Winslow Hall sits on the edge of the town, dated 1700, and for three centuries people have argued about who designed it. The account books survive — payments to stonemasons, bricklayers, carpenters — and scattered among them are alterations in the hand of Sir Christopher Wren, yet no payment to Wren himself. He supervised the work as a favour to his friend William Lowndes, the Secretary to the Treasury, but the question of authorship has never been fully resolved. What strikes me about this is that the building does not care. It stands there, brick and stone, well-proportioned and confident, and it works whether Wren drew the plans or simply kept an eye on them. Good architecture does that — it outlasts the debate about its origins and speaks through its materials, its proportions, its relationship to the place it occupies. Walking through Winslow, from the medieval ridge line of Horn Street and Sheep Street to the market town that grew northward in the thirteenth century, you see that quality of quiet confidence repeated in buildings across several centuries, each one shaped by the materials and skills available at the time.
Award-winning Architects in Winslow
Trusted Architects for a Historic Market Town
We are members of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, and in a town like Winslow — where the conservation area covers a core of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century buildings and the traditional grain is still clearly legible — that matters. SPAB's philosophy of understanding before intervening, of repair rather than replacement, runs through everything we do. I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006, and we now work from Oxford with clients across the country. I am ARB registered and RIBA Chartered, and our work with heritage buildings has included the restoration of The Great Barn in Buckinghamshire, a Grade II listed barn where the research and patience involved were as important as the design itself. The Deerings in Hertfordshire, a Passivhaus home that won the RIBA East Award in 2018, shows the other end of what we do — new buildings designed to the highest environmental standards. I was a finalist for Sustainability Architect of the Year that same year, served as a judge for the British Homes Awards in 2025, and our projects have been featured in Dezeen, The Modern House Journal and Grand Designs Magazine. My wife Phoebe is a conservation architect, and her influence has shaped how we read buildings like those along Winslow's High Street — not just their structure but their layers of alteration, the story of how they have been cared for and changed over time.
Architectural Services for Homes in Winslow
Renovations are where Winslow's architectural heritage comes most alive for us. St Laurence's Church, Grade II* listed, carries work from the fourteenth century onward — Perpendicular arches, fifteenth-century wall paintings including a remarkable image of the Virgin Mary wielding the Sword of Judgement, and a south porch with battlemented parapet and a small statue of St Laurence himself. Keach's Meeting House, built in 1695 on land belonging to the draper William Gyles, is the oldest Baptist chapel in north Buckinghamshire, its interior just twenty-three feet by fifteen, still in use after more than three hundred years. These are buildings that have survived because people cared enough to maintain them well, and that principle extends to the domestic buildings along Horn Street, Sheep Street and the High Street — timber-framed cottages, Georgian refrontings, Victorian additions, each layer readable if you know where to look. The conservation area protects this historic core where the medieval street pattern is still intact, and Winslow's Neighbourhood Plan — one of the first in England — sets clear expectations for design quality that we welcome rather than work around. We approach every renovation here with the same discipline: understand the building first, its materials and its history, then design an intervention that respects what is already there while making the home work for how people live now.
EnerPHit is the retrofit standard we use when homeowners in Winslow want to transform the thermal performance of an older property without losing its character. Many of the town's houses date from the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — solid walls of brick or timber frame, single-glazed windows, little or no insulation. They are beautiful but expensive to heat and often uncomfortable in winter. EnerPHit addresses this through careful internal or external insulation, improved airtightness, and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery that manages moisture as well as temperature. The result is a home that feels entirely different to live in — warm, quiet, stable — while looking no different from the street. In a conservation area, this distinction matters enormously.
Extension Design is increasingly relevant in Winslow as families grow but want to stay in a town they value. The Neighbourhood Plan expects proposals that demonstrate sensitivity to the existing building and its neighbours, and in the conservation area that bar is higher still. We design extensions that grow naturally from the original house — matching or honestly contrasting materials, considered proportions, an understanding of how the new space connects to the old and to the streetscape beyond.
Sustainable Design is the foundation of every project, not an add-on. In a town where many buildings have already lasted centuries, sustainability means designing with that same long view: materials chosen for durability and low environmental impact, layouts that work with natural light and ventilation, energy systems that reduce running costs and carbon emissions. Comfortable, economical to run and built to last — that is what good architecture has always meant.
PassivHaus Design takes this further, delivering homes that need almost no conventional heating. The building envelope — superinsulation, exceptional airtightness, heat recovery ventilation — does the work, maintaining stable temperatures year-round. For a new home or a replacement dwelling in or around Winslow, PassivHaus offers the highest standard of comfort and energy performance we can achieve.
New Build Design in Winslow is guided by the Neighbourhood Plan's site allocations and design policies. New homes here must demonstrate that they belong — their scale, materials and detailing responding to the character of the town rather than importing something generic. We welcome that challenge, because designing a new building that sits confidently alongside centuries of accumulated character is deeply rewarding work.
Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework allows for exceptional new homes in the open countryside beyond the settlement boundary. The rolling clay vale around Winslow offers settings where a truly outstanding house, one that enhances its immediate landscape, can be justified. It is the most demanding and exciting brief we take on.
Whether you are renovating a period property in the conservation area, improving the energy performance of an older home, extending to make more of a house you already love, or exploring what is possible on a site in or around Winslow, we would welcome a conversation. Good architecture begins with understanding a place, and Winslow — with its layers of care, its quiet confidence, its buildings that have earned their place over centuries — is a place worth understanding well.