There are places where architecture arrived first and the community followed. Crowthorne is one of them. Before Wellington College opened in 1859, this stretch of Berkshire heathland was little more than a hamlet — scattered dwellings among pine and birch, with no particular reason for anyone to gather here. Then came John Shaw's grand college buildings, then Broadmoor in 1863, then the railway station that same year, and within a few decades a village had assembled itself around these institutions. The Victorian terraces and villas that line the High Street, the red-brick Gothic of St John the Baptist Church consecrated in 1873, the shops and cottages that filled the triangle between Duke's Ride, Waterloo Road and the High Street — all of it exists because architecture created a reason for people to be here. I find that a fascinating thing to sit with as a designer: the idea that buildings do not merely serve communities but can, in the right circumstances, call them into being.
Award-winning Architects in Crowthorne
Nearly Two Decades of Sustainable, Award-Winning Practice
I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006, and we are now based in Oxford, working with clients across the country. We are RIBA chartered and ARB registered, and our work lives at the intersection of sustainability and heritage sensitivity — the conviction being that these things pull in the same direction, not against each other. That conviction shaped our Passivhaus home The Deerings, which 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. In 2025, I was invited to judge the British Homes Awards. Our projects have been featured in Dezeen, Grand Designs Magazine, The Modern House Journal and the RIBA Journal, and that kind of recognition matters because it reflects the care and ambition we bring to every project, not just the ones that make the press. My wife Phoebe is a conservation architect, and that shared understanding of historic fabric runs deep in the practice — complemented by my memberships of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, the Passivhaus Trust and The Green Register.
Architectural Services for Homes in Crowthorne
Crowthorne's conservation area — the triangle of Victorian and Edwardian streets at the village's heart, bounded by Duke's Ride, Waterloo Road and the High Street — gives the centre its character. Renovations to properties within and around this area require an architect who understands both the planning expectations of Bracknell Forest Council and the fabric of the buildings themselves. Victorian terraces, Edwardian villas, the locally listed Edgbarrow Cottage on Sandhurst Road — each has its own structural logic, its own materials, its own way of ageing. My membership of SPAB reflects a commitment to understanding what a building is before proposing what it might become: reading the brickwork, the roof structure, the way light falls through original openings, and working with those qualities rather than against them.
Beyond the conservation area, Crowthorne's housing stock tells a different story. The mid-twentieth century brought substantial residential development, and one of its most remarkable chapters is Edgcumbe Park — the Renway-built estate off Duke's Ride, constructed between 1958 and 1970, where ranch-style bungalows and chalet houses were set among the existing woodland, each designed to sit within its landscape rather than impose upon it. The estate won a Civic Trust Award and was even used as the setting for the 1966 film adaptation of Fahrenheit 451. Extension Design for homes on estates like Edgcumbe Park and the broader post-war housing around Crowthorne is about respecting what made the original design work — its relationship to the trees, its proportions, its particular mid-century confidence — while creating the additional space that modern family life demands. We approach every extension as a conversation between old and new, not a competition.
Sustainable Design is the thread that connects everything we do, and in Crowthorne it takes on a particular resonance. A village that grew up surrounded by 645 acres of Crowthorne Woods and the vast expanse of Swinley Forest has always existed in close relationship with its natural setting. We design buildings that honour that relationship — homes that are comfortable, economical to run and kinder to the environment that gives this place so much of its character. For older properties, EnerPHit provides a rigorous, Passivhaus-certified route to transforming thermal performance without compromising the character of the original building. Insulation, airtightness, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery — the result is a home that stays warm and comfortable without chasing the thermostat, energy bills that finally make sense, and a building fabric that will serve generations without fundamental reinvention.
PassivHaus Design takes that commitment to its fullest expression in new construction, creating homes where energy performance, air quality and thermal comfort are designed in from the very first sketch, not retrofitted as an afterthought. For New Build Design on infill sites within Crowthorne or on land at its fringes, the opportunity is to create architecture that responds to its neighbours and its woodland setting while performing to standards the original housing stock could never have achieved. And for those drawn to the heathland and forest beyond the settlement boundary, Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework offers a route to building an exceptional home in the rural landscape — a home whose design quality justifies its presence, sitting within the trees and the heath rather than clearing them away. That is the kind of challenge that excites us most: architecture that belongs to its place.
Whether you are caring for a Victorian property in the conservation area, reimagining a mid-century home on one of the wooded estates, or building something entirely new among the Berkshire heathland, we would welcome the conversation. Good architecture starts with listening — to you, to the building, and to the place itself.