High And Over With Attached Walls, Steps And Pergola, Highover Park

High and Over with Attached Walls, Steps and Pergola

A country house now divided into two dwellings, built in 1930 by architect Amyas D Connell for Bernard Ashmole, Professor of Classical Archaeology at London University, located at Highover Park in Amersham.

The building employs a concrete frame with cavity wall construction, infilled externally with brick and internally with concrete block. The distinctive Y-shaped plan was designed to capture sunlight and views across the Misbourne valley. A hexagonal centrepiece forms the heart of the building, incorporating the main and garden entrances with a projecting staircase. The house rises two storeys with a partial basement and a third nursery floor positioned over the servants' wing, which opens onto a flat roof fitted with concrete canopies. A single chimney stack serves the building, and the basement contains a garage and store beneath the west wing.

The entrance front is near symmetrical, dominated by central chrome-plated steel double doors flanked by continuous strip windows that curve around the central projections. All windows are metal, with many set in steel-plated soffits. The north wing originally housed the kitchen and servants' quarters, with a projecting trades entrance to the left, while a wall to the right screens the drive to the garage. Steps lead from this elevation to the garden. The garden elevation features central metal-framed glazed double doors with regular fenestration to the ground floor, and the first floor is similarly arranged but with two blind bays. The upper floor is marked by two concrete canopies over the rooftop garden, which incorporate hooks for hammocks and swings and contain a sandpit. A central projecting balcony with open steel sides extends outward, and a terrace runs across the garden front with steps descending to the lower garden. To the right, the terrace terminates in a concrete pergola framing the end of the east wing, which itself features a projecting first-floor oriel. The road elevation displays a central projecting staircase that is continuously glazed to ground and first floor levels, with long continuous strip windows serving the second floor.

The interior has been divided into two units following conversion. The central hexagonal hallway retains its original polished limestone floor inset with glass and traces of a central fountain. A central circular opening connects to the first floor via a spiral staircase with a solid balustrade; the staircase continues to the second floor but is now blocked. The former library on the ground floor retains its original bookcases. The first floor preserves a light fitting above the oriel window along with metal surrounds and fitted cupboards. In the other unit, the former living room survives with an asymmetrical, stepped fireplace and a flush ceiling-mounted flat light fitting. The dining room contains original floors, metal surrounds, and a light fitting mounted to both wall and ceiling that was designed to illuminate glass shelving or a sideboard. A spiral service staircase also remains.

High and Over is of outstanding architectural importance as the first truly convincing example of the International Style in England. It was one of only two buildings included in the exhibition "The International Style" held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1932, curated by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson. It represents the first completed work by Amyas D Connell, who subsequently formed the most important architectural practice designing Modern Movement houses during the inter-war period in partnership with Basil Ward and Colin Lucas.