The Landmark Trust has announced three major restoration projects to help showcase its 50th anniversary in 2015.
The first to open will be Belmont in Lyme Regis next summer. The Grade II-listed seaside villa was built by the 18th-century pioneer Eleanor Coade, the most important female architect of the time, according to Landmark Trust director Anna Keay. The property was later the home of author John Fowles who completed the French Lieutenant’s Woman there. Once complete it will sleep eight.
In the autumn St Edwards Presbytery in Ramsgate will open. It was the last project by the gothic-revival designer Augustus Pugin, who built it for his Catholic priest before he was incarcerated in the Bethlem Royal Hospital (Bedlam) at the age of 40. The property, which was almost derelict, is being restored as a self-catering holiday home for four.
In addition, the Landmark Trust is launching an appeal to rescue Llwyn Celyn, a 15th-century manor house in Monmouthshire, “the most at risk inhabited building anywhere in Wales” according to Keay and a “window onto life in the Welsh mountains”. The building will cost £4m to restore. “Saving places like this isn’t just an intellectual exercise, it’s about survival,” said Keay.
The Landmark Trust was founded in 1965 by Conservative MP John Smith to preserve not just the derelict buildings but also “moments in history”, said Keay.
The openings form part of a year of celebrations that will also include a collaboration with artist Antony Gormley, who is installing life-size statues at five Landmark Trust properties in Suffolk, Dorset, Scotland, Warwickshire and Lundy Island. The project, called LAND, is launching on the weekend of 16-17 May and will be in place for a year. The same weekend has been designated a “Golden Weekend” with free public open days at 25 Landmark Trust properties.
Another initiative is “50 for free”, a charitable scheme that invites charities to highlight individuals, including carers and challenged families, who deserve a holiday. Charities have until 4 January 2015 to apply for the breaks, which will be taken between 9 and 16 March.
