There is a particular quality to villages shaped by industry rather than landed wealth, and Blakeney has it in abundance. Sitting on the eastern edge of the Forest of Dean, this is a place where buildings grew out of work — quarrying, lime-burning, tanning, iron — and the materials that define them came from the ground beneath their foundations. Forest of Dean Pennant sandstone, dense and grey-green, appears in cottage walls and boundary structures with a solidity that speaks of people who built to endure rather than to impress. The Congregational Tabernacle of 1849, now Grade II* listed, stands on Cinderford Road as one of the most architecturally distinctive examples of nonconformist chapel design in the Forest of Dean, its ashlar front and Welsh slate roof a quiet statement of communal ambition in a village that earned its keep from the landscape. What draws me to places like Blakeney is the honesty of the building tradition — nothing borrowed, nothing performed, just materials and skills answering real needs. That instinct is something we share at Gresford Architects, and it shapes everything we do.
Award-winning Architects in Blakeney
Why Clients Across the Country Trust Gresford Architects
I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006, and we now work with clients across the country from our Oxford studio. Our accreditation with The Green Register and membership of the Passivhaus Trust reflect a practice built around the conviction that sustainability is not a constraint but an opportunity — to make homes more comfortable to inhabit, more economical to run, and more joyful to live in. We are RIBA chartered and ARB registered, and my membership of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings informs how we read old structures before we propose anything new. Our certified Passivhaus home, The Deerings in Hertfordshire, won the RIBA East Award in 2018. That same year I was a finalist for Sustainability Architect of the Year at the Building Design Awards, and our work has been featured in Dezeen, Grand Designs Magazine, and the RIBA Journal. For a village like Blakeney, where the conservation area covers the majority of the built-up area and every intervention is scrutinised by Forest of Dean District Council, that combination of heritage sensitivity and building science matters.
Architectural Services Shaped by the Forest of Dean
Renovations in Blakeney often begin with a building that has already lived several lives. The Old Tannery by Millend House, Grade II listed, is a reminder that many homes here started as something else entirely — workshops, stores, chapels — and carry the structural logic of their former purpose in their walls and floor levels. We bring a forensic curiosity to these buildings, reading what they have been before deciding what they could become. In the conservation area, Forest of Dean District Council requires that proposals demonstrate genuine sensitivity to the character and materials of the existing structure, and for listed properties, listed building consent adds a further layer of scrutiny. Our work on The Great Barn in Buckinghamshire — a Grade II listed barn restoration — reflects exactly this approach: understanding the fabric, respecting the logic of what was built, and finding ways to make the building work for the life it will lead next.
EnerPHit, the Passivhaus Institute's standard for retrofit, addresses one of the most pressing realities of living in homes in Blakeney built with solid Pennant sandstone walls and minimal insulation. These are robust buildings — the stone weathers beautifully and lasts for centuries — but they can be cold, damp, and expensive to heat. EnerPHit works with the existing structure rather than against it: careful internal or external insulation depending on the building's listing status and setting, airtight detailing at junctions, upgraded windows that respect original proportions, and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery to manage moisture and maintain air quality. In a conservation area where the visual character of the streetscape is tightly controlled, every intervention needs to be invisible or sympathetic, and that precision is where our experience proves its worth.
Sustainable Design runs through everything we do, but in a place like Blakeney it feels less like an imposition and more like a continuation of something the village has always understood. The limekilns that once burned local limestone into mortar, the quarries that supplied sandstone for walls and roofing slates — this was a community that used what was close to hand and wasted nothing. We bring that same thinking to every project: reducing energy demand, choosing materials with care, designing for longevity rather than fashion. PassivHaus Design takes this to its most rigorous conclusion, creating homes that need almost no conventional heating — a standard that demands precision in detailing but rewards it with comfort and economy for decades to come.
Extension Design for homes in Blakeney requires particular sensitivity to the tight-knit streetscape and the conservation area constraints that govern it. The material palette here is specific — Pennant sandstone, render, Welsh slate — and an extension that introduces something foreign to that vocabulary will struggle through planning. We approach these briefs with relish, finding ways to add space and light that feel like a natural growth of the original building rather than an afterthought. New Build Design opportunities within the village are limited by the settlement boundary and the conservation area, but for those with land in the surrounding Forest of Dean countryside, Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework permits new homes of genuinely outstanding architectural quality in rural settings — a demanding standard that rewards ambition and craft in equal measure.
Blakeney is a village that has always built with purpose, using the materials and skills the Forest provided. If you are considering a project here, we would welcome the conversation.