Trelowarren Eco Cottages Full Review
Posted: 07 February 2008 by Adam Vaughan
Cornwall holidays, we've belatedly discovered, are not just about tea rooms, surfing and the Eden Project. Tucked away on the county's wildlife-packed Lizard Peninsula is Trelowarren, a 600-year-old estate blazing a green trail with its self-catering and timeshare cottages.
Yep, timeshare -- the most taboo of holiday concepts thanks to Costa Del Rip-offs. Yet according to Trelowarren's charismatic, superficially hippyish but incredibly driven owner, Sir Ferrers Vyvyan, it's the green way forward. As he points out, his cottages have higher occupancy rates than second homes in the area -- good news for local businesses such as organic ice cream maker Roskilly's.
We stayed at Tregenna, one of the estate's 15 properties, which are all available as self-catering and all but one on timeshare. Surrounded by woodland, the cottage makes for an ideal base into the 1,000 acres of ash trees and tropical plants, while a restaurant, craft centre and organic walled garden sit just five minutes' walk away. The décor is contemporary, neutral and smart -- inoffensive rather than cutting edge, and we liked it.
The cottages are fully insulated and are heated by the estate's biomass burner
What you don't see inside the cottages -- but do feel -- is how well insulated they are. During our visit, we poked around the half-built skeleton of a new cottage, and got a close-up of the twin-framed Scandie-style construction. Insulation includes recycled newspaper (300mm deep in the walls), which has the benefit of being a low-carbon material as well as keeping things cosy. This concept of using materials with small amounts of 'embodied energy' (the CO2 pumped out to produce them) is carried through to other materials, including the green oak that makes up much of the wood.
But the real green jewel in Trelowarren’s crown is the biomass boiler for heating. Bio-what? you may ask. Well, it's essentially a shed with a very hot oven and a big pit of wood-chips that, when burned, feed heat down pipes to the individual cottages. This sort of heating is eco-friendly because it's theoretically carbon neutral -- the carbon dioxide released by burning the wood-chip is cancelled out by the carbon that the wood sucked up when it was a tree. Trelowarren is using waste wood from a Truro mill down the road, and may even switch to trees on its own estate.
Thanks to this heating system, visitors not only get a warm cottage but also -- our favourite bit -- an outdoor heated swimming pool. The pool is a real treat, big enough for a proper swim and set in beautiful natural surroundings that rivals top lidos such as Tooting's. Continue reading...
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