Having recently celebrated its 60th anniversary, the Landmark Trust is a conservation charity that restores derelict historic buildings, sensitively converting them into comfortable holiday accommodation. Here's our pick of the best ten to visit, and what makes them so special...
1. The Pineapple, Falkirk, Scotland
One of the most instantly recognisable ‘quirky’ buildings in Britain, The Pineapple enjoys an appropriately off-beat origin story. Built as a pavilion in 1761 for the 4th Earl of Dunmore, it grew into a two-storey fruity summer house after the said earl returned to Britain from Virginia 16 years later. He had been serving as governor of the colony but was ejected by rebellious American forces. The huge stone pineapple is Lord Dunmore’s little joke; it mimics the tradition in Virginia whereby sailors popped a pineapple on their gatepost to proclaim their return from the sea.
The earl had a stone bothy built on either side of The Pineapple to house his gardeners; these have now been converted into a single holiday let. The property overlooks a walled garden that belongs to the National Trust for Scotland. There’s a smaller garden at the back for guests. A waymarked circular walk passes next to The Pineapple and takes in Dunmore, a model conservation village offering a slice of Scottish social history.
The Pineapple sleeps four and costs from £356 for four nights. Guests must go outside to get from the bedrooms to the living quarters, and up a flight of stairs to enter the summer house. As with most Trust buildings, there’s no TV or Wi-Fi.
2. Appleton Water Tower, Norfolk
When the future Edward VII contracted typhoid during a stay at Sandringham, Norfolk, in 1871 – followed by his eldest son Albert three years later – it was decided that perhaps the water supply at the royal estate could do with an upgrade. The result was the Appleton Water Tower, an 18-metre-high neo-Byzantine construction supporting a 121,000-litre cast-iron tank filled by a chalk spring. But that only tells half the story.
Engineer James Mansergh recognised that a four-storey tower placed on a hilltop amid flat terrain would offer spectacular panoramic views of the surrounding Norfolk countryside. He therefore created for the royal family both a roof terrace and a viewing room on the second floor. The tower now offers a wonderfully idiosyncratic take on the traditional holiday cottage. Mansergh’s viewing room has been turned into a bed-sitting room so guests can enjoy the views from an armchair.
A visit to the Sandringham Estate offers an even closer look at the house and gardens. The Water Tower sleeps four and costs from £736 for four nights. A steep spiral staircase links the property’s four floors.
3. The House of Correction, Folkingham, Lincolnshire
Woe betide you if you lived in south-west Lincolnshire in the 19th century and had a penchant for being idle or disorderly. If so, you were likely to end up at the House of Correction in Folkingham. Built in 1808 within the moat of a former medieval castle, it had to be enlarged 17 years later following an outbreak of fecklessness in the local population. An imposing entrance was added to intimidate the indolent into lives of productivity and sobriety. The arch also accommodated the prison turnkey and the Governor’s horses and carriage.
The House of Correction lasted until 1878 and now all that remains is the virtue-inspiring entrance. Today, the entrance merely guards the medieval moat but provides a surprisingly graceful presence amidst the open fenland countryside. A pair of stairways installed by the Landmark Trust allows for a two-up, two-down arrangement with a master bedroom at the arch’s apex.
If you fancy escaping for a few hours, you could drop down to Woolsthorpe Manor, the former home of Isaac Newton. The tree whose falling apple reportedly inspired the scientist is still growing in the orchard. Alternatively, you could head north to Sleaford Museum for a local history deep dive. The House of Correction sleeps four and costs from £468 for four nights. The stairs are steep and narrow.
4. Semaphore Tower, Chatley Heath, Surrey
It may be difficult to imagine but this semaphore tower was once as much a form of pioneering communications technology as super-fast fibre broadband is today. Commissioned after the Battle of Waterloo, it was erected in 1822. It formed one link in a chain of signalling towers that stretched roughly 65 miles from Portsmouth Docks to Admiralty House in London. A message could be sent between the two in just a few minutes – a revolutionary development at the time.
Poking out above the trees on the 323-hectare Chatley Heath, this particular semaphore tower is the only one left in Britain. Converted into living quarters in 2021, the tower now offers guests treetop views from the fifth-floor kitchen and a roof terrace with a 360° vista over the Home Counties countryside and away towards the capital. The tower’s semaphore machinery has been restored to working order and is demonstrated on Landmark Trust open days.
