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Our relentless enthusiasm for the era is captured by the Georgian Group Architectural Awards 2015, which were held this week, and sponsored by Savills.

Belmont, the salmon-coloured Landmark Trust villa in Lyme Regis, Dorset, built in the late 18th century by Samuel Coade, won first prize for The Restoration of a Georgian Building in an Urban Setting, with the Felton Park Glasshouse – a Grade II listed greenhouse and potting shed in Northumberland – coming a close second. Croome Park, the National Trust site in Worcestershire, bagged the prize for restoration of a Georgian Garden or Grounds, for the work done on its Capability Brown landscape.

But the awards, now in their 13th year, do not just recognise restored piles.

Paul Steggall – who works as a headhunter in the City – has built a four-bedroom detached house where every brick pays tribute to the Georgian design legacy.

Bighton Grange – winner of the New Build in Traditional Style  Photo: Paul Highnam

Bighton Grange, near Winchester, won New Building in the Classical Tradition, quite an accolade considering Steggall had not set out to build a house, let alone a Georgian one, when he started his search for a second home in 2010.

Having seen a few properties – none without a compromise of some kind – and in no rush, Steggall chanced upon the work of modern-day architect George Saumarez Smith in a magazine.

“We liked his drawings, and then began to think about the possibility of building a house,” he says. Steggall and his wife found a plot just outside Winchester and four years later they moved in.

Bighton Grange is typical of a home built in the Regency period – which fell at the end of the Georgian era. It has light oak floors, shuttered windows and is not heavily ornate.

The interior at Bighton  Photo: Paul Highnam

“It’s an example of how you can build a house for modern day living whilst still maintaining an architectural merit,” says Holborow.

With a name like Bighton Grange, you may expect a rambling old house with a warren of cold corridors. But the space inside has been used efficiently: there are four bedrooms, one each corner of the house, one large, open plan kitchen and living room, plus a large entrance hall that can double up as a dining area.

“We didn’t want a ‘Christmas room’ or one of those rooms kept for special events,” Steggall says, “or to end up with more bedrooms than we need.”

The upstairs hallway is a more of a gallery, and eight feet wide. “It is in itself a room. The house uses central areas, and I’d rather have that than another two bedrooms that require furniture.”

One house with far more rooms than people is Wotton House in Buckinghamshire, winner of the award for The Restoration of a Georgian Interior.

Wotton Hall – the winner of the Restoration award

The former diplomat David Gladstone and his wife April inherited the property in 1998 after her mother, Elaine Brunner, died.

Originally built by an unknown architect in 1704 for the Grenville family, the design reflected that of Buckingham Palace.

Fire struck in October 1820, and Richard Grenville, the 2nd Marquess of Buckingham, commissioned Sir John Soane to replace the interior. With these repairs Soane created a tribune, a dramatic internal space rising through several floors, with a curved staircase at its core.

Brunner bought Wotton for £6,000 around 140 years later, saving it from demolition at a time when thousands of country homes were being demolished or given to the National Trust. Brunner and her architect Donald Insall restored almost all of the house but didn’t touch the staircase.

Ely Place – the best Reuse of a Georgian building

It is this feature that the Gladstones decided to restore and, with the architect Ptolemy Dean, they submitted a planning application in 2007.

Now completed, “you could easily walk into that space and believe that’s how it was done by Soane all those years ago,” Holborow says.

This project was not, he adds, at Gladstone’s whim. “There’s been no motivation to do this restoration other than for architectural reasons. Sometimes people say, I’ve just got to change this house because I can’t live in it the way it is, but Wotton is a project aimed at preserving something for the future for architectural scholars.”

Another of Dean’s winning projects – this time for The Restoration of a Georgian Country House – is Sophie Rudd’s eight bedroom, Grade I listed Shanks House set in 70 acres at Cucklington in Somerset.

Shanks – winner of the Restoration of a Georgian Country House award

Parts of the house date back to medieval times, but both the north and east facades are Georgian in style, and are believed to have been refitted by architect Nathaniel Ireson.

The house, with its high ceilings, grand fireplaces, original shutters and oak floorboards, was crumbling from within.

“When we arrived we would fall through every floor. It didn’t have central heating apart from in a few rooms, and the pipes were on the outside of the walls,” Rudd says.

Shanks has been totally gutted, and dormer windows reinstalled in the attic after photographs dating back to the 1870s were found.

Inside, they have kept the period features – the panelling and plaster work – to keep the house true to its provenance. The Rudds found the house by accident, having driven past it on the way back from a holiday in Cornwall. It was a wreck but a fight for ownership ensued, owing to its easily commutable distance from London and position off the A303. “We had no idea it would be this much work when we took it on,” Rudd says. “But it was really exciting.”

Taking on a period property is no mean feat, and in 2015 buying, restoring or building such a house extends beyond an appreciation of bricks and mortar, taking in art, literature, and the Jane Austen fantasy. Actually, it’s all about period living – Georgian style. As Holborow remarks, “everyone likes a bodice, and a man walking out of a lake.”

The garden at Croome Hall – winner of the best Georgian landscape

The full list of winners

SPECIAL AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT

Restoration of Old Royal Dockyard, Sheerness-on-Sea, Kent (Spitalfields Trust)

RESTORATION OF A GEORGIAN COUNTRY HOUSE

Shanks House, Wincanton, Somerset (Ptolemy Dean Architects) Winner

Cholderton House, Wiltshire (Donald Insall Associates) Commended

Darsham House, Suffolk (Nicholas Jacob Architects) Commended

RESTORATION OF A GEORGIAN BUILDING IN AN URBAN SETTING

Belmont, Lyme Regis, Dorset (Landmark Trust) Winner

31 Great James Street, London (Cowper Griffith) Commended

76 Dean Street, London (SODA Architects) Commended

REUSE OF A GEORGIAN BUILDING

13 Ely Place, London (Russell Taylor Architects) Winner

Portaferry Presbyterian Church, Co Down (Maxwell Pierce) Commended

RESTORATION OF A GEORGIAN INTERIOR

Sir John Soane’s Private Apartments, Soane Museum (Julian Harrap Architects) Joint Winner

Soane Tribune, Wotton House, Aylesbury, Bucks (Ptolemy Dean Architects) Joint Winner

Cumberland Suite, Hampton Court Palace (Purcell) Commended

Montagu Monuments, Warkton Church, Northants (Buccleuch Living Heritage Trust) Commended

RESTORATION OF A GEORGIAN GARDEN OR LANDSCAPE

Croome Park, Worcs (National Trust) Winner

Botanic Cottage, Edinburgh (Simpson Brown) Commended

Felton Park Glasshouse, Northumberland (Spence and Dower) Commended

NEW BUILDING IN THE CLASSICAL TRADITION

Bighton Grange, Hampshire (George Saumarez Smith of Adam Architecture) Winner

St Catherine’s, Jersey (Quinlan and Francis Terry Architects) Commended

GILES WORSLEY AWARD FOR A NEW BUILDING IN A GEORGIAN CONTEXT

47 Canonbury Square, London (Butler Hegarty) Joint Winner

Grove Lane, Southwark (MATT Architecture) Joint Winner

DIAPHOROS PRIZE

Kilboy, Co Tipperary (Quinlan and Francis Terry Architects)