Our annual Architectural Awards, generously sponsored by Savills, took place at the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple on 1 October this year. The Awards, now in their twentieth year, recognise exemplary conservation and restoration projects in the UK and reward those who have shown the vision and commitment to restore Georgian buildings and landscapes. The awards ceremony was presented by Dr John Goodall, chair of the judging panel and Architectural Editor at Country Life, with certificates handed out by the Georgian Group’s Chairman, Paul Zisman.
Shortlisted projects encompassed a broad range of building types. John Goodall says: “Travelling the country, seeing marvellous things transformed by motivated individuals, including owners, architects and craftspeople, has been educative, engaging and inspiring.”
A list of the winning and commended entries in each category can be found below.
Travelling the country, seeing marvellous things transformed by motivated individuals, including owners, architects and craftspeople, has been educative, engaging and inspiring. Dr John Goodall
Reuse of a Georgian Building
Winner: The Camellia House, Wentworth Woodhouse
Client: Wentworth Woodhouse
Architect: Donald Insall Associates
Sitting within the registered landscape at Wentworth Woodhouse, the Camellia House is a building of two parts: on its northern side is a tea room built in 1738 for Lady Mary Finch, the wife of the 1st Marquess of Rockingham. Attached to this in the early 19th century is a conservatory that is home to some of the rarest and oldest surviving Camellias in the Western world. The whole building lay derelict for more than 50 years and has long enjoyed the doubtful privilege of a place on Historic England’s Buildings at Risk Register.
The Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust commissioned Donald Insall Associates to repair the building, preserving the Camellias and providing the estate with a new tearoom. The work, enabled by a £4 million grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, integrates traditional conservation with contemporary services. The glazed roof was reinstated, the very large windows to the south were remade in stainless steel with lead glazing bars, and underfloor heating, a ground source heat pump, and rainwater harvesting were introduced. And the project brought economic and social benefits too. The site provided an opportunity for Historic England’s summer school to involve 19 heritage craft trainees, while the majority of the contracting firms were from Yorkshire. The completed project has created 22 new local jobs.
Commended: 32 Sackville Street
Architect: Thomas Croft Architects
32 Sackville Street is a Grade II listed terrace house of the 1730s, built by the master carpenter Thomas Phillips. It was much altered internally in the 1790s when it was used as offices by the newly established Board of Agriculture. The building suffered subsequent damage: in 1985 a lift was installed in the light well of the principal stair, and its railings cut off. The project, led by Thomas Croft Architects, with the main contractor Seacon Ltd., aimed to restore the integrity of the building as a Georgian town house, to soften the disjunction between historic and modern additions and incorporate rooms lightly converted to office use.
A traditional roof has been reinstated and reception and meeting rooms created in harmony with the building. With reference to 18th-century precedents, external stairs have been covered with carpets of lead, secured with patterns of copper nails, and the interior stylishly decorated with contemporary furniture.
Restoration of a Georgian Church
Winner: The Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick
Client: The Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick
Architect: Mark Stewart
Following their destruction in the great fire of Warwick in 1693, the nave, transepts and finally the tower of the collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick were rebuilt between 1697 and 1704 to the design of Sir William Wilson. The tower is imbued with something of the same spirit as Hawksmoor’s towers at Westminster Abbey. It may be no coincidence, therefore, that Hawksmoor contributed alternative designs for the completion of St Mary’s Warwick. The tower, a spirited essay in early 18th century neo-Gothic, has suffered serious problems in recent years, exacerbated by inappropriate work undertaken in the 1980s. Following a series of stone falls in 2021, Warwick District Council served a dangerous structures notice on the church which put up an emergency scaffold until the necessary £1.8m could be raised. The failure of the Triassic Sandstone was investigated, deeply bedded vegetation was removed, construction defects corrected and stone replaced where necessary. All cement mortar was also replaced in favour of Hot Lime. Finally the surrounds to the clock dial were replaced in stone, the heraldic shields and carved, pointing hands or ‘manicules’ conserved and the weather vanes repaired and re-gilded. The work was designed by the conservation architect Mark Stewart and the contractor was Ackroyd Construction.
