Sometimes the success of the new hinges on the past. We incorporate character into our new buildings by using materials specific to the local area, this allows them to sit more comfortably within their surroundings. In this case we used Chilmark stone from Lovell Stone Group, Michelmersh Brick Holdings PLC bricks and local flint.

This new country house in Hampshire was designed to appear as though it had evolved over time. The rear section was designed and details as a vernacular farmhouse, with the front section having a more formal Classical character, reflecting the evolution of many historic farmhouses, where their owners became more affluent and wished to enhance and gentrify their homes.

Another country house, another elegant staircase design.

For this project we designed this beautiful staircase which showcases traditional detailing at its best. The traditional wreathed volute at the end of the oak handrail compliments the single curtail of the bottom step and juxtaposes these traditional Georgian details with more contemporary metal spindles.

First impressions count. First impressions for a home, really count.
The portico of this elegant Grade II* listed town house was in need of some real tender loving care before we started our restoration project. The restored timberwork provides the sort of entrance you would expect and really sets the tone for the beautifully restored interior within.

We are passionate about proportion. Get it right and the elegance it creates is a given, you accept that things look right. Get it wrong and the fact something is amiss is obvious. The Golden Section (or Ratio) is a proportion system we often apply, using the mathematics of nature as described in the Fibonacci sequence, seen throughout nature and in Classical architecture. We used the Golden Section to get the proportions just so for this house in Wiltshire, and we were pleased when it won Best Traditional House in the Daily Telegraph Homebuilding and Renovating Awards The Telegraph.

Even working on historic buildings, sometimes we get a chance to do something really striking, and we love to seize those opportunities!

This historic barn conversion in Wiltshire had views to the South over an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and we were able to secure consent for this feature dormer window. Not only did it allow views out, but it also allowed the previously uninhabited roofspace to be flooded with light, transforming the space from dingy loft to a light flooded and airy space.

We feel that when working on listed buildings we have a responsibility to be sensitive to them and their history. Over restoring a building is often as bad as doing nothing at all.

This Georgian townhouse was in a very poor state of repair having been both a hotel and offices for many years. Lots of elements needed repairing, but we had to be careful to do it in such a way that the repairs were not obvious. The craftmanship in this field of Moulding The Builder is evident on this rubbed brick window head and key stone where they have executed our repair scheme in such a way that looking at it now, it simply looks ‘right’ rather than rebuilt.

We love a challenge, whether that be a demanding brief, tricky topography or environmental restrictions. We find these challenges result in a solution which is robustly and intrinsically rooted in the place, making the building feel 'at home' in its surroundings from day one.

This award winning house in Wiltshire brought us a seriously challenging site in a UNESCO world heritage site and in an area of particular interest to the County Ecologist. The result is a comfortable home for a young family that feels like it's always been there, sitting comfortably in relation to the church, the conservation area and the rest of the village.

As it’s the first day of Summer we’ve been looking back at some photos of a pool house we designed at a country house in North Hampshire a few years ago.
The building was designed to compliment the Tudor Gothic Revival style of the main house and sits within a new landscape design by our talented client around the existing pool.

Sometimes a client comes to us with an existing property which may look like it’s been altered too much to make something promising out of what’s there. Looking closely can sometimes give the germ of an idea for a rescue rather than a rebuild.

This 1908 country house in Wiltshire had been much modified over the years, but the striking gable of the original proved to be an excellent starting point for a triple gabled reworking as seen here in these before and after photos. Brickwork painted in a carefully selected shade, better proportioned timber sash windows and a reclaimed Welsh slate roof have completed the transformation.

How much detail is there in a staircase?

Quite lot as it happens. The staircase in this award winning home we designed in Wiltshire is the result of careful decisions over lots of details. A cut string. Scotia mouldings. Full height balustrade. Rotated spindles. Contrasting finishes between riser, tread and string. All these decisions and more come together to create the design we were looking to build, the trick is to make it look obvious and therefore simple…

Old buildings often throw up unexpected challenges… For example, how to access the wine cellar of the Grade II* listed Georgian townhouse without compromising the original plan form of the room it is accessed from.

The solution was perhaps more Thunderbirds than George III, but installing a gib door and floor hatch minimise the visual intrusion and negate the need to bisect the space with an alien staircase. Sometimes our conservation work can challenge us, but the opportunity to work out neat solutions like these is why we relish that challenge.

