This guidance note is to help owners and managers care for buildings and structures.
Understanding a building, and its setting will help you enjoy and make the most of its heritage value. It may be a distinctive type of building, serving a particular local function. Is it a fish cellar, tin-miner’s cottage, farmhouse, chapel or a harbour warehouse? Is it constructed using a distinctive local style? Its approach, yard, garden, outhouses, pathways, surfaces may be locally distinctive. It might have distinctive roofing, walling, joinery and detailing. Is it made of slate, thatch, local stone, cob, china-clay brick, oak or locally wrought or cast iron?
Historic buildings contribution to distinctiveness depends on how they are used and maintained. Whether they are designated or not. Use keeps buildings active. This enhances distinctive qualities and features. Using a building allows people to appreciate a structures functions and later developments.
Porthmeor Studios in centre with slate roofing, St Ives (© photographer: Alban Roinard)
Continued use also encourages and justifies repair, restoration, and good maintenance. This maintains the buildings value and slows the decay of traditional building materials. It promotes the skills and reduces the loss of examples that show how they were and still used.
Thoughtful repurposing can ensure that distinctive buildings and their curtilages are retained. They can continue to contribute to the understanding and enjoyment of Cornish places.
This guidance will help you manage redundant and ruined buildings and their settings. These contribute to the distinctiveness, character, and significance of places in Cornwall.
Ideal outcomes
- Buildings styles and materials reflect local economies and society, past and present. Their distinctiveness and character contribute to Cornwall’s landscape and townscape.
- Local building materials and craft and trade traditions are supported and sustained.
- Reuse of buildings help minimise our Carbon Footprint. They have already paid the environmental ‘cost’ of quarrying, processing, and transporting materials.
- Traditional trades develop new imaginative approaches. These align with their established practices and cultural context. They meet modern requirements, including environmental sustainability, in ways that contribute to distinctiveness.
Things to consider
- If you are planning to change a buildings use consider an expert heritage assessment. An expert heritage assessment will summarise its history and significance. The assessment should include all aspects including enclosures, paths and outhouses. It should highlight its fabric, character, distinctiveness, and significance. This will help consider ways design can minimise negative effects of proposed changes. Designs should draw on potential for sustainable new use.
- Materials used in repair and replacement need to be carefully sourced. Use of appropriate local materials, including stone, should be encouraged. Whilst reinforcing local distinctiveness, this will support the local economy and distinctive landscapes.
- Building stone and roofing slate were typically won from small local quarries. Cornwall’s diverse geology produced very locally distinctive materials. They have a wide range of colour, texture, and workability. They also have a variety of performance and weathering characteristics.
- A materials usage can be as distinctive as its physical properties.
- Consider adaptation to climate change such as insulation or photovoltaics. Take distinctiveness, character and significance into account when designing any such alterations. Cornwall Council has a climate emergency Action Plan and a Development Plan document.
Approaches and resources
- Take time and enjoy getting to know your building in detail. If necessary, commission an expert assessment to best understand its structure and history. Expert assessment can identify design and type and use of materials. Ensure they consider context and establish how it contributes to local distinctiveness.
- Seek out and use accredited conservation architects and experienced local tradespeople. Ensure they understand how to maintain and reinforce the distinctiveness of the building.
- Take expert advice before applying for Consents Local Planning Authority. Historic England for Grade I and II* Listed Buildings and Scheduled Monuments.
- Historic England maintains extensive technical guidance. This can help maintain historic structures and also conserve their distinctiveness. The Cornwall and Historic England Building Stone guides can help identify local stone.
- Cornwall Council provides localised guidance on technical aspects of conservation. They also have guidance relating to Cornish farmsteads, non-conformist chapels, and shopfronts.
- Cornish settlement studies, provide information on distinctiveness on a more local level. The Sustainable Building and Energy Efficiency Guides help with adaptation of historic buildings.
- Designated historic structures may need consents to secure planning permission. Historic England guidance is available here.
The following Guidance Notes may also be helpful:
6 Looking after places
7 Identifying assets of local significance
This guidance note is to help owners and managers care for buildings and structures.
