High and Over - Local Heritage List Platform

Location/Address

None recorded

Type

Park or garden

Coherent areas of land designed and/or managed for leisure purposes.

Description

Twentieth century formal gardens at High and Over. The core survival of the garden of a small country house of international significance, one of the first houses built in the Modernist style in England (1929-31), and 'of outstanding importance as the first truly convincing essay in the international style in England...... It is the first work by Amyas Connell who with Basil Ward and Colin Lucas formed the most important architectural practice designing modern movement houses in the inter-war period.' (Historic England) The strongly geometric garden design, now surviving in part only, was integral to the design of the house in providing an extended living space in similar formal style, with structures such as the water tower as a viewing platform as well as the roof and windows of the house overlooking the Chiltern valley far below. It was extensively written up in the architectural press during building and afterwards, in which the garden was also noted for its close relationship with the building. The garden was soon threatened as 'Metroland' spread. Much of the 5 ha. estate was developed in the 1960s so that housing now surrounds the site. The 0.75 ha core of Connell’s garden design, as executed in modified form by the owner Ashmole and his gardener George Marlow, survives with white-walled terraces, tiered rose beds, circular swimming pool and series of steps surrounding the Y-shaped house. These complement the Modernist style of the house. The contemporary Lodge and four Sun Houses in similar style, all within their own gardens, are a key part of the setting of the house and garden. Detailed description in Buckinghamshire Gardens Trust report.

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Statement of Significance

Asset type

Twentieth century formal gardens at High and Over.

Rarity

A complex geometric garden setting for an internationally significant early Modernist house, both designed by Amyas Connell.

Architectural and Artistic Interest

Architectural interest: One of the earliest houses in Modernist style in Britain, High and Over (listed Grade II*) was designed by the influential architect Amyas Connell who won the British Prix de Rome in 1926. He had been influenced by Le Corbusier at the Paris Exhibition in 1925 and by French Modernists Andre Lurçat and Robert Mallet‐Stevens. The house is constructed with a reinforced concrete frame and features a central hexagonal hallway with radiating spurs which form a “Y”. The associated lodge and Sun Houses (Listed Grade II) nearby in similar style and materials, survive as part of the early development designed by Connell with his brother‐in‐law Basil Ward, although the striking water tower has gone. The 'Y' shape; horizontal ship‐like storeys; biplane‐shaped canopy and its white façade make High and Over unique. The clean lines, modern materials and geometric design contrast strongly with typical Metroland houses. The contemporary Lodge and four Sun Houses in similar style form an important architectural group as part of the intended setting of the house. Artistic interest: The remaining core of a complex garden area forming the setting for an internationally significant smaller country house and reflecting the design by Connell and laid out by the owner Ashmole and his gardener. The layout responds to the slope with a series of formal terraced garden compartments around the house within the Metroland and 1960s development setting, the intended rural Chiltern setting having been banished to the far distance. It is of high significance for its complex design as a geometric setting where many other houses in similar style were surrounded by lawns in the contrasting naturalistic English Landscape style (e.g. Patrick Gwynne’s The Homewood, Surrey). The loss of the wider garden has damaged the design, but this makes the surviving core and the features all the more significant and as the setting for the house. The gardens of the Sun Houses and lodge are also of significance as the collective setting for these buildings and High and Over.

Group Value

The garden of High and Over forms a group with the gardens of the smaller Sun Houses designed in a similar Modernist style and constructed slightly later by Basil Ward, Connell's partner and brother-in-law on the western edge of the garden and drive to High and Over. The more conventional design of the gardens of Shrub's Wood at Chalfont St Peter provides an interesting contrast in treatment of the setting of a near contemporary Modernist house.

Historic Interest

High and Over was designed and built for Professor Bernard Ashmole, a world authority on Ancient Greek sculpture and architecture, when he was Yates Professor of Classical Archaeology at University College London. He was later to become Director of The British Museum having been involved with the war‐time evacuation and re‐instatement of the Elgin Marbles. He was descended from an uncle of Elias Ashmole who founded the museum in Oxford which bears his name. (Kurtz) During World War II the Water Tower was used as a lookout position (Kurtz). It was owned by D L Mays, the Punch cartoonist in the 1950s and later by the architect F Briggs.