- Heritage

Calverley Old Hall

A family called Scot was living in Calverley in the 1160s and was later to take the name of the place as its own. At an early date they began to put all their family and estate papers into a large chest. For 500 years both the family and the papers remained here in Calverley, in a house that naturally grew and changed over the centuries. So, before 1300, they had already built a small stone hall house for themselves, of which traces survive…

The Captain's House

You will no longer find a village called Porthmeor on a map and the name has passed instead to one of Cornwall’s most famous surfing beaches, a few miles round the headland in St Ives. Lower Porthmeor, in its grouping and siting and the forces that have gone into its continuation, is representative of many other hamlets on this northern shelf of Penwith, and is also among the most attractive of all the groups of buildings along a visually staggering stretch of coast…

The Carpenter's Shop

This appears on the 1840 tithe map as standing on land belonging to John Tape, a carpenter then living in Ford Cottage (Tapes lived in Coombe for generations, the last only leaving in 1968). Its roughly dressed stone and flat brick arches are typical of the early 19th century. The windows, with vertical bars and overlapping glass, are of the kind found in many workshops and industrial buildings…

Casa Guidi

The suite of rooms on the first floor of the palazzo Guidi was, for many years, the home of poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. They lived here from 1847 until 1861 and in these rooms they wrote some of their finest poetry. “Casa Guidi” was the name given to the apartment by Elizabeth Browning herself. The palazzo Guidi, at the southern end of Via Maggio, dates from the fifteenth century…

Castle Bungalow

Castle Bungalow reflects a more recent strand in Peppercombe’s history. Since the early 19th century, there has been a growing appreciation of it as a place to be valued for the beauty of its scenery. To begin with, this went hand in hand with more obviously productive uses, but as these died out for one reason or another, it became the predominant one, and remains so today…

Castle Cottage

In 1894, the Post Office had a granite hut built against the north wall of the Castle Keep to house the terminal of the new submarine-telegraph cable from Croyde. The telephone instrument was in one the two Signal Cottages behind the castle, where a record of calls was kept for the islanders’ bills. The cable hut had one room and a small lobby, and was enclosed by a retaining wall. The point of entry for the cable can be seen low down on the hut’s west wall…

Castle Keep East

Marisco Castle is a misnomer. The castle was built by Henry III in 1243 after the downfall of his rebellious island subjects, the de Marisco family. In that year the Sheriff of Devon gave instructions that the new Governor of the island should build a tower and a bailey wall. These were to be financed from the sale of rabbits, for Lundy was a Royal Warren…

Castle Keep North

Marisco Castle is a misnomer. The castle was built by Henry III in 1243 after the downfall of his rebellious island subjects, the de Marisco family. In that year the Sheriff of Devon gave instructions that the new Governor of the island should build a tower and a bailey wall. These were to be financed from the sale of rabbits, for Lundy was a Royal Warren…

Castle of Park

The inscription over the door tells us that work began on the Castle of Park on the first day of March, 1590 (in time for a good long season’s work before the next winter); and that Thomas Hay of Park and his wife Janet MacDowel were responsible for it. Thomas had been given the Park of Glenluce, land formerly belonging to Glenluce Abbey, by his father in 1572, and it is said that he took stone from the Abbey buildings for his own new house…

Causeway House

Causeway House lies in the Northumberland National Park at the side of the road leading down to the Roman Fort of Vindolanda. It is a rare surviving example of a building thatched with heather, a feature once fairly common in upland areas and is now the only one left in Northumberland…