Archive Centre

Provelio were Project Managers for the redevelopment of a 17th century brewery into a new County Archive Centre, designed to house the collections of the Cornwall Record Office, the Cornish Studies Library and Cornwall and Scilly Historic Environment Record.

The project consisted of converting a Grade II listed building into a high-quality archive and visitor centre that included public study areas, museum display areas and a highly technical archive storage facility.

The original brewery site was considered a “derelict eyesore” within the local community. One of the key aims of the project design was to turn the area into an aesthetically appealing and imaginative place, that celebrated its previous heritage. The design focused on not only re-establishing the building but revitalising the landscape of the brewery site. To achieve this an initial major flood alleviation scheme was undertaken to stabilise the site and open surrounding land for development. Extensive environment and public realm works were undertaken, which included the re-routing of surrounding watercourse and audits to create a new public square within the vicinity. Artists were then engaged to create landscaped features and additional soft landscaping throughout the ground to develop an attractive, yet heritage enhancing setting.

The project was funded by five major external funders including the EU and the National Heritage Lottery fund. Provelio fulfilled the pivotal role in stakeholder management, communication and briefing funders, council officials, planners, local interest groups and EU representatives while maintaining the project scope, budget and programme.

The development is on the edge of a UNESCO World Heritage site that presented further need for assurance that the approach to the heritage asset was to be of the highest standard. Provelio successfully achieved this by securing planning permission on this complex challenging project.

We were responsible for managing the design of the County Archive and the public realm areas. The client benefited from Provelio’s expertise in delivering heritage projects including development of the business case and securing external funding stems.