There is an eighteenth-century bridge on the road between Arncott and Ambrosden — five stone arches spanning the River Ray where the ground is flat and the water moves slowly through clay. It is a modest structure, not grand, but it tells you something about the character of this landscape: patient, practical, built to serve rather than to impress. Upper Arncott shares that quality. The village has grown quietly on the higher ground above the Ray, a settlement whose name reaches back to the tenth century — Earn's Cottage — and whose story is one of steady, unpretentious adaptation. What draws me to it as an architect is exactly that sense of purpose without pretence, and the way the village is now entering a new chapter as the former military land around it finds a different life.
Award-winning Architects in Upper Arncott
Why Homeowners in Upper Arncott Trust Gresford Architects
I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006, and we are now based at the Oxford Eco Centre in Osney Mead — well placed for the villages and growing settlements across Cherwell. As a RIBA Chartered Architect and ARB-registered professional, I bring formal discipline, but it is the practical, fabric-first thinking that defines how we work. The Deerings in Hertfordshire, a Passivhaus new build that won the RIBA East Award in 2018, showed what happens when you design around thermal performance from the very first sketch — a house that barely needs heating, even in midwinter. That same year I was a finalist for Sustainability Architect of the Year at the Building Design Awards, and in 2025 I served as a judge for the British Homes Awards. We are members of the Passivhaus Trust and accredited by The Green Register, and that combination of credentials means we understand how buildings actually perform over time — how they use energy, how they wear, how they feel to live in day after day. Upper Arncott's housing stock spans several generations, from older cottages to modern estate homes, and the landscape around the village is changing fast. That is exactly where a practice with our range of experience can help most.
Architectural Services for a Village in Transition
New Build Design here has a particular context. Cherwell District Council is the planning authority for Upper Arncott, and the village sits within a landscape that is evolving. The former Ministry of Defence land to the north-west has become Graven Hill, one of the largest self-build developments in the country, bringing new energy and new homes to what was once a logistics depot built during the Second World War. Upper Arncott itself remains a quieter settlement — the village green, the recreation ground, housing that ranges from older cottages to more recent development — but the ripple effects of that growth make this an area where good architectural thinking is needed more than ever. Graven Hill, just to the north-west, has become the largest self-build community in the country — proof that people want to shape how they live, not accept a standard layout from a volume housebuilder. Upper Arncott sits alongside that energy, and for anyone considering a new home in or around the village, the question is not whether to build but how to build something that genuinely belongs. Sustainable Design is where we start — not as a planning box to tick, but as the principle that makes a home comfortable to inhabit, economical to run and built to last. PassivHaus Design takes this further: exceptional insulation, airtight construction and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery, delivering stable indoor temperatures year-round without the running costs or the cold spots that come with conventional construction. On the flat, open land around the Ray, where winter winds move uninterrupted, that kind of thermal performance is not a luxury — it is common sense.
Extension Design for the existing homes in Upper Arncott needs to respect a particular quality — the open aspect across the Ray valley, the quiet edges of the settlement where gardens give way to fields. Many of the properties here were built for a different household size and rhythm, and families outgrow them. A well-designed extension rethinks how the whole home works: how light moves through the rooms, how the inside connects to the garden and the landscape beyond. That view toward the river should be something to celebrate, not block. The best extensions here grow from the existing structure honestly, adding space without losing the sense of openness that makes this part of the village worth living in.
For the older properties in Upper Arncott — the cottages near the village green, the houses that predate the post-war expansion — Renovations and EnerPHit offer a path to genuine improvement. Solid walls lose heat steadily through winter, and on exposed ground near the Ray the effect is felt more than most. EnerPHit is the Passivhaus Institute's retrofit standard: a continuous thermal envelope that transforms comfort and cuts energy costs while respecting the existing structure. Our work on The Old Orchard in Oxfordshire, an EnerPHit retrofit featured in The Modern House Journal, showed what this approach can achieve — a period home brought to modern performance without losing its age or its character.
For sites in the open countryside around Upper Arncott and the Ray lowlands, Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework provides a route for truly outstanding homes in rural settings. The design quality must justify the location — and that is precisely the kind of challenge we relish.
Upper Arncott is a village with deep roots and a changing horizon. If you are planning a new home, an extension or a renovation here, we would welcome the conversation — building for the era in which we live, with the care and attention this place deserves.