Understanding a building, and its setting will help you enjoy and make the most of its heritage value. It may be a distinctive type of building, serving a particular local function. Is it a fish cellar, tin-miner’s cottage, farmhouse, chapel or a harbour warehouse? Is it constructed using a distinctive local style? Its approach, yard, garden, outhouses, pathways, surfaces may be locally distinctive. It might have distinctive roofing, walling, joinery and detailing. Is it made of slate, thatch, local stone, cob, china-clay brick, oak or locally wrought or cast iron?
Historic buildings contribution to distinctiveness depends on how they are used and maintained. Whether they are designated or not. Use keeps buildings active. This enhances distinctive qualities and features. Using a building allows people to appreciate a structures functions and later developments.
Porthmeor Studios in centre with slate roofing, St Ives (© photographer: Alban Roinard)
Continued use also encourages and justifies repair, restoration, and good maintenance. This maintains the buildings value and slows the decay of traditional building materials. It promotes the skills and reduces the loss of examples that show how they were and still used.
Thoughtful repurposing can ensure that distinctive buildings and their curtilages are retained. They can continue to contribute to the understanding and enjoyment of Cornish places.
This guidance will help you manage redundant and ruined buildings and their settings. These contribute to the distinctiveness, character, and significance of places in Cornwall.
Ideal outcomes
- Buildings styles and materials reflect local economies and society, past and present. Their distinctiveness and character contribute to Cornwall’s landscape and townscape.
- Local building materials and craft and trade traditions are supported and sustained.
- Reuse of buildings help minimise our Carbon Footprint. They have already paid the environmental ‘cost’ of quarrying, processing, and transporting materials.
- Traditional trades develop new imaginative approaches. These align with their established practices and cultural context. They meet modern requirements, including environmental sustainability, in ways that contribute to distinctiveness.
Things to consider
- If you are planning to change a buildings use consider an expert heritage assessment. An expert heritage assessment will summarise its history and significance. The assessment should include all aspects including enclosures, paths and outhouses. It should highlight its fabric, character, distinctiveness, and significance. This will help consider ways design can minimise negative effects of proposed changes. Designs should draw on potential for sustainable new use.
- Materials used in repair and replacement need to be carefully sourced. Use of appropriate local materials, including stone, should be encouraged. Whilst reinforcing local distinctiveness, this will support the local economy and distinctive landscapes.
- Building stone and roofing slate were typically won from small local quarries. Cornwall’s diverse geology produced very locally distinctive materials. They have a wide range of colour, texture, and workability. They also have a variety of performance and weathering characteristics.
- A materials usage can be as distinctive as its physical properties.
- Consider adaptation to climate change such as insulation or photovoltaics. Take distinctiveness, character and significance into account when designing any such alterations. Cornwall Council has a climate emergency Action Plan and a Development Plan document.
Approaches and resources
- Take time and enjoy getting to know your building in detail. If necessary, commission an expert assessment to best understand its structure and history. Expert assessment can identify design and type and use of materials. Ensure they consider context and establish how it contributes to local distinctiveness.
- Seek out and use accredited conservation architects and experienced local tradespeople. Ensure they understand how to maintain and reinforce the distinctiveness of the building.
- Take expert advice before applying for Consents Local Planning Authority. Historic England for Grade I and II* Listed Buildings and Scheduled Monuments.
- Historic England maintains extensive technical guidance. This can help maintain historic structures and also conserve their distinctiveness. The Cornwall and Historic England Building Stone guides can help identify local stone.
- Cornwall Council provides localised guidance on technical aspects of conservation. They also have guidance relating to Cornish farmsteads, non-conformist chapels, and shopfronts.
- Cornish settlement studies, provide information on distinctiveness on a more local level. The Sustainable Building and Energy Efficiency Guides help with adaptation of historic buildings.
- Designated historic structures may need consents to secure planning permission. Historic England guidance is available here.
The following Guidance Notes may also be helpful:
6 Looking after places
7 Identifying assets of local significance
