Landford sits at a threshold. To the south and east, the New Forest reaches into Wiltshire — ancient woodland, open heath, a landscape shaped by centuries of grazing and managed enclosure. To the north and west, the chalk downland rolls toward Salisbury. It is a parish where two very different landscapes meet, and where the architecture has always reflected that meeting. Landford Manor, built around 1600 in English bond brick with limestone quoins and dressings, draws on materials from both traditions. William Butterfield's Church of St Andrew, consecrated in 1858, brought a Gothic Revival architect of national standing to a small rural parish and produced something quietly remarkable — a building of real conviction in a place most people would never find on a map. Nomansland, just to the south on the edge of the forest, grew from common-land settlement into a community with its own distinct character. These are places that reward the kind of attention we bring.
Award-winning Architects in Landford and Nomansland
Heritage and Sustainable Design at the Forest Edge
I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006, and we are now based in Oxford, working across Wiltshire and beyond. A parish like Landford, sitting between the New Forest and the Wiltshire chalk, demands the kind of understanding we have developed through years of working with both heritage buildings and modern sustainable design. We won the RIBA East Award for The Deerings, a certified Passivhaus home in Hertfordshire, and I was named a finalist for Sustainability Architect of the Year at the 2018 Building Design Awards — recognition that sustainability and beautiful design are the same pursuit, not competing ones. Our work has appeared in Dezeen, The Modern House Journal and Grand Designs Magazine, and I served as a judge for the British Homes Awards in 2025. As an ARB-registered and RIBA-chartered architect, and a member of SPAB — the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings — I understand how older buildings work: their materials, their moisture behaviour, the structural logic that has kept them standing through centuries. We are members of the Passivhaus Trust and accredited by The Green Register. That combination — heritage understanding and energy performance rigour — is what a landscape like Landford's needs.
Architectural Services at the Edge of the New Forest
Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework offers a rare opportunity for exceptional architecture in the countryside, and few locations in Wiltshire present a more compelling canvas than the landscape around Landford. The New Forest National Park boundary runs through this parish — Nomansland falls within it, while parts of Landford are administered by Wiltshire Council — and that dual jurisdiction shapes what is possible. For sites within the National Park, the New Forest National Park Authority applies particularly rigorous design standards; for sites outside it, Wiltshire Council's policies still demand a response to the rural character of the area. Paragraph 84 asks that a new home in the countryside be truly outstanding in quality and sensitive to its setting, and in a landscape where ancient forest meets open downland, that sensitivity requires a deep understanding of both. We approach Paragraph 84 projects as opportunities to create buildings that belong to their place — homes that respond to topography, materials and light in ways that justify their position in the landscape.
Renovations in Landford often mean working with buildings whose fabric tells a layered story. Landford Manor, Grade II* listed and dating from around 1600, has been extended and altered across four centuries — the Davenant family added a south wing around 1680, the Eyres remodelled the front in 1717, and twentieth-century additions followed. That kind of accumulated change demands an architect who can read each layer, understand its significance, and propose interventions that respect the whole. Butterfield's St Andrew's Church, also Grade II* listed, demonstrates what can be achieved when a designer of real ambition engages with a modest rural site — every fitting in the church is Butterfield's, from the limestone octagonal font to the wooden pulpit and pews. We approach renovations with the same commitment to understanding what is already there before adding anything new, a method refined through projects including The Great Barn in Buckinghamshire, a Grade II listed barn restoration.
Sustainable Design is the foundation of our practice, not an optional extra. I believe homes should be comfortable, designed to last, and engineered to use energy and materials as efficiently as possible. In a parish at the edge of the New Forest, where the oldest buildings were constructed from locally sourced materials and have endured for centuries, that principle already has deep roots. EnerPHit, the Passivhaus Institute's certified retrofit standard, provides a rigorous framework for improving the thermal performance of older homes in Landford while respecting their traditional construction — ensuring that brick and stone walls continue to manage moisture as they always have, and that energy improvements work with the building rather than against it.
Extension Design for homes in Landford and Nomansland requires careful navigation of the planning landscape. Whether the property falls under Wiltshire Council or the New Forest National Park Authority, an extension must demonstrate sensitivity to the character of its setting — the brick and tile traditions of the parish, the modest scale of the surrounding buildings, the relationship between built form and the open landscape beyond. We design extensions that read as a natural evolution of the original building, not an imposition. PassivHaus Design delivers the most comfortable and energy-efficient new homes achievable — buildings that require almost no conventional heating. New Build Design offers the opportunity to create something that responds to the agricultural and forest-edge character of this landscape while meeting the highest modern performance standards.
If you are considering a project in Landford or Nomansland — whether renovating a historic building, extending a family home, or exploring what new architecture might achieve at the edge of the New Forest — we would welcome the chance to talk about how to begin.