Diggs Field

Diggs Field is a private house designed and built between 1967 and 1969 by Peter Aldington for Diana Alderson and Dr and Mrs Leslie. The commission arose after Diana Alderson, who had inherited a Victorian house in Haddenham, was impressed by Turn End, which Aldington had recently built for himself in the village. She had lodged with the Leslies as a land girl during the war, and the new house was conceived to accommodate both her and the Leslies in a shared yet flexible arrangement. Minor alterations have been made since completion.

Materials and Construction

The house is built of masonry painted white, with parts faced in horizontal cedar panels that have gradually darkened over the years. The roofs are covered in Redland Delta tiles, except over the sitting room where the shallow incline has been replaced with slate. The northern elevation is punctuated by cedar-clad window pods, while the intervening bays containing bathrooms and the entrance feature narrow vertical slit windows set into painted masonry walls. The outer door comprises vertical cedar boards beneath a deep cedar panel.

Plan and Organisation

The house was planned to provide south-facing sunny living accommodation arranged in a long, low-slung building set either side of a double-height living space or sun room with a gallery designed to receive sun at all times of day. Each end of the house forms a discrete unit that can be connected to or completely separated from the rest of the building.

At the eastern end, stairs rise from the sun room to serve a small gallery and upper floors occupied by Miss Alderson. The slope of the land allowed a garage to be tucked beneath the upper floor rooms. The first floor unit comprises a south-facing bedroom with windows set at an angle into the slope of the outer wall and roof, a north-facing study in the shallow space above the garage and beneath the eaves, and a bathroom that protrudes over the entrance internally.

Leading off the sun room at a slightly lower level, reached through a recessed sliding door, is a more intimate sitting room. The western end of the building is single-storey, comprising a north-facing dining room and south-facing kitchen separated by a built-in dresser, and a study-bedroom for the Leslies. Either side of the axial corridor, which gives views to the stairs, are a bedroom designed to become a second kitchen if needed, and opposite it a bathroom.

Exterior

The northern elevation features three cedar-clad window pods contrasting with the intervening bays, bathrooms and entrance, which have narrow vertical slit windows set into painted masonry walls deeply recessed under the eaves. The outer door leads to a lobby with a pair of broad flush-panelled inner doors and a hinged letterbox.

The south elevation is dominated by a large glazed double-height conservatory in the manner of a skylight. South-facing walls and windows are set at a slight incline, like a mansard roof, while the pitched roofs are offset, tempering the impact of the vertical forms. The building extends onto a timber-decked platform between the sun room and kitchen. Much of the south-facing elevation is glazed; in the sun room with vertical panels broken at storey height by a deep cedar fascia. The unframed sliding glass door was replaced soon after the house was built with a double-glazed framed unit, and the upper floor bedroom windows have also been replaced.

Interior

Vertical walls are mostly masonry painted white, while sloping surfaces and ceilings are clad in cedar panels. Floors are laid in woodblock. The entrance gives onto the double-height sun room or conservatory through a wide internal door.

Cedar stairs with open treads to the lower flight and solid treads above have a solid balustrade of broad horizontal cedar panels with a separate rail. Narrow internal vents in the upper floor bathroom overlooking the sun room were Miss Alderson's suggestion. The lower sitting room has, at Mrs Leslie's request, an open fireplace—a simple rectangular opening set into a brick stack with the ash pit accessible from the garage. Cedar-clad ceilings and walls help break down conventional understanding of the upper floor rooms by blurring the distinction between flat and vertical surfaces.

The dining room and kitchen are separated by a built-in cedar dresser. The kitchen, which retains its original cedar fittings, sits under a cedar-clad sloping roof that appears to increase the capacity of the room, while the dining room occupies the pod-like window bay, which gives a sense of increased space yet intimacy. Internal doors are flush-panelled beneath large overlights, bringing light to the spinal corridor which creates a long view from the western end to the sun room.

Historical Context

Diggs Field was built on an open site at the southern edge of the village, set in an acre of land. Diana Alderson had trained as a horticulturalist and was a keen gardener. The house was designed to a very specific brief, establishing the detailed client consultation process that became a hallmark of Aldington and Craig's practice. The clients wanted to replicate the conservatory that was a feature of the Victorian house, but rather than building it as an additional room, it was designed as the focus of the new house, filling a double-height space which also fulfilled a second requirement: a room receiving sun at all times of day. It functions as a shared space at the centre of the house with intimate rooms leading off it.

Peter Aldington (born 1933) studied at Manchester School of Architecture from 1951 before joining the London County Council architects department in 1956. Towards the end of his tenure, he designed two private houses, of which only Askett Green, Buckinghamshire (1961–3, Grade II), was built. Described as a modern interpretation of a cottage, it has a full-height living space reminiscent of a medieval hall, echoed in the sun room at Diggs Field. In his work at this time, Aldington observed local vernacular forms and materials while also being strongly influenced by ideas often associated with the New Brutalists, through housing such as Langham House Close, Ham Common, by Stirling and Gowan, and concepts deriving from Le Corbusier's highly influential Maisons Jaoul, Neuilly, France.

Always interested in the craft of building, Aldington set about building the three Townside houses—Turn End, The Turn and Middle Turn (1963–8)—which were recognised shortly after completion by their inclusion within the conservation area and are now Grade II*. Also dating from this period are Quilter House (or Clayton House), Buckinghamshire (listed Grade II), and the much-altered but at the time heralded doctors' surgery at Chinnor, Oxfordshire. Urban projects included 17b Princes Place, Kensington, London, a mews house and studio built for Tim Rock, editor of Architectural Review, who gave an almost impossible brief of fitting a garage, living and studio space into a small site, and 3A Ellers Road, Doncaster, both listed Grade II.

Aldington was joined in 1968 by John Craig, who had worked on film scenery at Pinewood Studios and as a graphic designer in the advertising industry. As a non-architect, he was ideally placed to develop the unusually detailed briefing documents as a means of setting out the intentions of client and architect. Houses designed in partnership with Craig include Riggs Field (Anderton House), Devon, of 1970–1 (Grade II*), while the slightly later scheme at Lyde End, Buckinghamshire, a group of houses commissioned by Lord Carrington and built between 1975–77, is Grade II.

In 1980 Paul Collinge joined the practice and since the retirement of Aldington and Craig, he has continued to practise independently. Aldington, Craig and Collinge are held in high regard for their inventive and meticulously tailored designs, sensitive to their locations. Their work is marked by careful grouping and scale and use of materials—in their early houses often softening potentially hard surfaces and spaces by facing or building internally in timber. Aside from their buildings, Aldington and Craig have both contributed to the architectural world through teaching and garden design. Although they did not write extensively on architectural theory, their buildings were published through the photographs of Richard Einzig. Diggs Field was the exception, since Einzig was not happy with his photographs of the building.