Some villages grow along a road; West Hanney grew around a green. The medieval Buttercross still stands at the heart of the settlement, marking a gathering point that has shaped the village for centuries. Walk around that green and the buildings tell you how the place has accumulated — the thatched, timber-framed Plough, probably seventeenth century, sits within sight of West Hanney House, the early Georgian former rectory that Murray's Berkshire Architectural Guide called "of remarkable distinction" in 1949. Stone, brick, timber and thatch all coexist here, not because the village lacked a prevailing style but because each generation chose the material that suited the moment. That kind of honest, adaptive building is something I find deeply compelling, and it is the quality we try to bring to every project at Gresford Architects.
Award-winning Architects in West Hanney
Why Homeowners in West Hanney Trust Gresford
I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006, and we are now based at the Oxford Eco Centre on Osney Mead — well placed to work with clients across the Vale of White Horse. A village that mixes timber frame, stone, brick and thatch within a single conservation area requires an architect who reads material variety as a design opportunity rather than a constraint, and that instinct runs through our practice. We are RIBA Chartered and ARB Registered, members of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, accredited with The Green Register and the Passivhaus Trust. Our RIBA East Award for The Deerings, a Passivhaus in Hertfordshire, and our RIBA South Awards shortlisting for The Old Water Tower reflect nearly twenty years of work that treats sustainability and heritage not as competing priorities but as two aspects of the same discipline. 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 for the British Homes Awards — a role that deepened my conviction that the best homes are those built with both ambition and care.
Architectural Services for Homes in West Hanney
Planning applications in West Hanney are handled by Vale of White Horse District Council. The village sits within a conservation area centred on the green and Buttercross, and its Neighbourhood Development Plan sets out policies that shape how new development responds to the existing character of the settlement. The listed buildings here — including the Grade II* St James the Great, with its Norman nave dating to around 1150, and the Grade II* West Hanney House built around 1727 — establish a standard of craft and material awareness that any new work in the village must respect.
Many homes in West Hanney are modest one and two storey cottages set on plots that face the green or line Main Street. Extension Design in this context is about reading the proportions and materials of what already exists and making the addition feel like a natural continuation rather than an afterthought. A single-storey rear extension on a stone cottage might open the ground floor to the garden in a way that transforms how the house is lived in — more light, a better connection between cooking and eating and the outdoors — while the street elevation remains unchanged. Sustainable Design is woven through every extension we produce, from the orientation of new glazing to the insulation and airtightness standards that make the whole home more comfortable, more economical to run and more enjoyable to inhabit.
The older buildings in West Hanney — timber-framed structures like The Plough, stone cottages around the green, the Georgian solidity of West Hanney House — were built before thermal performance was a consideration, and their walls lose heat readily in winter. EnerPHit, the Passivhaus Institute's certified retrofit standard, provides a disciplined framework for transforming these homes without altering the character that makes them worth preserving. Careful internal insulation that respects moisture movement through traditional materials, airtight detailing at every junction, and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery combine to create a steadiness of temperature and a freshness of air that you notice the moment you step inside. My wife Phoebe is a conservation architect, and her influence has deepened my understanding of how older buildings breathe — essential knowledge when applying modern performance standards to structures never designed for them.
Renovations in a conservation village like West Hanney begin with understanding what the building already knows — a seventeenth-century timber frame or an eighteenth-century stone wall has its own logic of moisture, movement and weight, and the best renovation works with that logic rather than against it. PassivHaus Design offers the highest standard of comfort and energy efficiency achievable in new construction — superinsulation, triple glazing and intelligent orientation that draws on the same principle the village's builders understood when they placed their homes around a south-facing green. New Build Design within the village must navigate the conservation area and Neighbourhood Plan policies, but for sites in the surrounding countryside, Paragraph 84 offers a route for an exceptional rural dwelling where architectural quality earns the right to build in the open landscape of the Vale.
West Hanney has been gathering around its green for centuries, each generation adding something to the conversation in its own materials and its own way. If you are considering a project here — whether extending a cottage, renovating a listed building or exploring something new — we would welcome the chance to be part of that continuing story.