When Hartwell rebuilt its church in 1851, the village did something that tells you everything about how this place thinks about its buildings. Rather than demolish the medieval church entirely, the architect Charles Vickers removed its Norman arcade — round-arched, solidly proportioned, perhaps seven hundred years old at the time — and incorporated it into the new building. The Church of St John the Baptist, Grade II* listed, still carries that arcade today alongside its fourteenth-century west tower with carved corbel heads and gargoyles, and thirteenth-century transepts. It is a building that has been remade without losing what mattered most. That principle — the conviction that good architecture outlasts the building it was first made for — is how I think about every project we take on.
Award-winning Architects in Hartwell
From Barn Restorations to Certified Passivhaus
Our work ranges from a Grade II listed barn restoration in Buckinghamshire to a certified Passivhaus home in Hertfordshire, and what connects them is the same attention to materials, detail and performance. 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. Our projects have been published in Dezeen, Grand Designs Magazine and The Modern House Journal. In a village like Hartwell — where the housing stock spans Norman stonework through to modern brick, and Salcey Forest and the Buckinghamshire border are within walking distance — that breadth of experience across heritage and energy is what the work demands.
Architectural Services for Hartwell
Renovations in Hartwell engage with a building stock that reflects the village's long relationship with its landscape. The older stone houses are built from local limestone, the same material that gives the church its solidity, and many retain their original proportions and detailing. Salcey Lawn, a late seventeenth-century country house in the nearby forest with eighteenth- and twentieth-century alterations, is Grade II listed and illustrates how buildings of this age adapt across the centuries without losing their essential character. The village's connection to the Grafton Estate shaped its later development, and the nineteenth-century cottages and farmhouses add another layer of construction that any renovation must understand. West Northamptonshire Council handles planning for the parish. Through my membership of SPAB, I approach these limestone buildings with the understanding that solid stone walls manage moisture through their mass and their permeable lime mortar — and any intervention must work with that behaviour rather than against it.
Extension Design for homes in Hartwell should respond to the character of the existing building and the village around it. The older stone properties need extensions that respect the limestone palette, the window proportions, and the modest scale of the original construction. The later housing offers more design freedom, but the same principle applies: an extension should make the whole building feel more resolved rather than simply larger. Whether the brief is opening up a ground floor to connect kitchen and garden, adding a garden room that takes advantage of views toward the forest, or creating space above, the design should feel like a considered addition that earns its place.
EnerPHit, the Passivhaus Institute's certified retrofit standard, addresses the thermal performance of older homes without compromising their character. The stone cottages in Hartwell present the challenge familiar across the limestone belt: 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 these homes — warmer, quieter, dramatically cheaper to run — while the stone facades continue to weather as they always have. For the later housing, the gains from a full EnerPHit retrofit can be more straightforward still.
Sustainable Design connects every project we take on, and in Hartwell it connects to a village that has always drawn on its surroundings — the stone from the ground, the timber from the forest. When the village erected its war memorials in 1920, one was carved from stone and placed in the churchyard, the other made from timber from Salcey Forest and set in the main street. That instinct for using what is local and lasting 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 Hartwell should sit comfortably alongside the limestone fabric of the village. For sites in the countryside around the parish, where Salcey Forest — a fragment of a medieval hunting forest — defines the landscape to the east, Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework provides a route to architecturally outstanding homes in a setting of real character.
Hartwell saved its Norman arcade seven generations ago because the village understood that good work deserves to endure. If you are considering a project here, we would welcome the conversation.