What draws me to Whaddon is the quiet evidence of a very long relationship between this village and its own ground. Brick and tile have been made here since at least the thirteenth century, the local clay shaped and fired within sight of the houses it would eventually build. The Whaddon Brickworks, established in 1904 on what is now the A36 bypass, continued using eighteenth-century hand-moulding methods right up until it closed in 1976 — a remarkable thread of continuity in a world that had moved on to factory production decades earlier. That kind of craft-material bond is something I think about often. A village that made its own building material for centuries understands, in its bones, that good architecture begins with what is closest to hand. Sitting on its narrow ridge between the Longford estate to the west and Clarendon Park to the north-east, Whaddon has an intimacy of scale that comes from being shaped slowly, generation by generation, by the people who lived here and the clay they pulled from the earth beneath their feet.
Award-winning Architects in Whaddon
An Architect's Practice Built on Craft and Sustainability
I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006 and later moved the practice to Oxford, where we now work with clients across the country. I came to architecture through an understanding of how buildings age and change — how a room that was drafty in 1970 can become comfortable again if you know how to read what is already there. For a village like Whaddon, where brick has been the language of building for centuries, that kind of reading matters. I am ARB-registered and RIBA Chartered, a member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, accredited by The Green Register, and a member of the Passivhaus Trust — credentials that reflect a belief that energy performance and heritage integrity must work as one. Our work on The Deerings, a Passivhaus home in Hertfordshire that won the RIBA East Award, and The Old Water Tower, shortlisted for the RIBA South Awards, demonstrates what becomes possible when this philosophy meets genuine ambition. I was a finalist for Sustainability Architect of the Year at the 2018 Building Design Awards and in 2025 served as a judge for the British Homes Awards — roles that reinforced what every project teaches me: the best architecture respects what was built before it.
Architectural Services for Homes in Whaddon
Extension Design for homes in Whaddon begins with a question: what does this brick want to become? The older properties here — many built from the village's own clay, fired in the Whaddon Brickworks — have proportions and a warmth that later additions have sometimes failed to respect. A twentieth-century extension in standard cavity brick and render can sit uneasily against a house that was made with hand-moulded local stock. We spend time reading the existing building: its bonding pattern, the irregularities that mark traditional firing, the way it meets the garden. For an older cottage, a rear extension might echo the existing bond or introduce a contemporary material — timber, zinc, glass — that creates an honest conversation between old and new. For a later property, the brief is often to add the spatial generosity that the original design lacked. In a village shaped by centuries of craft, every extension begins with respect for what is already there.
EnerPHit is the rigorous retrofit standard we recommend for the solid-walled brick cottages that define much of Whaddon's older housing stock. A pre-war cottage built from local clay — whether fired in the village or brought in from a neighbouring works — has no cavity, single-glazed windows, and minimal insulation. It is cold in winter, expensive to heat, and often uncomfortable. EnerPHit addresses this systematically: improving airtightness, upgrading insulation internally where the external brick is part of the building's identity, and introducing mechanical ventilation with heat recovery. The challenge is precise — the interface between new insulation and old brick must manage moisture, breathe with the seasons, and perform thermally, all while preserving the character that makes these cottages worth keeping. In a village built by local brickmakers over centuries, that care matters.
Renovations in Whaddon call for an understanding of this part of south Wiltshire, where the great estates — Longford Castle and Clarendon Park — shaped not just the landscape but the buildings within it. Castle Hill House on Castle Lane is among the older properties here, and working with historic buildings means navigating Wiltshire Council's planning requirements with care. Listed building consent demands detailed justification, and the quality of the application often determines the outcome. My training at the Mackintosh School of Architecture in Glasgow gave me a grounding in the relationship between old and new that has informed every heritage project since. Renovations are not about returning a building to some imagined original state — they are about understanding what it has become and making intelligent decisions about its next chapter.
Sustainable Design underpins every project we take on, from a cottage renovation to a contemporary extension — it is how we think about buildings from the very first conversation. PassivHaus Design takes this further, delivering homes that maintain comfortable temperatures year-round through exceptional fabric performance and airtightness. For anyone considering a New Build Design on a site in or around Whaddon, we bring the same attention to context and materiality that a village with this craft tradition deserves — a new home should feel as rooted as the buildings around it. Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework applies to open countryside beyond the village boundary, requiring truly outstanding or innovative design for any new dwelling — a demanding threshold, but one that produces remarkable architecture.
If you are thinking about a project in Whaddon — extending a brick cottage that has stood here for generations, bringing a solid-walled home up to modern comfort, or building something new that answers to a landscape shaped by centuries of local craft — we would welcome the chance to talk it through with you.