Treworgey's Environmental Statement

Linda and Bevis started restoring Treworgey cottages and Farm back in 1977.

Over the last three decades or so we have taken great care to preserve the 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 great natural beauty with fantastic views as all can see. As the years have gone by we have become increasingly aware of how privileged we are to live in this picturesque spot on our ever more crowded island. As the lucky custodians of this little piece of tranquil England, we want to do all we can to protect and preserve the land and buildings here for people to continue to enjoy in the future.

 

Of course we realise that 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 has amassed many like-minded people in just a few years through the COAST project (Cornwall Sustainable Tourism Project). We hope that as more and more people join us, our tiny efforts will combine to make a significant impact and more people in more countries take the environmental issues seriously. So we think - every little helps!

 

 

We have outlined here things we have already implemented to be "Greener" and things planned for the future...............

 

From 2003 Over the past few years we have managed to find through private sources (the council here will hardly recycle anything except rubbish from our own house!) recycling bins for glass, paper and plastics. We compost all our green waste and have provided composting for willing guests. Please see our separate page on recycling – and where to recycle/compost - at the beginning of this folder.

 

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. 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.  

 

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 high efficiency 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 too in 2007. 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.

 

 

From 2008

 

Fires - Lots of our cottages have open fires, which you (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, and some create a very ugly white light. However they are improving all the time and we think we have a good balance now. If you have any comments do let us know.

Please note - Low energy lights are dimmer when you first switch on - they need a minute to warm up.

Please note too that they are far more expensive than the old tungsten bulbs so if you remove one for some reason, please store safely and reinstate before going home. In the event of a bulb failing, we keep replacements to all bulbs. If you do not have a spare in the cupboard, please ask at the office.

 

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.

 

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 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?

 

 

Because we feel very strongly in these issues we are investing heavily. The pay back is very long term. Probably the next generation will benefit rather than us!!

 

 

2010

 

Now in 2010, with Jo and Alec here representing the younger generation, we are all continuing with the strong green ethos that Linda and Bevis have developed over the past few years.

 

While we have not installed any grand new innovations on the scale of the wind turbine or ground source heat pump, since 2008 we have completed an ongoing programme of the less ‘glamorous' ways we can reduce energy consumption. We have added far more insulation into loft cavities, all windows that have been replaced have been double glazed, and we have fitted draught excluders to many of our original wooden windows. Our 2009-10 winter project, the extension of Secret Garden, was completed with attention to these principals - it is well insulated, has double glazing, underfloor heating and the boiler flu is in fact used in part to heat the room, rather than all the heat being wasted outside. As usual local craftsmen and materials were used wherever possible.

 

We have spent considerable time during the past two years trialing ‘eco' cleaning products , with mixed success. As a result we now tend to use some ‘green' products and some traditional ones. We live in the real world and realise that while we want to be as green as possible, green still has to achieve the job it was designed for - at least as well as a traditional product if not better. We now have for sale in our information room a small selection of eco products such as loo roll and clothes washing tablets. If you do decide to purchase any of these we would welcome feedback. Likewise if you would like to know about which green products we have tried and found to work – or not – then please ask.

 

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 .......