There is something revealing about a village that moved away from its own church. Maisemore's original settlement grew around St Giles, up on slightly higher ground above the Severn floodplain, but sometime in the fourteenth century the village was replanned further south, leaving the church standing alone at the end of a lane with only Maisemore Court for company. The river demanded it. Living beside the Severn means understanding water — its rhythms, its reach, its capacity to reshape a landscape year after year. That understanding is written into the fabric of the buildings here: the coursed squared lias of St Giles, chosen because it weathers well; the pebble-dashed render over older stonework at Maisemore Court, protecting walls that have stood since the early seventeenth century. Architecture in Maisemore has always been a negotiation between ambition and the river's terms.
Award-winning Architects in Maisemore
Why Clients Across the Country Trust Gresford Architects
I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006, and we now work with clients across the country from our Oxford studio. My training through SPAB — the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings — taught me to read buildings honestly, to let the evidence of centuries guide what you do next, which is exactly what older structures in Maisemore demand. We are RIBA chartered, ARB registered, and accredited by The Green Register and the Passivhaus Trust. Our work has been recognised in ways I am proud of: the RIBA East Award for The Deerings, a Passivhaus home in Hertfordshire; a RIBA South Awards shortlisting for The Old Water Tower; and a finalist nomination for Sustainability Architect of the Year at the 2018 Building Design Awards. Our projects have been featured in Dezeen, The Modern House Journal, and Grand Designs Magazine, and in 2025 I served as a judge at the British Homes Awards. That combination of heritage care and low-energy design discipline is what every project in Maisemore benefits from.
Architectural Services for Homes in Maisemore
Sustainable Design is the thread that runs through all of our work, and in Maisemore it takes on particular urgency. The Severn floodplain is not an abstract concern here — the A417 through the village closes regularly when river levels rise, and the bridge at Maisemore has been rebuilt at least six times since William Fitz Anketil commissioned the first recorded crossing around 1230. Designing sustainably in this context means thinking about resilience as much as energy efficiency: ground-floor levels, flood-resistant materials, ventilation strategies that account for moisture, and building envelopes that perform through every season. It means designing homes that are comfortable, economical to run, and built to endure whatever the river brings.
Renovations in Maisemore often involve navigating the particular demands of older buildings alongside the realities of a riverside parish. St Giles, with its fifteenth-century nave built from coursed squared lias and stone slate roof, is Grade II* listed, as is Maisemore Court — an early seventeenth-century manor house enlarged in the late eighteenth century for W. Pitt, its walls a palimpsest of render over stonework, English bond brickwork at one corner, Monk bond at another. Tewkesbury Borough Council handles planning applications for the parish, and any work affecting a listed building will require both planning permission and listed building consent. My SPAB training teaches a simple principle: understand what the building is doing before you change it. That patience, that willingness to read the evidence of centuries of alteration, is what keeps a renovation honest.
EnerPHit, the Passivhaus Institute's certified retrofit standard, offers a disciplined route to transforming energy performance in older homes without erasing their character. Many properties in Maisemore have solid walls — lias stone, render over rubble, or brick — that were built to breathe. Any insulation strategy must respect that moisture movement: internal wall insulation carefully detailed to avoid condensation, upgraded windows that maintain proportions, and improved airtightness calibrated to each building's construction. Our EnerPHit work at The Old Orchard in Oxfordshire, featured in The Modern House and The Spaces, demonstrated that a rigorous retrofit can deliver stable temperatures, negligible heating bills, and a home that feels entirely transformed while respecting its original fabric.
Extension Design in Maisemore calls for an understanding of how the village sits in its landscape — a linear settlement with the Severn floodplain to the east and open farmland to the west. New additions are read against that wider context, and Tewkesbury Borough Council will consider how any proposal relates to the character of its surroundings. We begin each extension by studying orientation, light, and the relationship between the existing building and its neighbours, designing outward from what is already there. New Build Design opportunities may arise within or adjacent to the settlement, and where they do, PassivHaus Design delivers exceptional comfort through superinsulation, airtightness, and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery — buildings that barely need heating even on the coldest Severn valley mornings. Beyond the village, the surrounding countryside may present scope for Paragraph 84, the national planning policy that permits exceptional rural homes where the quality of design justifies a departure from normal restrictions.
If you are considering a project in Maisemore — whether bringing an older home into line with how you want to live, extending sensitively within this riverside village, or building something new that responds to the landscape and the river — we would welcome the conversation.