Between 1834 and 1838 Robert Stephenson drove a cutting up to sixty-five feet deep and a mile and a half long through the Jurassic rock beneath Roade, carving a path for the London and Birmingham Railway — one of the first major inter-city rail lines in the world. That cutting is still there, now a Site of Special Scientific Interest for the layers of Middle Jurassic geology it exposed, and recognised by the Transport Trust with a Red Wheel for its engineering significance. What strikes me as an architect is something quieter than the drama of that feat: the same stone that Stephenson's navvies cut through is the stone that built the village above it. The rubblestone tower of the Church of St Mary the Virgin, standing since the twelfth century, the older cottages along the eastern half of the village, the walls and boundary markers that give Roade its texture — all of it drawn from the ground beneath. Good architecture has always started with reading what is already there, and in Roade the ground itself tells you what belongs.
Award-winning Architects in Roade
Why Homeowners in Roade Trust Gresford Architects
I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006, and we are now based in Oxford, working with clients across the country on projects that demand both technical rigour and a genuine sensitivity to place. Our work on The Deerings — a certified Passivhaus home in Hertfordshire that won a RIBA East Award — demonstrated that energy performance and architectural beauty are not in tension but are, at their best, the same thing. I was shortlisted for Sustainability Architect of the Year at the 2018 Building Design Awards and served as a judge for the British Homes Awards in 2025. As an ARB-registered and RIBA-chartered architect, a member of SPAB and the Passivhaus Trust, and accredited by The Green Register, I bring a breadth of expertise that is particularly relevant in a village like Roade — a place where the conservation area in the older eastern quarter sits alongside significant recent growth, and where the architectural challenge is to hold those two realities together with care.
Designing for a Village Between Heritage and Growth
Roade has grown by roughly fifty per cent since 2011, with the development of some 292 homes at Ashton Road transforming the western side of the village. That scale of growth brings real responsibility. New Build Design in Roade needs to do more than meet housing targets — it needs to contribute something that the village can be proud of in fifty years, not just something that satisfied a planning condition today. The Roade Neighbourhood Development Plan, adopted in 2019 with overwhelming community support for its village boundary, sets a clear framework for what future development should look like, and West Northamptonshire Council assesses all applications against it. We approach New Build Design with the same conviction: orientation for passive solar gain, massing that responds to the street rather than ignoring it, materials that age honestly. The Jurassic stone palette of the older village — the coursed rubblestone, the dressed surrounds — is a reference point, not a rulebook, and the best new architecture in Roade will be the kind that sits beside those older buildings with confidence rather than pastiche.
Sustainable Design is not an add-on to this process — it is the process. Every decision we make, from the earliest site sketch to the final specification, is shaped by how a building will perform over its lifetime: its airtightness, its ventilation strategy, its relationship to daylight and prevailing weather. Homes in Roade that were built during the village's recent expansion will benefit from being designed to last, to use energy and materials as efficiently as possible, and to be genuinely comfortable rather than merely compliant. PassivHaus Design takes that ambition to its most exacting standard, virtually eliminating the need for conventional heating through precision engineering of the building envelope — a standard we have delivered at The Deerings and one that is entirely achievable for new homes in Roade.
The older eastern half of the village tells a different story. Here, within the conservation area designated in 2015, the architectural character is defined by the stone-built cottages, the twelfth- and thirteenth-century Church of St Mary the Virgin with its rubblestone tower, and the smaller domestic buildings that line the historic routes. EnerPHit, the Passivhaus Institute's certified retrofit standard, offers a disciplined approach to upgrading the energy performance of these older homes — reducing heat loss, improving comfort, lowering bills — without compromising the breathability of traditional stone and lime-mortar construction. This is careful, precise work, and it is exactly the kind of project where our experience with heritage buildings and our understanding of building physics come together. Renovations in the conservation area require the same attentiveness: an understanding of how these buildings were made, what materials they need, and how to bring them into the present without stripping away what makes them worth keeping. My membership of SPAB reflects a long-held belief that the best renovation work listens to a building before it speaks.
For homeowners in Roade whose needs have outgrown their current layout, Extension Design can open up a home without losing its character — a rear addition that brings light into a north-facing kitchen, a first-floor extension that adds a bedroom without overwhelming the roofline. In the conservation area, the design language matters: scale, proportion, the relationship between new and old. Beyond the village boundary, the open countryside around Roade falls within the scope of Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework, which provides a route for exceptional new homes in the landscape where the architecture itself must justify the departure from normal policy — a brief that rewards genuine design ambition and a deep reading of the site.
Roade is a village that has always been shaped by what lies beneath it — the stone that built its church, the geology that drew Stephenson's railway, the ground that gives it its character. If you are planning a new home, an extension, a renovation or an energy upgrade here, we would welcome the conversation. Get in touch.