Turn End, a new 45 minute documentary film by award winning film director Murray Grigor and director of photography Hamid Shams, has just been released on DVD and is available to purchase (£17.50 including p&p) from the Shop. Turn End tells the story of the creation of the group of three houses and garden (now 50 years old and admired by visitors from around the world) and how their design reflects the unique features of the old English village, Haddenham village.
Filmed through all four seasons, Turn End captures how architect Peter Aldington masterly designed the houses and garden as one, making the garden a natural extension to the house. It goes right to the heart of the controversy of what is desirable housing development in country villages.
Locally disparaged by some 50 years ago, Turn End has since been judged as a shining example of how a modern approach can embrace both the past and the contemporary. By then creating a little bit of village of the 20th century within the wychert walls of Haddenham, what Peter and his wife Margaret went on to achieve at Turn End breathed new life into vernacular building traditions. To then embrace their three courtyard single storey homes with individual but connected gardens, under the many mature trees which they saved, makes Turn End an integrated masterpiece of indoor and outdoor rooms of our time.
The filmmakers: Murray Grigor OBE is an internationally acclaimed film director who has made over 50 films since the late 1960s with a focus on arts and architecture documentaries. His subjects include Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Robert Adam, Frank Lloyd Wright, Carlo Scarpa and Sir John Soane. Hamid Shams, Director of Photography, has been a filmmaker for over 25 years. He has also produced, edited and directed several works.
