In the nave of the Church of All Saints at Clipston, round Norman columns with ringed capitals carry pointed Gothic arches. The building preserves the moment when one architectural tradition became another — the masons kept the earlier columns but crowned them with the newer style, creating arcades that belong to both periods at once. What interests me as an architect is the pragmatism of that decision. Rather than demolishing the Norman work to achieve stylistic consistency, the builders worked with what they found. The church, Grade I listed and dating from the early thirteenth century, stands in a village near Market Harborough. A Norman font survives from the earliest building, and seventeenth- and eighteenth-century monuments to the Buswell family — London merchants who invested their city wealth in a village church — line the walls.
Award-winning Architects in Clipston
Working with What We Find
Working across the country from Oxford, we encounter buildings at every stage of their history — some pristine, some showing centuries of adaptation, some needing someone to understand what has been done before deciding what should come next. I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006. 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, a certified Passivhaus home in Hertfordshire, 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 Market Harborough
Sustainable Design connects every project we take on, and in Clipston the Norman columns carrying Gothic arches are a reminder that the best buildings work with what already exists rather than starting from nothing. PassivHaus Design sets our benchmark for new construction, delivering certified comfort with minimal energy demand. New Build Design in Clipston should respect the stone character of the village and the surrounding countryside. 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 a Grade I listed village church sets as the local standard.
Renovations in Clipston engage with a building stock that spans centuries of adaptation. The church's own fabric — Norman columns beneath Gothic arches, a medieval rood screen alongside Georgian monuments — shows how successive generations added to the building without erasing what came before. 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 Clipston should respond to the stone character and proportions of the village. The relationship between the houses, the lanes and the surrounding countryside contributes to a settlement that sits comfortably in its landscape. 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 — working with what is there, as the church's builders did.
EnerPHit, the Passivhaus Institute's certified retrofit standard, addresses the thermal performance of older homes without compromising their character. The cottages in Clipston 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.
Clipston's builders kept the Norman columns and crowned them with Gothic arches. If you are considering a project here, we would welcome the conversation.