Engine House, Porthtowan

GII Listed – Residential Engine House Conversion

Originally known as Wheal Lushington, this prominent engine house is located overlooking Porthtowan beach and the north Cornwall coastline. The building is understood to have been constructed in the early 1870’s to serve as a pumping engine for Wheal Towan mine and later ‘New Towan Mine’. Wheal Towan being a locally significant example of a Cornish mine, in operation from 1808, and is recorded to be the largest producer of tin in the area.

This building is an interesting example of a pumping engine house – an iconic feature of Cornwall’s industrial heritage and a recognised symbol of Cornwall & Devon’s Mining Landscape World Heritage Site. In this case the engine was originally intended to be fully enclosed but was not believed to have been installed. The building was awarded GII listed building status in 1988 when it was utilised in part as a café.

Our renovation project was sensitively handled by Mark Dawes, Managing Director of CAD Architects, and demonstrates a good example of our extensive collective experience in working with historic and listed buildings across the CAD brands – this resulted in the establishment of our dedicated Heritage division.

Conversions of engine houses often require a careful use of space and an effective arrangement of accommodation at various floor levels. In this instance the open-plan accommodation at upper floor levels provides an extensive seaward outlook – serving as a successful feature for the building’s current use as a holiday accommodation, whilst also providing an expansive sense of space.

The successful conversion has been featured on Kevin McClouid’s Grand Designs in 2011 and Charlie Luxton’s “Homes by the Sea” in 2015. In both instances the works were well acclaimed. Kevin McCloud’s was quoted: “The Engine House at Porthtowan is one of the more successful conversions I have seen. It is unconventional…It proves that it is possible to make a beautiful home from these industrial dinosaurs”.