Harbour Inn, Porthleven
Grade II Listed Building & Conservation Area – Hospitality Pub, Restaurant and Hotel Refurbishment
The Harbour Inn, Porthleven is historic pub and hotel building situated within the Cornish town’s Conservation Area directly overlooking the 1811 inner harbour.
The Harbour Inn was once formed of two distinctively separate, but similarly designed, ranges with Georgian features & fenestration (such as their projecting oriel window bays). These ranges were later linked to form one larger ‘Harbour Hotel’ in the 20th Century.
The roots of the building as an historic inn sits within the southern range, understood to have been built soon after the construction of the harbour, and occupied by William Thomas. This range was known as the ‘Commercial Hotel’, and was once finished in render with a parapet roof and traditional painted signage. The area fronting the buildings, now forming a beer garden, once served as a coal loading station for boats docking in the inner harbour supporting Cornwall in respect of material trade.
We supported the substantial pub and hotel refurbishment of the listed building with services from the outset to the completion of construction works on site which included: structured & collaborative practical heritage-led advice to the project team and interior designer, obtaining listed building consent and planning consent approvals as well as necessary building regulations approvals. During the construction phase, we assisted the project with regular site attendance to ensure any defects discovered during the works could be appropriately resolved as part of the project, guiding the way to completion.
The local authority’s Conservation Officer team were consulted early in the process, utilising initial sketch proposals and a Rapid Appraisal assessment of the building. These early discussions established the principles of the works and enabled proactive discussions between CAD Heritage and Cornwall Council throughout the project to efficiently manage change to the listed building and heritage asset.
To supplement the listed building consent application we undertook a heritage survey of the historic building, reporting building defects such as window and door joinery repairs and obtaining approvals for improving the energy efficiency of the historic building glazing with the installation of thin vacuum-insulating sealed double glazing panes, maintaining narrow glazing sightlines to principal elevations, alongside slimline double glazing to hidden back of house elevations.
The listed building’s Conservation Area setting further necessitated the sensitive management of other external changes to the building which included masonry repairs, lime repointing, and the renewal of signage with a more refined and minimal aesthetic to reinforce the listed building character and enhance the visual appearance of the heritage asset in its protected Conservation Area setting – all informed by a thorough analysis of the changes to the principal elevation recorded through historic photography and planning history.
Strengthening the connection between principal ranges to benefit the building’s continued successful commercial use was fundamental to our involvement. We also obtained approvals to enhance the building’s interior including; improved access to hotel rooms located at upper floor levels with the provision of a lift, the wholesale enhancement of finishes and fixtures to pub, hotel and restaurant areas and also the conversion of the existing loft area to form a harbour front family letting suite. The loft conversion utilised our conservation architecture approach with the provision of gable glazing, forming a legible modern intervention and appropriately scaled dormer windows, carefully designed to replicate examples established during historic extant planning and listed building consent approvals for the site.
The Harbour Inn serves as a good example of our hospitality projects, proving how we can assist south west commercial hospitality operators, and their associated interior design and operational teams achieve the optimum arrangement of the building by managing ‘change’ and their associated physical impacts to a listed building through our Heritage Consultancy support and Conservation design philosophy. As a result, the delivery of a complete enhancement of a sensitive historic building was enabled, enhancing each building range and key architectural features, informed by a thorough research-based understanding of the historic building’s evolution.
Image credit: © St Austell Brewery