Buildings reveal themselves slowly in the Bourne valley. When St Edward's Church in Winterbourne Dauntsey was dismantled in 1867 — the flint walls judged unsafe after five centuries — the builders discovered medieval paintings beneath the plasterwork, depicting scenes from the life of Christ. The paintings had been there since the church was consecrated in 1326, hidden under layers of later work. It is a reminder that old buildings in places like this hold more than their surfaces suggest, and that the act of working on them is as much about uncovering as it is about making something new. What draws me to Winterbourne Dauntsey is that material honesty. Peacock Cottages, dating from the fifteenth century, are built of cob and flint with a thatched roof — materials gathered from the chalk landscape itself. Walk a few hundred metres along the road and the Manor House, built around 1720, stands in Flemish bond brick with a seven-bay front and a central doorway approached by eight steps. The shift from vernacular cob to Georgian brick tells the story of a village whose ambitions grew, but whose relationship with its valley never quite changed. The Bourne still rises each winter through the chalk, and the buildings still line its course.
Award-winning Architects in Winterbourne Dauntsey
Trusted Architects for the Bourne Valley
I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006, and we now work from Oxford with clients across the country. In a village like Winterbourne Dauntsey, where cob walls and flint rubble have stood for five centuries and more, architecture begins with understanding how the builders before us solved problems — what materials they chose, how those materials manage moisture and movement, and why their instincts were often sound. I am a RIBA Chartered and ARB Registered Architect, a member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, and accredited by The Green Register — memberships that shape how we approach listed buildings, reading what has proven durable before proposing what comes next. I am also a member of the Passivhaus Trust, because the same attention to how a building performs underpins both heritage repair and energy design. Our project The Deerings won the RIBA East Award in 2018. I was a finalist for Sustainability Architect of the Year at the Building Design Awards that year, The Old Water Tower was shortlisted for the RIBA South Awards, and in 2025 I was invited to judge the British Homes Awards. Our work has been published in Dezeen, The Modern House Journal and Grand Designs Magazine.
Architectural Services for Homes in Winterbourne Dauntsey
Renovations in Winterbourne Dauntsey mean working with a material palette quite different from the stone villages further west. Peacock Cottages — fifteenth-century, Grade II* listed, built of rendered cob and flint under a thatched roof — represent a tradition of building directly from the chalk landscape: flint gathered from the fields, cob mixed from the subsoil, thatch cut from the water meadows. Cob walls breathe — they manage moisture through vapour permeability rather than waterproof barriers. Introduce a cement render or a plastic membrane and you trap the moisture that cob has moved freely for centuries. The Manor House, Grade II* listed and built around 1720 in Flemish bond brick, presents different challenges — a more formal building whose panelled interiors and arched stair hall require a different kind of care. Wiltshire Council will assess any proposal affecting a listed building against the significance of what is already there. We read that significance before we draw.
For homes in Winterbourne Dauntsey where comfort and energy bills fall short — cottages whose cob and flint have managed for centuries without sealed envelopes or mechanical systems — the path to better performance has to respect that existing knowledge. Cob walls work by breathing: they move moisture as vapour rather than blocking it with membranes. Wrapping these walls in modern insulation barriers risks trapping moisture the building has always released freely. EnerPHit, a certified retrofit standard, approaches this differently: internal insulation that remains vapour-open, airtightness that works with rather than against the wall's natural moisture behaviour, and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery to replace the draughts that made old cottages uncomfortable. For a thatched property, the insulation sits below the thatch line — the thatch continues to breathe as it always has, while the rooms beneath become genuinely warm for the first time in the building's life.
Extension Design along the Bourne valley requires sensitivity to the scale and materials of what already exists. Many homes in Winterbourne Dauntsey sit on generous plots — the linear settlement along the valley gives depth behind the road frontage — but the buildings themselves are modest in height and mass. A thatched cottage with cob walls and a low eaves line sets strict parameters: an extension that rises above it or introduces foreign materials without care will read as an intrusion rather than an addition. We design extensions that take their cue from the host building — matching the eaves, using materials within the Bourne valley's palette, and creating a clear distinction between old and new so that neither is diminished.
Sustainable Design runs through every service we offer, from the material choices in a renovation of cob and flint to the energy modelling of a New Build Design. In a village whose earliest buildings were constructed from materials found within walking distance, sustainability is a return to first principles. PassivHaus Design applies those principles at their most rigorous — homes achieving near-zero energy demand through insulation, airtightness and heat recovery. For sites in the chalk downland beyond the village, Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework provides a route for exceptional new homes whose design quality and landscape sensitivity justify their position in the countryside.
If you are considering a project in Winterbourne Dauntsey — whether renovating a listed cob and flint cottage, extending along the valley, or improving the energy performance of a building that has served the Bourne for generations — we would welcome a conversation.