In the north aisle of the Church of St Peter and St Paul at Chacombe, a fourteenth-century wall painting depicts Saint Peter being crucified upside-down. It is one of only two known representations of this subject in English medieval wall painting. What interests me as an architect is the ambition of the choice — someone commissioned an image that almost no one else in the country had attempted, in a village church rather than a cathedral. The church, Grade I listed, is essentially Decorated Gothic from the early fourteenth century, built of limestone and ironstone with three-bay arcades carried on octagonal piers. A Romanesque font with a blind arcade of intersecting arches survives from the earlier building. Chacombe also preserves the remains of an Augustinian priory founded in the reign of Henry II and dissolved in 1536, whose thirteenth-century chapel and medieval fishponds still stand in the village.
Award-winning Architects in Chacombe
Listed Barns to Certified Passivhaus
Our work ranges from a Grade II listed barn restoration in Buckinghamshire to a certified Passivhaus home in Hertfordshire — projects that share the conviction that ambition and care are not opposites. 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. The Deerings won the RIBA East Award in 2018, the year I was also a finalist for Sustainability Architect of the Year at the Building Design Awards. In 2025 I was invited to judge the British Homes Awards. Our projects have been published in Dezeen, Grand Designs Magazine and The Modern House Journal.
Architectural Services Near Banbury
Extension Design in Chacombe should respond to the limestone and ironstone character that gives the village its warmth and coherence. The priory's presence shaped the settlement, and the relationship between the houses, the lanes and the priory remains contributes to a village with an unusually rich layering of history. 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 that fabric.
EnerPHit, the Passivhaus Institute's certified retrofit standard, addresses the thermal performance of older homes without compromising their character. The cottages in Chacombe 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 stone facades continue to weather as they always have.
Sustainable Design connects every project we take on, and in Chacombe the wall painting is a reminder that the best buildings contain things worth discovering — details that reward attention and improve with familiarity. PassivHaus Design sets our benchmark for new construction, delivering certified comfort with minimal energy demand. New Build Design in Chacombe should respect the stone character of the village and the priory landscape that shaped 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 ambition that the medieval painters here considered appropriate for a village church.
Renovations in Chacombe engage with a building stock that includes priory-era fabric alongside later domestic construction. The church's Grade I listing reflects the exceptional quality of what survives — the wall painting, the Romanesque font, the Decorated arcades — and any work in the village should be carried out with that standard in mind. 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.
Chacombe's painter chose a subject almost no one else in England attempted. If you are considering a project here, we would welcome the conversation.