Welton Place, a Georgian mansion built by Joseph Clarke in 1758, was demolished in 1972. The house had been the centre of a landscaped park with a lake and rare cedar trees planted around it. The cedars and the lake survive; the mansion does not. A street called Clarkes Way marks where it stood. What interests me as an architect is the lesson: a building that loses its purpose and its maintenance does not survive, however well it was built. The cedar trees, which asked nothing of anyone, are still growing. The Church of St Martin, Grade II* listed, dates from the fifteenth century with an earlier tower, its walls built in squared and coursed ironstone. Its chancel floor is decorated with polychrome marbles and malachite, reputed to be a Russian gift. The village sits north of Daventry.
Award-winning Architects in Welton
Design That Earns Its Place
Every building we design is intended to earn its continued use — to be worth maintaining, worth adapting, worth keeping. That means getting the performance right from the start. I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006, and we now work from Oxford with clients across the country. I am an ARB-registered and RIBA Chartered architect, a member of SPAB — the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings — the Passivhaus Trust and The Green Register. The Deerings, a certified Passivhaus home in Hertfordshire, won the RIBA East Award in 2018, the year I was also a finalist for Sustainability Architect of the Year at the Building Design Awards. In 2025 I was invited to judge the British Homes Awards. Our projects have been published in Dezeen, Grand Designs Magazine and The Modern House Journal.
Architectural Services North of Daventry
Sustainable Design connects every project we take on, and in Welton the demolished mansion is a reminder that a building's survival depends not on its grandeur but on whether each generation finds it worth keeping. PassivHaus Design sets our benchmark for new construction, delivering certified comfort with minimal energy demand. New Build Design in Welton should respect the ironstone character of the village. For sites in the countryside around the parish, Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework provides a route to architecturally outstanding homes — but the design must earn its place in a landscape that has already lost a significant building to neglect.
EnerPHit, the Passivhaus Institute's certified retrofit standard, addresses the thermal performance of older homes without compromising their character. The cottages in Welton present the familiar challenge of solid-walled construction: thick walls with no insulation, draughty junctions, and a building envelope that predates any concept of thermal efficiency. Vapour-open insulation, careful airtightness detailing, and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery can transform them — warmer, quieter, dramatically cheaper to run — while the ironstone facades continue to weather as they always have.
Renovations in Welton engage with a building stock shaped by the Clarke family's long association with the parish and the village's ironstone character. The church, whose pulpit was carved by villagers in 1899, demonstrates a community that invested in its buildings through direct participation. West Northamptonshire Council handles planning for the parish. Through my membership of SPAB, I approach these buildings with the understanding that solid stone walls manage moisture through their mass and their lime mortar — and that any renovation must work with that behaviour.
Extension Design in Welton should respond to the proportions and materials of the village's ironstone buildings and the landscape that the lost mansion's cedars and lake still define. Whether the brief is a ground-floor extension connecting the house to the garden, a garden room, or additional space above, the design should make the whole building feel more resolved — and should be built to last in a way that Welton Place, for all its ambition, was not.
Welton's Georgian mansion is gone; its cedar trees are still growing. If you are considering a project here, we would welcome the conversation.