Commended: St Lawrence Jewry
Client: The City of London Corporation
Architect: Julian Harrap Architects
St Lawrence Jewry, Grade I, is the most magnificent of the churches designed by Wren between 1671 and 1680. Sadly, the nave roof and church interior were gutted during the Blitz in 1940, leaving only the tower and exterior walls standing. In 2016, the City of London Corporation appointed Julian Harrap Architects to undertake essential works – the first since Cecil Brown’s 1957 restoration.
Wren’s stone parapet was reinstated on the north elevation; the 1950s nave roof trusses were strengthened; rusty stone cramps were removed, and lightning protection, fire detection and alarm systems all replaced, together with ageing services. Masonry and roof repairs were undertaken; and gutters and rainwater goods adapted in anticipation of increased rainfall. At every stage thought was given to reducing operational carbon emissions. The works were undertaken by Bakers of Danbury.
Restoration of a Georgian Building in an Urban Setting
Winner: Sherborne House
Client: The Sherborne House Trust
Architect: Spase Architects and Surveyors
The main block of Sherborne House, Grade I, dates to about 1720 and is attributed to Benjamin Bastard. It was built onto an earlier Tudor and Medieval wing. For more than 130 years the house was occupied by tenants and subsequently Lord Digby’s School for Girls. Following the school’s closure in 1992, the building was put on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk register. Successive schemes proposing use as an arts centre failed to attract funding, and conservation works that were to have been funded by enabling development never transpired.
In 2018 it was bought by the present owners, and a rescue scheme developed by Spase Architects & Surveyors, with a brief to balance restoration of the building with its use to advance public education in the arts. Exterior walls, historic panelling, and chimneypieces have been repaired, inappropriate paints removed and new decorative finishes introduced. Central to the project has been the conservation of Sir James Thornhill’s c.1726 decorative scheme for the staircase.
Insulation has been introduced where possible to enhance the building’s thermal performance, and air source heat pumps, mechanical ventilation and heat recovery installed to reduce the scheme’s carbon footprint.
After a 30 year period of uncertainty, the Georgian house is publicly accessible, has been removed from the risk register, and, complemented by a new building, has taken on a new life.
Commended: 33, Portland Place
Architect: MSMR Architects
33 Portland Place, the widest street in London, was laid out in the 1770s by Robert and James Adam for the Duke of Portland and comprises two terraces of first rate houses. No. 33, listed Grade II*, was once owned by the industrialist James Baron Blyth who installed a celebrated hydraulic wall inside it. By 2019 the building was in a semi-derelict state and under threat of an enforcement notice. MSMR architects undertook a 4 year long period of design and construction for the refurbishment and extension of the house and re-building of the mews. As part of this work, the original ceilings and plasterwork at first floor level and in the principal staircase hall have been conserved and paint analysis undertaken to enable the reinstatement of Adam decorative schemes.
New Building in a Georgian Context
Winner: Little Durnford Manor
Architect: Yiangou Architects
Little Durnford Manor, a Grade I house on the River Avon, to the north of Salisbury, is of curious character. Late 17th century in origin, it was remodelled in c.1720-1740 and again in the late 18th century. Its southern and western elevations offer distinctly different interpretations of Palladian architecture, though both are patterned in limestone block and flint chequerwork with ashlar surrounds to their windows.
This use of materials characterises the stable block too and is reflected in the remnants of a service wing, demolished in the 19th century. An original drawing of c.1750, together with careful fabric analysis, show that parts of this wall survive from the original wing. Yiangou Architects, with the contractor R. Moulding & Co., have successfully designed and built a new wing in the position of the earlier one, incorporating the surviving fabric. It provides a series of bedrooms on the first floor, connected to the main house, and, on the ground floor, accommodation for a gardener’s mess, larder and storage for garden produce.
The judges thought this the outright winner of this category. It’s a carefully researched project and thoughtful. The detailed reinstatement has also made the various parts of the complex more cohesive.
The Giles Worsley Award for New Building in the Spirit of the Georgian Era
Winner: Sparsholt Manor
Architect: Adam Richards Architects
Sparsholt Manor. This complex project involved: the comprehensive restoration and internal re-ordering of the late 17th and mid 18th century manor house, listed Grade II. Also, the construction of a new domestic wing on the site of a former stable range, which obscured views to the Romantic lake landscape to the east.
