Askett Green

Private house and adjoining walls, built 1961–2 by Peter Aldington for Michael and Celia White. The building is constructed of painted Fletton brick with brick and timber internal partitions, featuring steep slated roofs with a single stack and exposed rafters.

The design responds to a narrow site with a staggered plan incorporating a double-height living room that opens to a single-storey snug, kitchen, and dining room on the ground floor, two first-floor bedrooms, and a projecting extra bedroom with store above. Aldington designed the deeply set, thick timber windows and heavy timber doors beneath concrete sills with characteristic care for carpentry details, intended to emphasise the cottage character of the dwelling. A full-height window over pivoted door lights the double-height living space. The front double door features a built-in latch and timber letter-box designed by Aldington, alongside a wall light that subsequently became a standard design element on all his houses.

The interior features quarry tile floors to the ground living space, slate paving to the kitchen and dining room, all with underfloor heating. The living room contains a central fireplace with ceramic overmantle and black-stained chimney serving as a room divider between the double-height space and the lower snug, which has built-in brick seating. The kitchen is entirely built-in with numerous dexterously devised cupboards incorporating a fridge, cooker, and sinks within a brick and concrete dresser, with further timber shelves and cupboards above, separating the kitchen from the dining room. An open-tread cantilevered stair of aformosia wood, along with partitions and cupboards to the upstairs rooms, display further exposed timberwork. The principal bedroom originally had an open clerestorey above the cupboards, now infilled; it features a cantilevered built-in dressing table. The bathroom contains a fitted suite with blocks of colour providing contrast to the otherwise natural finishes. A ground-floor bedroom includes a storage area above reached via a fixed ladder.

The house is important as Aldington's first independent work, formulating many of his distinctive ideas on house design, including emphasis on clients' specific needs, carefully crafted and inventive use of changes in level, joinery and built-in elements, and honest use of materials. The extensive timber use reflects Michael White's career as an entomologist with the Building Research Station. Aldington sought to make the house "as basic as possible" to reflect the image of a humble cottage within a traditional village, whilst drawing inspiration from Gerrit Rietveld's work (seen whilst on National Service), Stirling and Gowan's Ham Common flats, and Howell and Amis's terrace in South Hill Park. The total construction cost was £5,106.