THE Hampshire architect, Huw Thomas, who had more influence on building design in Winchester than anyone else over several decades, died at the weekend after a short illness.

Huw, who was in his early 70s, was also responsible for leading the campaign to stop the demolition of the historic Peninsula Barracks in the 1990s: plans for five-storey high buildings and a multi-storey car park were abandoned in favour of a sensitive transformation of the barracks into houses and apartments. The area involved was one fifth of the entire city.

Persuaded to come south from Cheshire in the 1970s by Hampshire’s county architect, Sir Colin Stansfield Smith, Huw was asked to help spearhead prestige county projects. One early result was the ‘Building of the Decade’ award by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) for his design of Crestwood Community School in Eastleigh.

However, after leaving the county council and setting up in business, it was his love of the city of Winchester, its cathedral and its history which underpinned most of his work. On his many history tours of the Peninsula Barracks he would talk excitedly of his spat with the Ministry of Defence and the city council: “This was the ground where Henry V mustered his soldiers before victories at Crécy in 1346 and Agincourt in 1415 - how dare they try to bulldoze it all away !” he would cry with defiance.

The former architectural editor of Country Life and the architecture correspondent of The Times, Marcus Binney, currently the executive President of SAVE Britain’s Heritage, said that Huw repeatedly proved himself a tower of strength to SAVE.

“Most famously at the time of our RIBA exhibition on endangered military buildings in 1990, he drew up this visionary scheme for the repair and reuse of the mighty Peninsula Barracks in Winchester. It won public support, secured planning permission and helped find a developer in the depths of the early 1990s recession. Huw also designed the beautiful water garden, ingeniously set on top of the parade ground so it did not disturb the archaeology below.”

Mr Binney says Huw’s ‘unique selling point’ was that he was “a superb draughtsman and watercolourist who portrayed decaying and abandoned buildings as they would be, once restored to glory. He was a man of immense ability, charm and energy”.

His watercolours were instrumental in securing a new future of a long series of buildings including the Royal Aeronautical Establishment at Farnborough, Boathouse 4 at Portsmouth and the delightful little 18th century Granary at Barford on the Longford Estate near Salisbury.

Still more important was his understanding of old buildings and the most economic and sympathetic ways to repair and convert them. He was a pioneer in finding sensitive ways to convert historic barns without damaging their essential character by ugly new windows and doorways.

Huw’s solution was to introduce windows in the gable ends and glazed doorways in the big barn doors.

A documentary on BBC2, Cathedrals of the Countryside was entirely devoted to his work on old barns.

Among Huw’s many “saves” were the oldest houses and cottages in St Helier in Jersey, slated for demolition. When rescue plans were halted because it was too dangerous for builders to enter, Huw hired a cherry picker to take off all the dangerous slates from the roof, removing the danger. The restored cottages, condemned as at the end of their useful life, were all under offer within a month of being put on the market.

Huw Thomas, who lived on Southgate Street, recently attempted to assess the number of buildings he’d designed in Winchester alone - well over 600, he calculated. “There can’t be a street in the city I haven’t had a hand in”, he exclaimed proudly.

His latest accolade was The Sunday Times British Homes Award for the refurbishment, restoration and conversion of a piggery, Frillinghurst Mill, near Haslemere in Surrey.

For many years, he designed, painted and donated several series of watercolours to be sold as the Christmas cards for the Friends of Winchester Cathedral.