Redruth’s historic Buttermarket is a remarkable survival from the town’s heyday as a vibrant market town in the heart of Cornwall’s central mining district. Originally built in 1825-6 by Francis Basset, it was further extended developed during the 1870s and 1880s. In the latter half of the twentieth century it drifted into decay and near dereliction and was largely forgotten. 

In conjunction with the Historic England funded High Street Heritage Action Zone, the historic fabric of the Grade II-listed Buttermarket was sensitively repaired and restored by Thread for Redruth Revival CIC, with insensitive modern additions to the complex being carefully removed, buildings repurposed as retail premises and offices and the former market courtyard carefully overhauled to make it into an attractive space for outdoor eating and cultural uses. A new insert into the historic structure, featuring an innovative glass tile hung wall (and a glitter ball!) has created an imaginative covered circulation space at the heart of the complex. The overall result is a vibrant and attractive new public space right in the heart of Redruth where a comprehensive range of culinary delights can be enjoyed. 

Photo: Thread

The Merchant House is one of Cornwall’s most important Tudor townhouses. It is a remarkable Grade II*-listed timber framed building of the period with stunning woodwork of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and a probably mediaeval undercroft. 

The building was in a poor state when David Scott acquired it during the Covid pandemic and potentially close to collapse. CBG  member David and his wife Dolly have completed an outstanding restoration of the building, stabilising its structure and carrying out exemplary repair and reconstruction of the building’s many astonishing interiors. Repairing Tudor plaster ceilings, exquisite sixteenth- and seventeenth-century windows and panelling and conserving an extraordinarily rich collection of nineteenth-century wallpapers, surviving from a time when part of the building was used as a wallpaper showroom, the Scotts have brought the building back into retail and residential use, giving it a sustainable future, saving one of Cornwall’s most significant early townhouses.    

Photo:  CBG

The Annual Jenny Gason commemorates one of the CBG’s most significant and dynamic founding members. Jenny had a particular love of Cornwall’s smaller historic buildings and after her death, her family established the Award to perpetuate her memory and work for the CBG. The Storm Tower at Bude is a remarkable building which Jenny would have loved. 

The Grade II-listed Tower was designed by George Wightwick for Sir Thomas Dyke Acland as a lookout, signaling tower and shelter in 1835. Wightwick cited the ‘Tower of the Winds’ Or Horologion in the Roman Agora, Athens and the inspiration is easy to see, the original tower being octagonal with a low profile pyramid roof, like Wightwick’s tower. Coastal erosion meant that the tower was in danger of falling onto the sea and it was dismantled and moved further inland in 1881. 

Further coastal erosion threatened the Tower’s survival and its future looked bleak until the Bude-Stratton Town Council initiated a project to dismantle the Tower stone by stone and re-erect it on higher land further back from the cliff, choosing a site which is likely to last much longer than the 1881 site. The Tower has been rebuilt using original materials where possible, with the notable exception of the roof structure where it was impossible successfully to dismantle the 1881 the reinforced concrete roof. The new roof is constructed of zinc on a steel frame with a new sandstone cornice which follows the profile of the nineteenth-century concrete roof.

The result is a triumph of intelligent conservation and reconstruction, preserving a historic structure and ensuring that its picturesque impact can be appreciated for many more years.

Photo:  CBG

Rowett Architecture’s sensitive restoration of 29 Polkirt Hill, Mevagissey is a model of how to carefully repair and restore a historic building, preserving its character and significance, whilst making it fit for twenty-first century use. 

The judges were particularly impressed with the way that the roof was reconstructed whilst retaining the original timber frame, original eighteenth-century bolection moulded panelling was carefully repaired and a lost eighteenth-century post and panel wall was reconstructed to house a surviving contemporary mural painting.