Turner's Wood, built in 1916, was the last part of the Older Suburb before the War brought work to an end (the Garden Suburb Development Company collapsed in that year). It was also the last work of G L Sutcliffe, consulting architect to Co-Partnership Tenants, who, if he had lived, might have encouraged a more lively layout in the Suburb after 1918. He had an admirable sense of the human scale given by an intricate setting back and setting forward of groups of buildings, as against straight up-and-down terraces. His actual architecture varies greatly in quality and one would like to know who did the detailed designing in his office, which was mass-producing co-partnership estates for several different parts of the country. Turner's Wood is extraordinarily successful for its date, the deep red brickwork being handled in broad stretches and composed with a sense of picturesque harmony which recalls Lutyens 5 best houses, even though the half-timbering disturbs the repose a little.
The change in neo-Georgian over the last forty years is illustrated by the houses in Wildwood Road, immediately after Turner's Wood, which flank the entrance to Ingram Avenue. One is a display of American neo-Colonial, complete with Ionic columns. It shows how by the 'sixties, traditional architecture had become a kind of stage design. This point is exactly portrayed in number 26, dated 1928 and designed by Lord Gerald Wellesley (the present (1971) Duke of Wellington) and Trenwith Wills, typical architects of that moment who were being driven intellectually towards Modern Movement but whose emotional taste was for something more aristocratic. The result is a lively mixture of modernistic - Regency bay windows and giant classical columns with Egyptianising capitals. They form canopies for two large sleeping balconies, a decidedly modern spatial idea.
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Turner's Wood, built in 1916, was the last part of the Older Suburb before the War brought work to an end (the Garden Suburb Development Company collapsed in that year). It was also the last work of G L Sutcliffe, consulting architect to Co-Partnership Tenants, who, if he had lived, might have encouraged a more lively layout in the Suburb after 1918. He had an admirable sense of the human scale given by an intricate setting back and setting forward of groups of buildings, as against straight up-and-down terraces. His actual architecture varies greatly in quality and one would like to know who did the detailed designing in his office, which was mass-producing co-partnership estates for several different parts of the country. Turner's Wood is extraordinarily successful for its date, the deep red brickwork being handled in broad stretches and composed with a sense of picturesque harmony which recalls Lutyens 5 best houses, even though the half-timbering disturbs the repose a little.
