What draws me to a village like Speen is the way its buildings tell you exactly where you are. Perched high on a spit of land in the Chiltern Hills, overlooking valleys that fall away to the south and east, this is a place where the architecture has always been shaped by what lies underfoot. Flint from the chalk, brick from the clay, tiles fired from the earth — the materials palette here is not a design choice so much as a geological fact. You see it in the chequer brickwork of the King William IV, a former farmhouse that has stood here since 1668, and in the brick-and-flint walls of the Baptist Chapel, the oldest place of worship in the parish. There is a directness to this kind of building that I find deeply satisfying: honest materials, used with skill, making structures that belong to their landscape in a way no imported material ever quite manages.
Award-winning Architects in Speen
Why Homeowners in Speen Trust Gresford Architects
I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006 and we now work from Oxford with clients across the country. The Chilterns have a particular hold on me — the interplay of chalk, woodland and flint gives this landscape an architectural language that rewards careful, site-specific design. As an ARB registered and RIBA Chartered architect, a member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and the Passivhaus Trust, I bring a dual commitment to heritage sensitivity and sustainable performance. Our work on The Great Barn in Buckinghamshire — a Grade II listed barn restoration — demanded exactly the kind of care that buildings in Speen deserve. The Deerings, a Passivhaus home that won a RIBA East Award in 2018, showed that energy performance and architectural quality are natural partners, not competing ambitions. Featured in Dezeen and Grand Designs Magazine and recognised as a finalist for Sustainability Architect of the Year, we approach every commission believing that good architecture should be comfortable, designed to last, and as efficient with energy and materials as the landscape itself has always demanded.
How We Work with the Architecture of the Chilterns
Renovations in Speen require an architect who reads buildings as carefully as the people who built them chose their materials. The conservation area, designated in 1989 and extended in 1994, protects the heart of the village and includes six Grade II listed buildings dating from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. These are structures built in local red brick, flint, and clay tile — materials that breathe, move, and age in ways that modern substitutes often do not. Our approach to Renovations begins with understanding the building on its own terms: what it is made of, how it was assembled, and where it can be improved without losing what makes it valuable. My membership of SPAB reflects a conviction that old buildings deserve repair and careful adaptation rather than wholesale replacement.
Sustainable Design sits naturally alongside heritage work in a place like Speen. The Chilterns National Landscape designation means that any development here must demonstrate sensitivity to the wider setting — not just the plot, but the views, the tree cover, the relationship between building and land that gives this part of Buckinghamshire its character. We see sustainability not as a constraint imposed from outside but as an opportunity to design homes that are more comfortable to inhabit, more economical to run, and more responsive to their environment. In a village where buildings have traditionally been made from materials found within walking distance, that philosophy feels less like innovation and more like continuity.
Extension Design for homes in Speen means working within the dual constraints of the conservation area and the Chilterns National Landscape. Buckinghamshire Council will assess any proposal for its impact on the character and appearance of both, which means the design conversation must begin early — materials, massing, roofline, the join between old and new. We welcome that scrutiny because it produces better buildings. An extension in flint and brick that picks up the proportions and rhythms of the original house will age into its setting in a way that a generic rear addition never does.
EnerPHit offers a route to dramatically improved comfort and energy performance for the older buildings in Speen. Many were built long before modern insulation standards, and their solid walls and single-glazed windows make them expensive to heat. EnerPHit applies Passivhaus principles to existing buildings with the pragmatism that traditional construction demands — breathable insulation compatible with brick and flint, high-performance glazing that respects existing proportions, and airtightness improvements tailored to the fabric. The result is a home transformed in warmth and running costs while remaining faithful to the character of the village.
PassivHaus Design and New Build Design come into play where new homes are proposed. A new home in Speen should meet the highest energy standards while responding to the materials palette and scale that define the settlement — superinsulation, airtight construction, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery, and careful orientation to minimise heating demand. The Deerings proved that a Passivhaus home can sit comfortably in a village setting, and we bring that same conviction to every new build.
Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework permits new dwellings in the open countryside where the design is truly outstanding and sensitive to its defining characteristics. The landscape surrounding Speen — the beech hangers, the chalk escarpment, the ancient woodland that once sustained generations of woodland craftsmen — sets demanding terms for any isolated dwelling. But for the right site, Paragraph 84 represents an extraordinary opportunity to build something exceptional in a nationally recognised landscape.
Speen's buildings have always been shaped by the ground they stand on — the flint, the clay, the chalk. That relationship between material and place informs every project we take on. If you are considering a renovation, an extension, or something entirely new in this part of the Chilterns, we would welcome the conversation.