Trelowarren Estate’s iconic Double Lodges are to be restored as part of a £200,000 project that will also see the surrounding area returned to heathland.

Members of the public are invited to go along and see the plans next Tuesday, November 5 from 11am.

In a different take on bonfire building, a massive wood-chipper will take up residence in the old stable yard to reduce large, non-native Sitka Spruce tree-trunks, cleared from what was once native heathland, into chippings to feed the estate’s 350 kWh biomass Binder boiler.

Unlike most bonfires, however, the giant pile of wood-chippings will be burned over the coming months to produce heat and warm water for the eco-holiday-houses and facilities on the estate.

Estate owner Sir Ferrers Vyvyan plans to restore the land to what would have been seen in the 1750s, during a ten-year scheme working alongside Natural England.

The spruces were planted around 40 years ago by the Forestry Commission but now, in their place, the land will be restored to Cornish heath – covered in Erica vagans heather, whose only native British habitat is the Lizard Peninsula – where Trelowarren will |introduce indigenous cattle to graze the land.

As part of the project the Grade II Listed lodges, which will be well known to anyone who has travelled the main B3293 road to St Keverne, will be restored to their former glory inside and out.

Sir Vyvyan said: “We’ve been planning the restoration of the Double Lodges and the Cornish heathland there for a long time – but we’ve had to be patient. Trelowarren is a big old estate which has |certainly had its ups and downs, so we’ve needed to be sensitive to the history and the ecology of the place and make sure everything we do is right for the future – and it can’t all be done at once.”

The history of Trelowarren and the Vyvyan family goes back 600 years and in 1930 was visited by author Daphne du Maurier, who described the estate in her diary as “…the most beautiful place imaginable.”

Over the last 20 years the current generation of Vyvyans have been restoring old buildings and |creating new eco-lodges and facilities.