Design consultancy and appraisal of development opportunity for listed factory in Cornwall

Wenford Dries is a Grade II Listed factory building in Cornwall that formally played a vital part in the china clay industry. The site’s settling tanks and drying rooms run 0.5km along a former railway line, now a popular cycle route called the ‘Camel Trail’. It was decommissioned in 2002 and subsequent planning permission was granted for the buildings to be converted into a community of 38 dwellings.

In 2021 Hill Harvey-Wood were appointed to explore the potential of the site in a post-pandemic context where remote working for prolonged periods away from our cities has become more common. The concept developed is for the large factory rooms to accommodate flexible living and workspaces totaling over 12,000m2 that cascade from private gardens at the rear to terraces overlooking the valley and north Cornwall countryside.