These two villages sit a mile apart on the southern edge of Northampton, linked by a road bridge and — if the historians are right — by a shared origin in a single Anglo-Saxon estate that was divided into separate parishes sometime before the Domesday survey of 1086. What interests me as an architect is how both villages have held their shape while the town has pressed steadily southward. Collingtree's conservation area was designated in 1978 to protect its character from exactly that pressure, and Milton Malsor — much of which is also a conservation area — has kept its seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century stone cottages largely intact: high-pitched thatched roofs, coped gable ends, the kind of solid vernacular construction that announces itself quietly and endures for centuries. These are villages that have survived not because they were grand enough to be preserved as showpieces, but because they were well built in the first place. That, for me, is the most compelling argument for good architecture.
Award-winning Architects in Collingtree and Milton Malsor
Published Work, Practical Range
Our projects have been published in Dezeen, Grand Designs Magazine and The Modern House Journal — work that ranges from a Grade II listed barn restoration in Buckinghamshire to a certified Passivhaus home in Hertfordshire, and shares a conviction that comfort, durability and environmental responsibility are aspects of the same ambition. 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 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. In twin villages like Collingtree and Milton Malsor, where stone cottages, later brick housing and modern development all sit within or alongside conservation areas, that breadth of experience is what the work demands.
Architectural Services for Collingtree and Milton Malsor
Extension Design is often the starting point for homeowners in villages this close to Northampton. The proximity to the town, the M1 and the employment centres to the north means families choose to stay and extend rather than move — and the question becomes how to gain the space a household needs without damaging what makes the village worth living in. In the conservation areas, that means working within the established character: the stone palette, the modest scale, the relationship between the houses and the open spaces around them. Outside the conservation areas, there is more flexibility, but the design ambition should be the same — an extension that makes the whole building feel more resolved, not simply larger. Whether the brief is opening up a ground floor, adding a garden room, or creating space above, the work should respond to the proportions and materials of the existing house.
Renovations in these villages engage with a range of construction spanning several centuries. The stone cottages along the older lanes of Milton Malsor — with their high-pitched thatched roofs and coped gables — are the most characterful, and any work to them must respect the way solid stone walls manage moisture through their mass and permeable lime mortar. The Church of the Holy Cross, Grade II* listed, has twelfth-century origins with a thirteenth-century tower and fourteenth-century steeple that anchor the built heritage of the parish. Milton Malsor Manor on Rectory Lane dates from the sixteenth century and was once home to James Harrington, the political philosopher. West Northamptonshire Council handles planning for both parishes, and where listed buildings are concerned the expectations for any intervention are high. Through my membership of SPAB, I approach these buildings as structures that have already proved their durability — the architect's job is to help them continue.
EnerPHit, the Passivhaus Institute's certified retrofit standard, addresses the thermal shortcomings of older homes without sacrificing their character. The stone cottages present the classic challenge of solid-walled construction: thick walls with no insulation and draughty junctions that were designed for ventilation rather than thermal retention. Vapour-open insulation, careful airtightness detailing, and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery can transform these homes — warmer, quieter, dramatically cheaper to run — while the stone facades continue to breathe as they always have. For the later housing in both villages, the gains from a full EnerPHit retrofit can be more straightforward still.
Sustainable Design connects every project we take on, and in villages under pressure from nearby urban growth it carries particular weight. The best response to development pressure is not to resist change entirely but to ensure that every intervention — whether an extension, a renovation or a new building — is done well enough to last. That is sustainable architecture at its most fundamental. PassivHaus Design sets our benchmark for new construction, delivering certified comfort with minimal energy demand. New Build Design in either village must navigate the conservation area designations with materials and scale that respect the established character. For sites in the countryside between the villages, where the Northampton Arm of the Grand Union Canal passes through on its way down to the river, Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework provides a route to architecturally outstanding homes — but the design must earn its place in a landscape that these villages have been part of for a thousand years.
Collingtree and Milton Malsor are villages that have survived by being well built — and that is a principle worth extending to everything that happens here next. If you are considering a project in either village, we would welcome the conversation.