When George Devey arrived at Zeals House in the 1860s to remodel a building that had already stood for five centuries, he did something that still strikes me as remarkably disciplined: he used the same limestone rubble, respected the existing roofline, and let his additions grow from what was already there rather than imposing a new vision on top of it. The result is a Grade I listed house whose fourteenth-century hall range and Victorian tower read as one continuous story rather than a collision of eras. That instinct — reading a place before drawing on it — is what good architecture in Zeals still demands. The village sits where Wiltshire meets Somerset and Dorset, within the Cranborne Chase National Landscape, and its buildings carry that border-country character: local limestone under slate and tile, George Gilbert Scott's church of St Martin, built in 1842–44 and consecrated in 1846, in Decorated Gothic using stone from the same hills, and the Tudor revival almshouses that William Chafyn-Grove commissioned in 1865 for the estate workers. Everything here was built from what the land provided, and every generation that added to it understood that.
Award-winning Architects in Zeals
Why Homeowners in Zeals Trust Gresford Architects
I founded Gresford Architects in London in 2006, and we now work from Oxford with clients across the country. Our approach begins with understanding how buildings perform — how they manage heat, moisture and light — and designing from that knowledge rather than against it. I am accredited by The Green Register and a member of the Passivhaus Trust, because energy performance and environmental responsibility are not add-ons to good design but the foundation of it. I am also a RIBA Chartered and ARB Registered Architect and a member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, which shapes how we approach historic structures: reading what has lasted and why before proposing what comes next. Our project The Deerings, a Passivhaus home in Hertfordshire, won the RIBA East Award in 2018 — the same year I was a finalist for Sustainability Architect of the Year at the Building Design Awards. 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 — recognition that reflects a practice built on the marriage of the poetic and the practical.
Architectural Services for Homes in Zeals
Renovations in Zeals begin with the understanding that the village's most significant buildings have already been renovated, extended and adapted many times over. Zeals House itself — Grade I listed, its earliest range a fourteenth-century hall house in limestone rubble — was extended in the seventeenth century and then remodelled by George Devey in 1863–64, each phase adding to rather than replacing what came before. That same principle governs how we approach any listed or historic property in the village: understand the construction sequence, identify what is structurally significant, and design interventions that sit within the building's own logic. Wiltshire Council handles planning and listed building consent for properties in Zeals, and for a Grade I listed structure the scrutiny is rightly intense. We welcome that scrutiny because it matches our own standards.
Zeals sits within the Cranborne Chase National Landscape, and for anyone considering a new home on rural land beyond the village envelope, Paragraph 84 of the National Planning Policy Framework provides a route — but only for designs of exceptional quality that genuinely enhance their setting. The National Landscape designation raises the bar further: any new dwelling must demonstrate sensitivity to the chalk downland, the ancient woodland, and the visual character that earned the designation in the first place. We have experience navigating this intersection of landscape protection and architectural ambition, designing homes that justify their position in the countryside through quality of design, environmental performance and a deep respect for context.
Sustainable Design is not a separate service we offer — it is the thread that runs through everything, from the material choices in a renovation of a limestone cottage to the energy modelling of a new build. In a village whose builders have always used what the land provided — limestone from the local quarries, timber from the margins of Selwood Forest — sustainability is a return to first principles, not a departure from tradition. For homes in Zeals where comfort and running costs fall short of modern expectations, EnerPHit offers a certified retrofit pathway: careful internal insulation, improved airtightness and mechanical ventilation with heat recovery, all designed to work with the existing structure rather than against it. PassivHaus Design applies those same principles at their most rigorous for new homes, achieving near-zero energy demand through fabric performance alone.
Extension Design in a village like Zeals requires reading the proportions and materials of the host building before committing anything to paper. Many homes here are modest in scale — limestone under slate, with eaves lines that sit low against the landscape. An extension that overpowers its host or introduces materials without local precedent will struggle both at planning and in the streetscape. New Build Design, whether within the village or on sites where planning policy permits, follows the same discipline: buildings that belong to this place, that use energy and materials as efficiently as possible, and that are comfortable, designed to last and joyful to live in.
If you are considering a project in Zeals — whether restoring a listed limestone building, designing a new home within the Cranborne Chase National Landscape, or improving the performance of a house that has served the village for generations — we would welcome the conversation.