It is very important to us to be, wherever possible, genuine in the materials we use. Natural materials have an inherent beauty that is second to none.

We were very lucky to have a ‘resident’ stonemason on a country house project we worked on in Wiltshire. Here are some of the carved pieces which made their way onto the final building including cornices, architraves and capitals.

You never know what you will discover when working on historic buildings. The rich tapestry of the past can sometimes throw up some unexpected discoveries.

Sometimes however the discoveries can merely be the result of a simple clean. This building in Wiltshire which we designed an apartment conversion scheme for sits right on the main road. Years of dirt and road grime has built up, obscuring to all but the most eagle eyed the phrase over the door. All it took was a bucket of warm soapy water!

Houses don’t exist on their own, they have a setting and this can be as important as the building when trying to get things ‘just so’.

For this project in the North Downs we were lucky enough to not just design the building but also the landscaping to ensure that both house and garden worked in harmony. Here you can see a parterre, the herringbone brick terrace and in the background the circular lawn.

The important thing when converting a barn is to use the fabric of the building to lead the design. That way the resulting property still looks and feels like a barn.

This can throw up some issues with low head heights, strange window positions and unusual corners, but this Grade II listed barn in Hampshire is a good example of the beauty that can be created by being led by what is there. As you can see from the before and after photos it has clearly been converted with softwood shiplap cladding being replaced by a return to traditional feather edged boarding, but is definitely still the same building and still a barn.

Responding to the unique challenges of a site is something we really enjoy.

The site of this house is spectacular, a secluded hillside with breath-taking views. Our client wanted to create a homes that would add to this scene, would occupy the hillside and lie, rather romantically, against a background of dense woodland, overlooking the valley below.

It is always very rewarding to see one of our designs starting to settle into it’s landscape.

Here is a photo of our recently completed North Downs project in Surrey. The careful choice of materials and detailing makes the finished home look grounded already. We’re really looking forward to see how the landscaping scheme we designed, at the same time as designing the house, develops over the next few years.

We’re delighted to have gained planning permission to extend this country house in Berkshire. We designed this house originally and are delighted to have, once again, been invited back to work on the next stage of the evolution of this family home.

We’re currently working on the technical drawings and are looking forward to seeing it start on site soon!

Selection of materials when working of conservation projects is critical. Specify the wrong product and the whole building runs the risk of looking like an unworthy addition to the site.

The Grade II* listed country house in the Test Valley has had carefully selected handmade roof tiles to add a subtle variation and character to the roof plane, a specially selected mix of handmade bricks and carefully crafted timber French doors, all expertly executed by Moulding The Builder. The result is a worthy addition to this historic family home.

Whilst we love town life, country life is our great passion.

It is fitting then to look back at when one of our country house projects in the Test Valley was featured in Country Life magazine in November 2004. Author Caroline Fetherstonhaugh chose our scheme as one of just five homes carefully selected to represent “new houses in the classical tradition”.

It’s often the little details which add up and give buildings their unique aesthetic character. Something which on it’s own seems a small choice, but one which you’d really miss if a different decision had been made.

A case in point is these beautiful handmade Sahtas Terracotta Products clay bonnet hip tiles on a country house we’re building in Surrey. There’s nothing wrong with using hip ridge tiles, but the traditional swept form of these bonnet hips just add a certain something to an expertly tiled roof like this one.

We often work on sites which already have a building on them. Whilst that can sometimes lead to a scheme which includes the existing building, sometimes a better outcome can be developed by starting again. Here is a before and after photo showing how this approach can lead to an award winning result. This family home in Wiltshire is a firm favourite in our portfolio and sits on a site within a village site found for our clients by Sarah ERSKINE-HILL, with windows by Mumford & Wood Ltd.

Continuing our look at the INTBAU charter…

Another point raised within this document is that “traditional buildings and places maintain a balance with nature and society that has developed over many generations”. We feel really passionately that the nature within a place is something to be celebrated and cherished, such as at this Hampshire country house where we retained existing mature trees as part of the landscape design.

We’re delighted to have been shortlisted for the Build It Awards 2023 for this stunning South Downs country house.

Nothing beats a beautiful hand drawn elevation.

CAD has its place in architecture, but sometimes traditional representation techniques are more sympathetic. This watercolour rendered hand drawn elevation shows off a beautiful country house we designed in the Test Valley and it really helped to sell the scheme.

We’ve been looking at the INTBAU charter recently, which contains some interesting principles on placemaking and architecture.

One of these is “through tradition we can preserve our sense of identity and counteract social alienation”. This scheme for a market town in Wiltshire aimed to replace an alien industrial style building with a building which brought a sense of identity to the riverside location, whilst being in keeping with the architectural identity of the town at large.

It is very important to us that the buildings we create have character. This character stems from the character of the place where it is, but also the character of the client.

In 2015 a country house we designed in Wiltshire won Best Traditional House in the The Daily Telegraph Homebuilding & Renovating Awards. The design was strongly influenced by the character of the client and it is apt then that in cover article by Jason Orme in Homebuilding and Renovating Magazine about the project was entitled ‘Character Building’.

We're well on the way towards completion of our North Downs country house project in Surrey.

This new home is looking good as it heads towards being finished and the landscape we designed is starting to come together. Looking forward to seeing this one reach practical completion and our clients taking up residence.

When working on old buildings a straight line is a rarity. Historic structures wobble, are out of plumb and are curved by the hands that made them.

The trick, when undertaking conservation work is to not fight this. Going with the fact the building is out of square keeps your intervention to a minimum and makes for a more authentic result. We took this approach for this Grade II listed Devonshire Linhay we worked on a few years ago and these pencil drawings we produced as part of the design process show how wonky some parts of the building were. All part of the charm.

The journey from drawing board to completion is often fraught one. So it is always very satisfying when that journey is a successful one.

We've been looking back through our portfolio at this country house we designed in Berkshire. Comparing the watercolour undertaken at the stage we received planning consent, to the completed photos, show that whilst there were some tweaks along the way, the result was pretty close to that envisaged.

It is never easy to deliver projects to this standard, but it is really rewarding when everything comes together and the end result lives up to expectation.

One of the difficult things when designing new homes is preventing it looking brand new when completed. High quality materials can make a building feel more grounded and have an instant character than less carefully selected materials might lack.

This country house in Wiltshire uses reclaimed bricks, natural slate and timber windows. The effect of all these, along with the carefully modelled design, is a building which looks like it has developed over time and instantly has a feeling of belonging.