We think Georgian architecture is gorgeous, so we were very pleased when Jason Orme applied the same term to our work in the title of his article about one of our country house projects in Wiltshire. The article, in the April 2015 issue of Homebuilding and Renovating Magazine, illustrates this beautiful family home across 9 pages with pictures by Simon Maxwell.

The beginning of the article sums up our approach to this style of home perfectly... "Creating a well-executed new home in traditional style requires the services of a skilled designer and a willingness to stress about the details".

When working in traditional styles of architecture it is important to get things ‘right’. Many different elements need to coalesce correctly for the finished scheme to look comfortable.

Take for example this country house in the North Wessex Downs AONB. Carefully modelling the form of the house by breaking the mass of the building into two forms with different but complimentary looks, rather than simply using the same style of all elevations gives the overall scheme a more interesting aesthetic of contrast that reflects a narrative of development over time.

The application of the Golden Section ratio to plan, elevation and openings of the building ensures comfortable proportions in keeping with traditional forms. Careful selection of materials (reclaimed brick, render and timber windows) allows the building to feel grounded and ‘at home’ on the site from day one.

All of these carefully considered choices add up to a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

There’s just something very welcoming about a portico. Not only does it provide shelter from the rain when opening the door on a purely practical level, but aesthetically it also provides depth and interest to the façade of a building.

A portico can also set the tone of the experience of being in the building, from the very grand and formal, to the more relaxed and welcoming as seen here. The portico on this country house in the South Downs is elegantly restrained so as not to feel overpowering and is immaculately executed by Agincourt Contractors.

We don’t only design new buildings. We often work on schemes to extend and enhance much loved family homes with new spaces.

This scheme for a garden room helped to improve the connection between the main house on a country estate in the Test Valley and it’s beautiful English Country Garden. Classical proportions and details were meticulously married with glazing styling to harmonise with the existing Edwardian house.

Being asked back to work on a project we designed originally is always very nice, like catching up with an old friend you haven’t seen in a long while.

If nothing else it is reassuring when one revisits to see again that the ideas we had in the studio translated well into the finished building and to observe how it has become the treasured house and home we always hoped it would be.

We’ve recently been invited back to a country house we designed in Berkshire over a decade ago to extend it sympathetically and ensure it evolves to suit the changing needs of the family who have owned it since new. We look forward to sharing the progress with you as things develop.

It is always nice to have a project you can walk to from the office, in this case a scheme for eleven new homes to enable the restoration of a set of Grade II Listed buildings within a Conservation Area as five apartments.

After careful negotiation and working collaboratively with the Local Planning Authority, to overcome planning and conservation officers initial concerns, over a period of sixteen months, we were granted consent by the Planning Committee for a scheme which takes on board and addresses any concerns officers had, provides much needed new housing and secures the future of at risk heritage buildings.

It is not unusual that a client will approach us with a site which already has a building on it, sometimes we can work with the existing buildings, sometimes there are too many issues with the existing building to make this feasible and sometimes it is just in the wrong place. By examining all the options we can deliver a design which fully exploits the opportunities a site presents to provide the optimal solution.

These before and after photos show an example of this where a distinctly poor example of a 1960s/70s house was replaced by this Georgian inspired design in the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The more historic wing at the front was retained and carefully repaired to act as an annexe.

“A bicycle shed is a building; Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture… the term architecture applies only to buildings designed with a view to aesthetic appeal.” Nikolaus Pevsner in the introduction to ‘An Outline of European Architecture’, 1943.

Not every project we get asked to design is grand and large, we often work on smaller projects such as this courtyard building on a country estate in Berkshire.

However, even the humblest buildings we work on still get the same level of care and thoughtfulness of design and attention to detail as the grandest. Careful material choices here of Keymer Tiles handmade clay roof tiles with bonnet hips, oak framing and cladding, and conservation rooflights, coupled with considered design moves including a cupola for ventilation and extra wide carport bays for ease of use elevate this building to something which can hold its own next to a far grander main building.

We’re pleased to have recently gained Listed Building Consent for a scheme of repair and maintenance for this Grade II* Listed Queen Anne gentleman’s residence in the North Wessex Downs. Featured in Country Life Magazine, the building dates back to the early 1700s and we are looking forward to things progressing with this interesting project.