From the south the new elements respond to the Classical treatment of the existing house, whilst from the north they speak to the informality of the older, gabled parts of the building. A newly-built octagonal tower overlooking the lakes balances the composition, and contains a cantilevered stone stair leading up to new guest rooms, and down to a swimming pool. The ceiling of the pool hall is an exposed white concrete diagrid, which supports the garden terrace above and pulls the eye towards the wall of windows and garden beyond.
Adam Richards Architects worked with the team from RW Armstrong, led by Andrew Hine, and landscape architects Bradley-Hole Schoenach. The design provides a creative balance between the rigours of classical architecture and the abstraction of contemporary design.
The judges admired the thoughtful way in which every element relates to the next, both in terms of volume, function and use of materials, brick and stone.
New Georgian Country House
Winner: Tiverton House
Architect: Quinlan Terry Architects
Tiverton House, in Aldeburgh, Suffolk has been designed by Quinlan Terry Architects in the English Palladian tradition. It is a compact house built within a walled plot close to the centre of the town. Its intimate scale and materials – buff coloured ‘Suffolk’ bricks and white joinery – reflect its context and the client’s brief for a welcoming house for visiting children and grandchildren, in which all bedrooms are of the same size.
Within, the rooms are high-ceilinged and on the south or garden side, where they are interconnected by large arched openings, the large sashes provide generous light.
Despite its compact nature the main staircase provides great visual drama, and at first floor level its top-lit well provides views through the building to the sea. The contractor for the project was Seamans Building.
Restoration of a Georgian Country House
Winner: Brockfield Hall
Client: Charlie Wood and Hatta Byng
Architect: Ben Pentreath Architects
Brockfield Hall, a brick and slate Regency house built between 1804 and 1807 by Benjamin Agar to the design of Peter Atkinson, junior partner of John Carr of York, and boasts a splendid oval staircase hall. The present owners, Charlie Wood and Hatta Byng, took the house on in 2020. They have brought to bear their own creative flair in the transformation of the building.
Working with Rupert Cunningham of Ben Pentreath Architects, they undertook restoration, re-servicing and redecoration of the interior by Hesp and Jones, over the course of 18 months. The clarity of the 1804 plan was regained by unblocking doorways and removing less prudent 20th-century interventions, particularly in the back of house area. A passageway now runs from a new boot room to the main hall, providing an internal, connecting vista through the house.
Mr Agar’s upstairs drawing room has been transformed into a handsome bedroom hung with a hand-painted chinoiserie wallpaper. New bathrooms and a new kitchen have also been added. Building components found on site have been repurposed and elsewhere reclaimed materials, such as pine floorboards and Delft tiles, brought in.
The judges were impressed by the way that the original vision for the house has been regained and also by the quality of the new internal decoration. This is an old home sensitively restored but stylishly refashioned as well.
Diaphoros Prize
Winner: The More Music Project, The Royal College of Music
Client: The Royal College of Music
Architect: John Simpson Architects Ltd
The Royal College of Music, one of the world’s leading conservatoires, commissioned John Simpson Architects Ltd., to resolve the difficulties caused by piecemeal additions to its campus in the 1960s and ‘70s. This had left the buildings—originally designed by Arthur Blomfield and Sidney Smith between 1894 and 1901—inefficient to use and difficult for both students and visitors to navigate. Other objectives of the ‘More Music Project’ were to provide additional facilities and to upgrade existing ones to conform with evolving legislation.
The constraints of the existing buildings demanded a very thoughtful response. The entrance hall has been altered to improve access to a new courtyard at entrance level. This courtyard now serves as the social heart of the complex. Beyond is a triple height, top-lit foyer space, which is central to the new circulation pattern and allows access to lifts and stairs. A café-bar, restaurant and new kitchen facilities have also been incorporated.
Below, are now two multifunctional performance venues – acoustically insulated and with adjustable acoustics for different types of music. Not only have more performance, practice and teaching spaces been added and recording and streaming technology installed, but a new museum has been created to display the College’s very significant collection of historic musical instruments. The judges admired the way the circulation problems have been solved and the way in which the new works in a Contemporary Classical idiom—both inside and out—complement and tie together the diverse range of existing buildings.