penelope Whiting, New Houses, 1964, pp.91-7. Ideal Home, July 1963 Ville Giardini, October 1970, pp.205-13. Building Design, 7 September 1979, pp.20-23 (B1).
Illustrated account of the design and building of Askett Green (B2).