Inside the Church of St Mary at Grendon sits a wooden-framed clock made locally in 1690. It has measured the hours of this village for over three centuries — a precision instrument produced not by a metropolitan workshop but by a craftsman working in the same community the clock would serve. What interests me as an architect is what this says about local skill: the conviction that quality work does not require distance, and that the person best placed to build something is often the one who understands the place it will occupy. The church, Grade II* listed, retains two rounded arches from its twelfth-century Norman building. The eastern bays of the nave arcade were rebuilt between the 1360s and 1380s, and the tower and clerestory were added in the fifteenth century. The village sits near Wellingborough.
Award-winning Architects in Grendon
From 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 united by the belief that every building benefits from the attention of people who understand its context. 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 Wellingborough
Sustainable Design connects every project we take on, and in Grendon the locally made clock is a reminder that craftsmanship rooted in its place produces work that lasts. PassivHaus Design sets our benchmark for new construction, delivering certified comfort with minimal energy demand. New Build Design in Grendon should respect the limestone character of the village. 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 local craftsman brought to a village clock over three centuries ago.
Extension Design in Grendon should respond to the proportions and materials of the village's stone buildings and the thatched cottages that survive alongside them. The relationship between the houses, the lanes and the surrounding landscape creates a settlement with a quiet, settled character. 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.
Renovations in Grendon engage with a building stock built in local limestone, some of it predating the church's fourteenth-century rebuilding. The Norman arches that survive in the nave record the earliest phase of construction, and any work on buildings of this age must respect their fabric. North 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.
EnerPHit, the Passivhaus Institute's certified retrofit standard, addresses the thermal performance of older homes without compromising their character. The cottages in Grendon 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.
Grendon's clock has kept time for over three centuries because a local craftsman understood his material. If you are considering a project here, we would welcome the conversation.