The Church of St Mary the Virgin at Badby was built in the early years of the fourteenth century. The design of the windows and the mouldings on the pillar capitals point to a date just before 1348, when the Black Death swept across England. What interests me as an architect is what that timing means. The Decorated Gothic style that produced this church — its five-bay arcades carried on octagonal marlstone pillars, its tracery, its attention to ornamental detail — belonged to a world of abundant skilled labour. After the plague, the workforce was decimated and English architecture shifted towards simpler, more standardised forms. Badby's church represents the last flowering of that older tradition. The building, Grade II* listed and built of ironstone with limestone dressings, received fifteenth-century clerestory windows said to be among the finest in the county, and a tower rebuilt in 1709. The village sits in west Northamptonshire, its ancient woodland a continuous presence for over seven hundred years.
Award-winning Architects in Badby
Award-winning Design, Enduring Standards
The Deerings, a certified Passivhaus home in Hertfordshire, won the RIBA East Award in 2018 — and like Badby's church, it demonstrates that careful attention to how a building meets the conditions around it is not a luxury but a necessity. I was a finalist for Sustainability Architect of the Year at the Building Design Awards the same year, and in 2025 I was invited to judge the British Homes Awards. I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006, and we now work from Oxford with clients across the country. I am an ARB-registered and RIBA Chartered architect, a member of SPAB — the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings — the Passivhaus Trust and The Green Register. Our projects have been published in Dezeen, Grand Designs Magazine and The Modern House Journal.
Architectural Services Near Daventry
Renovations in Badby engage with a building stock shaped by the village's long relationship with the Fawsley estate and the Knightley family, who held the manor from the sixteenth century. The church, restored in 1880, demonstrates the ongoing programme of maintenance and adaptation that keeps a medieval building in use — the Jacobean pulpit and the 1709 tower each belonging to a different century but all serving the same building. West Northamptonshire Council handles planning for the parish. Through my membership of SPAB, I approach these buildings with the understanding that solid stone walls manage moisture through their mass and their lime mortar — and that any renovation must work with that behaviour.
Extension Design in Badby should respond to the ironstone character and proportions that give the village its warmth and coherence. The ancient woodland that borders the settlement and the rolling landscape beyond contribute to a village that sits comfortably in its setting. Whether the brief is a ground-floor extension connecting the house to the garden, a garden room, or additional space above, the design should make the whole building feel more resolved while sitting comfortably within the village fabric.
Sustainable Design connects every project we take on, and in Badby the ancient woodland is a reminder that the most enduring elements of any landscape are the ones that have been managed, not merely preserved. PassivHaus Design sets our benchmark for new construction, delivering certified comfort with minimal energy demand. New Build Design in Badby should respect the ironstone character of the village and the woodland landscape that frames it. For sites in the countryside around the parish, Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework provides a route to architecturally outstanding homes — but the design must demonstrate the quality that the pre-plague masons here took for granted.
EnerPHit, the Passivhaus Institute's certified retrofit standard, addresses the thermal performance of older homes without compromising their character. The cottages in Badby present the familiar challenge of solid-walled construction: thick walls with no insulation, draughty junctions, and a building envelope that predates any concept of thermal efficiency. Vapour-open insulation, careful airtightness detailing, and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery can transform them — warmer, quieter, dramatically cheaper to run — while the ironstone facades continue to weather as they always have.
Badby's church was built just before the world changed. If you are considering a project here, we would welcome the conversation.