Perham Down tells its story through what has been replaced rather than what has survived. A hutted army camp built in 1915 for five thousand men gave way to brick barracks in the 1930s, which were themselves demolished and rebuilt between 1972 and 1974 as the concrete blocks now known as Swinton Barracks. Each generation of building was designed for immediate need and expected to last only until the next need arrived. That cycle — build, use, tear down, build again — is the opposite of how I think about architecture, and standing on the chalk downland at the eastern edge of Salisbury Plain, watching the open grassland stretch west towards Tidworth, it strikes me that the landscape here has been patient enough to outlast everything we have put on it. The question for anyone building or improving a home in Perham Down now is whether this generation of buildings can finally be designed to last — comfortable, efficient, and made with the care that the Plain's long memory deserves.
Award-winning Architects in Perham Down
Why Homes in Perham Down Deserve Considered Architecture
Gresford Architects was founded in London in 2006 and is now based in Oxford, working with clients across the country — including communities on Salisbury Plain where the housing stock has been shaped more by institutional need than by individual aspiration. I am an ARB-registered and RIBA-chartered architect, a member of the Passivhaus Trust and accredited on The Green Register, and that combination of formal credentials and a deep commitment to sustainability shapes how we approach every project. We won the RIBA East Award for The Deerings, a certified Passivhaus in Hertfordshire, and were shortlisted for a RIBA South Award for The Old Water Tower. In 2018 I was a finalist for Sustainability Architect of the Year at the Building Design Awards, and in 2025 I served as a judge at the British Homes Awards. Our work has appeared in Dezeen, The Modern House Journal and Grand Designs Magazine. A village like Perham Down — shaped by military pragmatism rather than architectural tradition — is precisely the kind of place where considered design can make the greatest difference, because every improvement is measured against a baseline of buildings that were never intended to delight.
Architectural Services for Homes in Perham Down
Sustainable Design is the thread that connects everything we do at Gresford Architects, and for homes in Perham Down it is not an abstract principle but a practical response to the conditions of this place. The village sits on chalk at around 130 metres above sea level on the exposed eastern edge of Salisbury Plain, where winters are cold and winds sweep across the open grassland with nothing to break them. Much of the housing stock here dates from the mid-to-late twentieth century — built quickly, insulated minimally, and heated expensively. Our approach starts from the conviction that buildings should be comfortable to inhabit, economical to run and designed to last, and for a settlement where so many homes were built to a minimum standard, that conviction translates directly into lower energy bills, warmer rooms and buildings that work with the Plain's climate rather than fighting it.
Extension Design offers families in Perham Down the chance to adapt homes that were built to a standard layout rather than to individual needs. Military and post-war housing tends to follow repetitive plans — functional but inflexible, with rooms sized for efficiency rather than the way families actually live. An extension here is an opportunity to break free of that rigidity, to create the kitchen that opens onto the garden, the home office that catches the morning light, or the additional bedroom that a growing family needs. We design extensions that are honest about when they were made while responding to the scale and materials of the existing building, and Wiltshire Council's planners respond well to proposals that demonstrate genuine thought about how an addition improves the whole.
EnerPHit — the certified retrofit standard for existing buildings — is particularly relevant to the housing stock in Perham Down. Many homes here were built with solid walls, single glazing and minimal insulation, and bringing them up to modern comfort standards requires more than a new boiler and some loft insulation. EnerPHit works with the existing fabric — adding insulation where the construction allows, improving airtightness to reduce draughts, and introducing mechanical ventilation with heat recovery. Our retrofit of The Old Orchard in Oxfordshire, featured in The Modern House Journal and The Spaces, demonstrated what this achieves: a home transformed in performance while retaining the character that made it worth keeping. For a 1970s or 1980s house in Perham Down, where the original builders gave little thought to thermal performance, the transformation in comfort and running costs is remarkable.
New Build Design in a setting like Perham Down starts from the landscape itself. The chalk downland of Salisbury Plain is the largest remaining area of unimproved chalk grassland in north-west Europe, and any new home on its edge should respond to that open, wind-swept character rather than ignoring it. PassivHaus Design takes this further — exceptional insulation, controlled airtightness and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery create homes that maintain stable temperatures year-round with minimal energy input, which on an exposed plain matters more than most places. In the open countryside beyond Perham Down, where the chalk downland stretches without settlement towards the training area, Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework provides a pathway for outstanding homes where architectural quality justifies building on the Plain. Renovations for the older properties around Perham Down and nearby Tidworth — where the parish church of the Holy Trinity, built in flint and stone in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, shows what local materials can achieve when handled with skill — require an architect who understands that even modest buildings deserve care and attention.
If you are considering a project in Perham Down — whether extending a home that has outgrown its original plan, retrofitting a property built for a different era of energy costs, or designing something new on the edge of Salisbury Plain — we would welcome the conversation.