What strikes me about East Hendred is the depth of its continuity. The Eyston family have lived at Hendred House since 1443, and their private chapel of St Amand — granted papal licence in 1256 — is one of only three pre-Reformation chapels in England that has never been used for Protestant worship. In the parish church of St Augustine, a faceless clock made by John Seymour of Wantage in 1525 still marks the hours and plays the Angel's Hymn by Orlando Gibbons four times a day. These are not museum pieces preserved behind glass; they are things that have been used, maintained and cared for across centuries because people saw value in keeping them going. That spirit of careful stewardship runs through the whole village — in the timber-framed cottages and brick houses along the High Street, in the Carthusian chapel built in 1453 that now serves as the village museum, in the conservation area that the Secretary of State designated outstanding in 1976. As an architect, I find that kind of continuity deeply instructive. Buildings that endure do so because they were made with skill and adapted with intelligence, and that is exactly the standard any new work in East Hendred needs to meet.
Award-winning Architects in East Hendred
Why Homeowners in East Hendred Trust Gresford Architects
My membership of SPAB, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, is not a line on a certificate — it is a way of thinking about older buildings that shapes every project we take on. In a village with seventy-three listed buildings and a conservation area of outstanding character, that matters. I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006 and we are now based at the Oxford Eco Centre in Osney Mead, a RIBA Chartered and ARB-registered practice accredited on The Green Register. We were named finalists for Sustainability Architect of the Year at the Building Design Awards in 2018, and I served as a judge for the British Homes Awards in 2025. Our Passivhaus home The Deerings in Hertfordshire won a RIBA East Award in 2018 for showing that exceptional energy performance and generous, light-filled architecture belong together. As a member of the Passivhaus Trust, I bring that same rigour to every project — whether it is a full retrofit of a listed cottage or a new home on the edge of the North Wessex Downs.
Architectural Services for a Village Built to Last
East Hendred falls within the Vale of White Horse District Council for planning purposes, and its conservation area encompasses the historic core of the village — the High Street, Newbury Road and the lanes and paths that connect them. With seventy-three listed buildings including the Grade I Champs Chapel and the Grade II* Church of St Augustine, any alteration or addition needs to be handled with real understanding of what makes this place work. The village also sits within the North Wessex Downs National Landscape, which adds a further layer of sensitivity to how new development relates to its setting.
Renovations are central to our work, and in East Hendred the opportunities are remarkable. The village's mix of timber-framed cottages, brick houses and stone buildings spans several centuries, and many of these homes have been adapted and extended over generations already. The challenge is to continue that tradition — improving how a building performs without losing the character that makes it worth keeping. We approach each renovation by understanding the structure first: the materials, the way loads move through the building, the relationship between rooms, and the qualities of light and space that the original builders created, sometimes deliberately, sometimes by happy accident.
EnerPHit, the Passivhaus Institute's certified retrofit standard, offers a rigorous framework for transforming the thermal performance of older homes. In a conservation area like East Hendred, where external appearance must be preserved, EnerPHit's fabric-first approach — careful insulation, airtightness detailing, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery — delivers its improvements largely from within. Solid walls that leak heat, single-glazed windows that rattle in the wind, floors with no insulation at all: these are problems that can be solved methodically, bringing comfort and dramatically lower energy bills while the timber frames, the brickwork and the tile roofs that define the streetscape remain untouched.
Extension Design requires particular care in a village where the historic core has been so well preserved. The conservation area appraisal notes that newer development sits mainly on the periphery, which has protected the character of the centre. Any extension within that core needs to respond to the proportions, materials and rooflines of what already exists — not by copying, but by understanding the principles that make the existing buildings work and applying them with contemporary confidence. We design extensions that feel like natural continuations of the buildings they serve, bringing the space and light a modern household needs without disrupting the rhythm of the street.
Sustainable Design is the thread that runs through everything we do, because buildings that are comfortable, economical to run and kinder to the planet are simply better buildings. In East Hendred, where the building stock has endured for centuries precisely because it was made with care, sustainability is not a new idea — it is the oldest one. PassivHaus Design takes this principle furthest, achieving exceptional comfort through fabric performance rather than energy-hungry heating systems. For new homes coming forward in the village or on its edges, building to Passivhaus standards ensures they are designed to last as long as the cottages already here. New Build Design more broadly allows us to respond to the specific character of this place — the mix of timber, brick and stone, the varied rooflines of thatch and tile, the way buildings sit along the lanes rather than following a rigid plan.
The North Wessex Downs landscape that surrounds East Hendred — chalk downland, ancient trackways, open fields stretching south towards the Ridgeway — offers the possibility of something exceptional for the right site. Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework provides a route for outstanding new homes in rural settings where the quality of the architecture justifies the location. It is a demanding standard, but for those with land in this landscape the results can be extraordinary: a home that belongs to its setting as completely as the village belongs to the vale below the downs.
East Hendred is a village that has been built, maintained and adapted with care for the better part of a thousand years. If you are considering a renovation, an extension, or a new home here, we would welcome the conversation. Thoughtful architecture — the kind that respects what came before while building for the way we live now — is what we do.