Prest Vale Architects extends 17th-century Cotswolds rectory with sundial-topped gable

London studio Prest Vale Architects has extended a Grade II-listed, 17th-century rectory in the Cotswolds, continuing its gabled roofline with a pale stone volume topped by a sundial.

The house stands close to Blenheim Estate in Oxfordshire. A stone barn dating from the mid-18th century sits alongside it. The architects were tasked with uniting and expanding this historic ensemble: extending the main home, converting the barn into a guest annexe, and flattening a banked garden that had previously blocked daylight and views.

"The starting point was really about reconnecting the house with its landscape, while introducing a new gable that feels like a natural next chapter within the existing ensemble of buildings," studio co-founder Richard Prest told Dezeen.

"This also enabled us to rethink the relationship between the house and the landscape, so we embedded the extension into the topography and used changes in level to bring the planting up to the windows," he added.

How does the new gable answer the old ones?

The rectory's southern facade was defined by a row of three Cotswold stone gables, topped by a weathervane, a chimney and a belfry window. Prest Vale Architects continued this formal language, housing the extension within an adjoining gabled form crowned by a stone sundial.

The extension contains a kitchen attached to an expanded dining area, flanked by a store and rear entrance to the north, and a study projecting to the south with a large sit-in window surrounded by planting.

"The extension reaches out towards the barn, bringing the two buildings into a closer relationship, whilst also creating an informal courtyard on the south side of the house for evening dining," Prest explained.

"The existing silhouette has evolved over 300 years, so we wanted the extension to add to that evolution," added fellow co-founder Michael Vale.

"The new gable offers continuity in the building's story, while the sculptural sundial above it offers a playful nod to its South-facing perspective," he told Dezeen.

What materials mark old from new?

The extension is finished in local Cotswold stone to match the existing building. Fenestration and a gable end in crisp white Portland stone mark it out as a contemporary addition.

"We wanted the extension to feel rooted in its place, so we took materials from the existing buildings – Portland stone, locally quarried Cotswold stone and oak – but used them with contemporary precision to give the new building its own character," said Prest.

In the neighbouring barn, an expansive double-height living, kitchen and dining space sits beneath the exposed structure of a new Douglas fir roof, overlooked by a mezzanine balcony. Both the barn and the main home share access to a pool at the rear of the site, surrounded by a stone terrace and overlooked by a small oak poolhouse.

What happened to the garden?

A steep bank that had blocked views from the rectory's southern windows was flattened as part of a garden scheme by landscape architect Todd Longstaffe-Gowan. A ha-ha – or sunk fence – now separates the garden from the adjacent field.

The project joins a run of recent Cotswolds commissions, including a leaf-shaped home by Michaelis Boyd and a house by DeDraft raised above a parkland site on a plinth of local stone — evidence that England's protected rural housing stock continues to draw the country's most careful residential practices.