Most towns in England grew around a market, a river crossing, or a piece of industry. Ascot grew around a racecourse. When Queen Anne rode across this stretch of heathland in 1711 and saw the ground where horses could gallop at full stretch, she set in motion something that would transform empty common land into one of Berkshire's most distinctive settlements. What interests me about Ascot as an architect is the legacy of that origin — a place shaped not by the tight grain of a medieval market town or the terraced rows of an industrial economy, but by leisure, landscape and space. The Victorian and Edwardian villas that followed the railway in the mid-nineteenth century were built on generous plots among pine and birch woodland, and that relationship between building and tree canopy, between architecture and the natural landscape it sits within, still defines the character of the place today. It is a quality worth protecting and worth building upon.
Award-winning Architects in Ascot
Why Homeowners in Ascot Trust Gresford Architects
I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006, and we now work with clients across the country from our studio in Oxford. The principle that has guided us from the beginning is this: that sustainability is not a constraint but an opportunity to design homes that perform better, cost less to run, and sit more naturally within their landscape. In a place like Ascot, where mature woodland and generous garden settings are fundamental to the character of the area, that principle matters more than most. We are RIBA chartered and ARB registered, members of the Passivhaus Trust and accredited by The Green Register — not as a collection of badges, but because each reflects a specific commitment to environmental performance and good design. My wife Phoebe is a conservation architect, and that shared understanding of how older buildings work — and how to make them work better — runs through everything we do. Our Passivhaus home The Deerings won a RIBA East Award in 2018, the same year I was a finalist for Sustainability Architect of the Year at the Building Design Awards, and in 2025 I was invited to judge the British Homes Awards. Whether you are working with a Victorian villa in South Ascot or planning something new on the edge of Swinley Forest, that experience shapes how we approach your project.
How We Work with Homes in Ascot
The generous plots that define much of Ascot's residential character create real opportunities for Extension Design. Where a terraced house in a denser town might allow only a modest rear addition, properties in Ascot often have the space to think more ambitiously — a garden room that opens onto mature woodland, a first-floor extension that captures views across the tree canopy, or a wrap-around addition that transforms the way a family uses the ground floor. The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, which handles planning applications for Ascot, expects extensions to respect the established character of the streetscape and the relationship between buildings and their generous garden settings. We design with that relationship at the centre — every extension should feel as though the building always intended to grow in that direction, using materials and proportions that belong to their context.
Sustainable Design in Ascot needs to account for the specific challenge of those generous Victorian and Edwardian villas set among the pines. Large detached properties with single-glazed sash windows, uninsulated solid walls and rooms that face into the tree canopy can demand extraordinary heating costs — an irony, given their beauty and the care with which they were positioned in the landscape. We approach Sustainable Design not as an afterthought but as a way of making those buildings belong more fully to their setting: orientation, natural light, cross-ventilation, material efficiency, and a deep respect for the building's original proportions. For properties in Ascot where renovation is the right approach, EnerPHit offers a Passivhaus-certified retrofit pathway that improves airtightness, adds carefully positioned insulation, and introduces mechanical ventilation with heat recovery — all without compromising the character of the existing structure. The result is a home that costs less to heat, feels genuinely more comfortable throughout the year, and has been future-proofed for generations.
Ascot's architectural history includes some remarkable buildings — All Souls church in South Ascot, designed by John Loughborough Pearson and built in 1896–7, is a fine example of the calibre of design the area has attracted. Renovations to period properties here require an architect who understands both the fabric and the spirit of these buildings. My membership of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings reflects that approach: read the building first, understand how it was made and how it has changed, and then propose interventions that respect its history while meeting the needs of the people living in it now. Whether the building is a red-brick Victorian villa or a more modest Edwardian semi, the principle is the same — care, patience, and a genuine respect for what earlier builders got right.
For those building new, Ascot and its surrounding landscape offer a compelling context for PassivHaus Design — homes engineered from the first sketch to deliver exceptional thermal comfort, outstanding air quality and near-zero energy bills. New Build Design in this part of Berkshire needs to respond to the woodland setting and the spatial generosity that defines the area, creating architecture that sits naturally among the trees rather than clearing them to make room. And for sites in the more rural stretches beyond the town, towards Windsor Great Park and the open land between settlements, Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework offers a route to building a truly exceptional home in the countryside — one where the quality and innovation of the design itself justifies its place in the landscape.
Ascot's landscape has been its defining character for three centuries — the open heathland that Queen Anne saw, the woodland that grew up around the Victorian villas, the generous plots that still protect the relationship between building and tree canopy. Whether you are adding a garden room to a house among the pines, bringing a Victorian villa into the modern climate, or building something entirely new that sits naturally in this wooded terrain, the same principle applies: any architecture worth adding to Ascot should be shaped by the landscape it inhabits. We would welcome the conversation about your project.