As there is a need for new housing in several of the villages within the Castle Howard Estate, the estate office asked us to prepare outline proposals for several sites they own in three of these villages: Slingsby, Terrington and Welburn. All three villages are very attractive and all their older buildings belong to a very strong vernacular tradition, characterised by a mixture of local stone walling and orange/red clay pantiled roofs. All our design proposals strictly follow this tradition and integrate their street patterns closely into the street patterns of the villages, carefully avoiding the random and suburban character of so much recent development. Our proposals for six village sites including layouts, watercolour perspectives and descriptions were displayed at an exhibition organised in Slingsby by Ryedale District Council in July 2009.