CASE STUDY


INDUSTRIAL INSPIRATION


A three-year labour of love by its owner, Blowinghouse Mill sits in a quiet valley in Cornwall. Simon Williams bought the building and the 2.3 acres that surround it in 2015 with the intention of salvaging this end of the 19th century corn mill and creating a luxury eco-friendly home


TEXT & IMAGES EWEN MACDONALD O


nce a corn mill believed to have been built around 1790, it seems fitting that this once water-driven building should be reimagined as a model of 21st century environmental living where water still plays a central part.


The house now features a ground source heat pump, the very latest in insulation solutions as well as the triple glazing and low energy lights you would expect from a new build. Perhaps most fitting is the newly created wildlife pond – that has proved a Mecca for kingfishers – that also operates as the heat source for the heating and hot water system within the main house. A solar thermal heating system provides the hot water for the


30 www.sbhonline.co.uk


detached ancillary accommodation. Now home to Simon Williams and his family, this striking building merges the new with the old. The new exterior and interiors are designed to complement rather than copy the original part of the building – the design by CAD Architects is a masterclass in blending old and new to create something all of its own, something Mark Dawes from the firm calls the “new old house.”


Simon bought the property in 2015 with a vision to strip away the crumbling more modern buildings that surrounded this industrial building and add carefully considered extensions. He rented a house for three years while the work was carried out,


LOW POINT


“There’s a tipping point – a point in time when you get three-quarters into the project and it still looks like a building site. You have all this money invested in it and it is nowhere near finished. And then suddenly it is finished and it’s your home.” – Simon Williams


november/december 2019


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