Turn End

About Turn End

The garden was created as an integral part of a 1960s house, one of a group of three houses designed by architect Peter Aldington, now listed at grade II*; only 12 post war houses are so designated. In November 2017 Turn End’s garden was also registered at Grade II.

In less than an acre, space is used to create an illusion of size. A house courtyard with a naturalised pool; a small woodland area around 100 year old apple trees, carpeted with spring bulbs; a curved glade leading to a series of garden rooms, sunken or raised, sunny or shady, geometric or informal, yet all harmonious and unifying irregular geography with the buildings.

When bought in 1963 the land was densely overgrown to a height of 20 feet in places. It had once been a garden, and the attraction was the mixture of mature deciduous and coniferous trees, with some remaining ancient walls and a Victorian Coach House. In essence the design is of strong structures within, around and over which plants are allowed to develop. The small scale necessitates careful choice of plants and pruning. This is a garden whose character changes constantly with the seasons. The ground is carpeted by bulbs in spring, while the summer brings enclosure, irises, herbaceous plantings, old roses, shrubs and climbers.

The historic and design significance of the garden was recognised when it was listed on Historic England’s Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest at Grade II in 2017. This acknowledges the post-war garden’s interlinked informal spaces and garden rooms with naturalised planting around existing trees, all interwoven with the house, reflecting 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 20th Century scheme and Turn End is the only post-war listed project where the house and garden were created by the same hand. The houses and garden are also noted as exemplary as a model of later 20th Century intervention in a historic environment.

The garden and group of three houses is the subject of a book ‘A Garden and Three Houses’ by Jane Brown in which the late Sir Peter Shepherd commented ‘I know of no other garden which packs such riches into so small a space with such interesting and beautiful plants.’

Turn End hosts an Artist in Residence, Heather Hunter, and the estate includes the studio of award-winning photographer Paul Wilkinson. Turn End Trust was established in 1998 to promote the integration of building and garden design; enable public access to this and other examples; and eventually, after bequest by the Aldingtons, to conserve and maintain Turn End, its garden and associated buildings. The Trust organises a programme of public events, including open days, seasonal walks, lectures and courses.

Turn End House & Garden was the subject of a 2017 documentary by film makers Murray Grigor & Hamid Shams. The garden has been written about widely and featured in the press including Country Life magazine (15 April 2020) and Grand Designs The Streets (27 April 2022).

‘The witty way in which Turn End is conceived as a series of walled enclosures, some open to the sky, others roofed… There is nothing else like Aldington’s houses and garden at Haddenham in post-war British architecture’. Dan Cruickshank, RIBA Journal, Oct.1996.

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