Victoria Gardens will be our biggest project to date
and marks our "debut" in Camelford, the historic north Cornish rural market town
on the edge of Bodmin Moor. Camelford is close to the Camel Estuary - with the
market town of Wadebridge at its head and Padstow and Rock at its mouth. The
fishing villages - and beaches - at Trebetherick, Polzeath, Port Issac and
Boscastle are only minutes away as are the coast and moorland of North Cornwall.
 The
brief to our architects for Victoria Gardens was effectively to design a whole
new village. On the edge of Camelford, a prestigious collection of high quality
new homes will be created.
Victoria Gardens provides a rare opportunity to
live in an attractive, traditional village environment along with all the
advantages of contemporary housing and the modern lifestyle.
There will be a large variety of house types and
the scheme will be characterised by a number of traditional features, such as
village streets and greens, “back lanes”, a formal square plus a major
landscaping scheme that will provide a stunningly beautiful and relaxing
ambience.
The back-in-time features will provide echoes of
Camelford’s own notable history. Established as a borough and market town in
1259, it subsequently became a "pocket borough", in which the Parliamentary
votes were virtually bought by wealthy and powerful men who wanted to put their
own protégés into Parliament.In1832 the Reform Bill abolished these tiny
"constituencies" and Camelford was no longer targeted by the aristocracy.
However, some handsome buildings, such as Camelford House and the Town Hall,
serve as a reminder of the money that once poured into the town.
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In 1883 Camelford lost its borough status and the
20th Century saw the closure of its markets and fairs, but the town remains a
vibrant urban centre.
As well as shops and pubs, it provides the
scattered population of this rural area with shops, pubs, schools, churches,
banks, a medical centre, library, arts centre and galleries, a museum, a printer
and a small industrial estate.
The early 21st Century sees Camelford still
small, but growing and vigorous and busy reinventing itself. It is very much a
town on the move, building a bright new future for itself. An impressive new
regeneration programme is in place, with a number of exciting projects under way
or planned, including an approved new by-pass in the next five years.
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