Treworgey's Environmental Statement
Linda and Bevis started restoring Treworgey cottages and Farm back in 1977.
The coming of 2008 was a land mark for us - 30 years at Treworgey! During that time we tried
to take great care to preserve the beautiful vernacular architecture of these buildings, and to
encourage the wealth of wild life and plant life on our farm.
Treworgey is situated in an area of outstanding natural beauty with fantastic views for all to
see. As the years have gone by we have become increasingly aware of the privilege that we
have living in this wonderful environment. We wish to do all we can to protect and preserve it.
We see ourselves as the (lucky) custodians of the land and buildings here for future
generations.
Treworgey is the very small picture. There is little point in trying to preserve it if we don't see
ourselves as a tiny part of the big picture. We feel that anything we and all willing supporters
can do in our small way to reduce our impact on the environment and reduce our carbon
footprint, will help.
From very small beginnings, Cornwall through COAST has gained many like minded people in
just a few years. As more and more people join us, our tiny efforts will spread and gradually
have some impact that is worth while. As more people in more countries take the
environmental issues seriously, a difference can be made. So we think - Every little helps!
We have outlined here things we have already implemented to be "Greener" and things
planned for the future...............
RECYCLING
Over the past few years we have managed to find through private sources recycling bins for
glass, paper and plastics. (the council here are not helpful if you are a business and we only
recycle through them from our own house!) We compost our green waste and have provided
composting for willing guests.
Energy Saving News ...........
2004
We installed banks of solar thermal mats beside the swimming pool to reduce the
huge amount of oil that we were burning to heat it.
2005
The major development at Treworgey in 2005 was the opening of Lois's (Gamma's) new
cottage (just for 2 people).. We tried to combine environmentally friendly building practice
with traditional craftsmanship. For example the building has a green oak pegged roof, and
thick uneven stone walls.
This cottage was designed to be as near carbon neutral as possible. We attempted to
combine the use of traditional building methods to maintain the building's vernacular character,
with new technologies to achieve much greater energy efficiency. This cottage has masses
of insulation in the walls, roof and floors, supported by underfloor heating, double glazing and
low energy lighting. Materials used were sourced locally. ie Green cornish oak, second hand
Delabole slates, local natural stone and we have used traditional lime mortar ( instead of
cement) sourced from the Cornish lime company in Bodmin. We also installed a highly efficient
log burner which is a sustainable source of heat. For this reason logs in this and other cottages
with high efficiency log burners, are free of charge and readily available to guests in the
cottage through the winter months.
2006 - the opening of River Barn on 22nd June - was achieved comfortably - we had at
least an hour to spare! As well as our wonderful team of Treworgey helpers, Bevis' sister,
Jenny, and husband, Grant, and Bevis' very active 91 year old mother, Lois, helped all of us
get River Barn finished on time. Lois (often known as Gamma), beavered away non stop,
painting this, cleaning that, polishing the other! All furniture was sourced locally from
Antique shops where ever possible. Some old furniture was recycled by being restored by
Grant who is a cabinet maker! We went to endless lengths to insulate River Barn as well
as Lois' Cottage, while again doing our best to maintain the vernacular architecture of the
barn. To further our green interests for Treworgey, we installed a ground source heat
pump for both River Barn and Lois' Cottage to run all the underfloor heating and hot water.
These new technologies caused a lot of head scratching, but eventually we got there.
2007 -Treworgey's drive to turn more green continued: more recycling bins were put in
place, and plans for a wind turbine and evacuated tube solar panels were submitted. An
additional project that winter was to provide, instead of night storage heating, central
heating for Coombe, Stable and Orchard, which was fitted with a low energy use
condensing boiler. In a few years time we would like to try changing the oil boiler for a
wood chip boiler - boosted with solar panels.
Planning permission to install a wind turbine to contribute to our very high electricity use was
awarded. Sadly because we do not have a three phase mains electricity supply at Treworgey,
Western Power would only allow us to install a 6 kW wind turbine instead of the 15 kW one
we had planned. This we installed in September and after a series of teething problems, it has
been in full production since Jan 2008.
Solar panels were installed on some of the cottage roofs for hot water. We also replaced the
not so efficient solar plastic mats with evacuated glass solar tubes. Solar thermal is particularly
effective for heating a pool as the evacuated tubes heat large amounts of water from low
temperatures. We are delighted with the tubes so far and expect to only need our oil boiler
on occasions of wet weather throughout the summer.
More solar panels will be installed for hot water in the cottages each year until as many
cottages that are suitable for solar, and the pool have 70 % of hot water produced by solar
annually.
2008
FIRES - Lots of our cottages have open fires, which you our guests (and we) all love. Thus of
course, we are keeping them due to popular demand. However, where we have cottages
that already have log burners, we have replaced most now with very high efficiency log
burners with clean burn glass doors. This means that everyone can see that lovely fire - and
know that it is burning very efficiently on locally renewable timber.
LOW ENERGY LIGHTING
We have been experimenting over the past few years with low energy lighting. Some bulbs
are uselessly dim. However they are improving all the time and we think we have a good
balance now of plenty of good bright lighting where needed and lots of warmly lit lamps for
ambience too.
Please note - Low energy lights are dimmer when you first switch on - they need a minute to
warm up.
DOUBLE GLAZING
We have wrestled with our traditional ideals and compromised…..
When replacing windows now, we are using high quality wooden double glazed windows that
look as traditional as possible - and have a really good energy rating.
We have been asked to monitor all our energy use ..... so that we can try and compare our
usage from before our changes ….. with after we installed energy saving technologies and
some of our own energy.
WATER
We have our own water supply here at Treworgey and Coombe. The water all goes through
uv light treatment to ensure that it is perfect to drink. We are told that our bore hole at
Treworgey produces water good enough to bottle!. …So if you are coming to stay with us,
please be green, don't buy bottled water. Use Treworgey water. If Coombe visitors want the
best bottled water - bring your old bottles and fill up at Treworgey. Why not fill up old bottles
and take some chemical free, pure Treworgey water home with you?
Please read on for 30 ways whilst staying at Treworgey you can be a responsible traveller............
These are ways that you can help Cornwall's environment while you here are on holiday .......