You can tell a lot about a place from its stone, and Banbury tells its story in a colour you will not find anywhere else in Oxfordshire. The warm, iron-rich marlstone that runs through the town centre — quarried for centuries from the hills around Hornton and Edge Hill — weathers to a deep golden brown that shifts with the light, sometimes almost orange, sometimes closer to rust. It is a colour that belongs here. It comes from the ground beneath the town, and when a building gets it right, it looks as though it grew from the earth rather than being placed upon it.
That relationship between building and geology is something I think about constantly. I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006, and it was Oxfordshire that drew me, partly because this county understands better than most that architecture begins with the land. Banbury is a town that has been shaped by what lies underfoot — its medieval core built from local ironstone, its older buildings shaped by the same geological seams — and the best new architecture here will continue that conversation, even if the materials and the methods have changed.
An Architect's Practice Built on Craft and Sustainability
Gresford Architects is an Oxford-based practice, but our work reaches across Oxfordshire and well beyond. As a RIBA Chartered and ARB Registered architect, I am also a member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings — a membership that shapes how I approach historic towns like Banbury, where numerous listed buildings sit within three separate conservation areas. SPAB teaches you to understand a building before you change it, to read its fabric the way a doctor reads a patient, and that discipline matters enormously in a town where the ironstone has its own structural characteristics that demand respect.
We are equally committed to looking forward. Our project The Deerings, a certified Passivhaus home in Hertfordshire, 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. The Old Water Tower was shortlisted for the RIBA South Awards in 2016, and I served as a judge for the British Homes Awards in 2025. As a member of the Passivhaus Trust and The Green Register, I bring that same rigour to every project: the conviction that a building can be comfortable, economical to run and kind to the planet without sacrificing an ounce of character.
Designing for a Town That Is Growing and Deepening
Renovations in Banbury's conservation areas require a careful reading of context. The ironstone buildings of the town centre have a particular quality: the marlstone is relatively soft, and its surface changes over centuries, developing a patina that tells you how old the wall is and how it has been treated. Working with these buildings means understanding their material logic — the way the stone was coursed, the lime mortars that let it breathe, the proportions that evolved locally over centuries. We approach Renovations with that same patience: listening to what the building tells us before proposing anything new.
Extension Design is one of the most common commissions in a town like Banbury, where families are outgrowing solid, well-built Victorian and Edwardian homes that deserve more than a formulaic rear addition. An extension should feel as though it has always been part of the building, or it should be honestly, confidently new — what it must never be is half-hearted. In the conservation areas, proposals must demonstrate a genuine understanding of the setting, and rightly so.
For homeowners in the newer parts of Banbury — Hardwick, Hanwell Fields, Bretch Hill — the opportunities are different. Many of these homes were built to the standards of their time, which means they are often structurally sound but thermally inefficient. EnerPHit is our approach to deep retrofit: wrapping an existing building in a highly insulated, airtight envelope that slashes energy demand while dramatically improving comfort. It is one of the most impactful things an architect can do — transforming a home that costs a fortune to heat into one that maintains stable, comfortable temperatures year-round with minimal energy input.
Sustainable Design underpins everything we do at Gresford Architects, and in a rapidly growing town it matters more than ever. New Build Design for the developments emerging around Banbury should aspire to more than meeting minimum building regulations — it should aim for homes that are genuinely comfortable to inhabit, economical to run and joyful to live in. PassivHaus Design achieves exactly that, delivering extraordinary thermal comfort, exceptional indoor air quality, and energy bills that are a fraction of what a conventional build demands. For a town adding homes at the pace Banbury is, the argument for building them to the highest possible standard is not just environmental — it is economic and practical.
Beyond the town itself, the countryside around Banbury — the rolling ironstone hills, the wooded valleys around Wroxton and Broughton — is precisely the kind of landscape where Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework comes into play. Paragraph 84 allows truly exceptional homes in the open countryside, where the architecture genuinely enhances its setting. It is a demanding policy, and deliberately so, but it produces the kind of buildings that become landmarks for the right reasons.
Whether you are renovating an ironstone terrace in the town centre, extending a family home in Grimsbury, or considering a new build on the edge of town, I would welcome the conversation. Architecture at its best starts with understanding — the place, the building, the way you want to live — and that understanding only comes through talking.
