Pictured above: Brockhampton Estate, Herefordshire 

The team behind a unique office development created deep in the heart of rural Herefordshire - which is attracting companies that want to escape to the country - is celebrating after the project clinched a prestigious award.

The Brockhampton Estate project won the Building Conservation category in the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) West Midlands Awards 2011.

The project was shortlisted against formidable opposition including The Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres transformation in Stratford-upon-Avon by Bennetts Associates Architects, The Gate House at Stokesay Castle by English Heritage, Derwent Foundary Birmingham by MCD Developments Ltd, Devonshire House Birmingham by PMP Consultants Ltd, and Goldfinger House Solihull by Aja Architects LLP.

The organizers said: "This award honours conservation in all its forms and covers renovation or conservation to new or original use. In this category the judges have paid particular attention to the construction materials/techniques used, conservation achievements, background research undertaken and the project's long term prospects."  

Robert Champion, partner at Worcestershire-based agents Halls Commercial, said the new Brockhampton office development, set amidst some of the most picturesque English countryside, provides a template for the successful regeneration of rural communities.

The development (formerly known as Ladyridge Farm) is constructed with environmental sustainability in mind. Ground source heat pumps serve the under floor heating in all of the offices, rainwater is harvested to flush toilets and irrigate the landscaping, timber has been harvested from the estate and a lot of the stone, tiles and paving has been recycled from existing buildings. Unusually, as much thought has been spent on the outside of the offices and how they blend into the landscape as the inside. Tom Stuart-Smith, the internationally renowned garden designer, is responsible for the landscape design.

Mr Champion added: "Whilst city centres and other areas of high population levels remain attractive to many businesses, there is the genuine justification for small, entrepreneurial businesses to locate in more rural areas where equally attractive and well specified commercial premises can be found but with the added benefit of being set in appealing and inspirational surroundings."

Tony Ives, of Reg Ellis and Associates architects and designers who led the project, said: "I would like to thank everyone that has contributed to this project. It really was a team effort in the true sense.  The quality that has been achieved, in my opinion, has been largely down to using a local family based contractor who employ a lot of their own local tradesmen working with indigenous materials and we are indebted to them.  

"I would like to thank our clients, Peter and Ravida Clay, for having the faith in their team, the courage to proceed with the project at the time of economic doom and gloom but, most importantly, playing such an active role in the process.  It is a project of which I am immensely proud and to have the recognition of the RICS against such stiff competition is really the icing on the cake.  The project automatically gets entered for the national awards at the end of the year, so who knows we may even have the cherry to put on top of the icing!"

Estate owner Peter Clay said: "When these buildings went up in 1834 they were the fulcrum for the village. Then, everyone in the village was employed on the land, but nowadays only a handful of people work on the estate and those in Brockhampton that are not retired seek work outside the village, often outside the county. We need to rebalance the village population and its orientation, and one way is to attract businesses to Brockhampton. The Duchy of Cornwall has shown that well designed rural buildings with good broadband connectivity will attract dynamic businesses who appreciate the quality of life that such an environment affords."

All four winners of the RICS regional awards will now go on to compete in the national final on Friday 21 October at the Savoy in London.

Halls Commercial provides specialist commercial property services to a wide range of clients throughout the Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire and wider Midlands Region.