There’s a dedicated bicycle storage area, so take your steed and pedal along the cycle routes over Chatley, Ockham and Wisley Commons or the National Trust Wey Navigation towpath. The wonderful Royal Horticultural Society gardens at Wisley are also nearby and can be reached mostly off-road on foot or by bike.
The Semaphore Tower sleeps four and costs from £540 for four nights. Rooms are reached by a steep winding staircase.
5. Danescombe Mine, Cornwall
The engine house of a former copper and arsenic mine doesn’t sound the most propitious building to turn into holiday accommodation. However, Danescombe Mine was not only one of the Landmark Trust’s earliest restorations, it’s gone on to become one of its most iconic.
The edifice was roofless and decaying when it was acquired, a relic from a mine that operated between 1822 and 1900. As might be imagined, the arsenic took many a miner to an early grave while lining the pockets of the Dukes of Bedford and others.
Today, guests can saunter from the living room out onto decking to take in a wooded valley crossed by a placid stream. The serenity of the setting makes it difficult to believe it was ever the scene of such industry. The Tamar Valley Line, which passes through nearby Calstock station, is one of the most beguiling branch lines in the country. Also nearby is the National Trust’s Cotehele, a magnificent Tudor mansion.
Danescombe Mine sleeps two and costs from £344 for four nights. The stairs are steep and open at the sides.
6. Beamsley Hospital, Skipton, North Yorkshire
Founded in Elizabethan times by the Countess of Cumberland, this is not a hospital as we know it but an almshouse. And as almshouses go, it’s pretty spectacular. The building was constructed as a circle in honour of the six circles (or ‘annulets’) on the coat of arms borne by the countess’ husband. It was also a nod towards the round churches built by the Knights Templar.
Located on the edge of the delightful Yorkshire Dales, Beamsley Hospital consists of seven small rooms encircling a chapel. This layout meant that the impoverished women who were given lodgings here often had to pass through the chapel to reach their own rooms. It was hoped that this would engender sufficient godliness to make the inhabitants worthy of the countess’ charity.
That same layout has been maintained in the renovation of the hospital, so guests can pass through the building just as its former occupants did centuries ago, albeit in greater luxury. You can also have a go on the chapel bell which, remarkably, is still in situ.
The market town of Skipton is well worth a visit, particularly if you make in its 900-year-old castle, one of the best preserved medieval fortresses in England. Meanwhile, Bolton Abbey is on the doorstep, offering walks through some sumptuous countryside, a fine ruined abbey, and events for families.
Beamsley Hospital sleeps five and costs from £516 for four nights. There is one step into the property and all the accommodation is on one floor.
7. Radio Room, Lundy, Bristol Channel
Roughly three miles long and half a mile wide, Lundy sits in isolated splendour in the Bristol Channel, 10 nautical miles off the north coast of Devon. Its fascinating history includes periods as a burial site, a Viking stronghold (Lundy means ‘puffin island’ in Old Norse) and a base for the Knights Templar.
The Landmark Trust is in the happy position of managing the entire island and lets 25 properties on it. The Radio Room is the very smallest of them. So small, there’s room for just one person to sleep. As its name suggests, the solid-looking little building used to house the island’s radio transmitter, an extremely important piece of equipment that maintained Lundy’s link with the outside world. In the very heart of the island’s only village, the Radio Room sits in a walled garden, which makes it ideal for the modern hermit.
Most guests come to enjoy the array of seabirds – including puffins. However, there’s also the 13th-century Marisco Castle and the Marisco Tavern. Perhaps uniquely in Britain, the inn never closes (alcohol is only served during licensed hours).
The Radio Room costs from £200 for four nights. It’s all on one floor with one step to enter.
8. Coed y Bleiddiau, Eryri, Wales
Built in 1863 for a railway superintendent at a remote mountainous halt, Coed y Bleiddiau cottage offers a chance of blissful seclusion among the mountains of Eryri National Park. The railway in question started life as a horse tramway in the 1830s, laid to transport slate from the quarries around Blaenau Ffestiniog to the ships waiting below in the harbour at Porthmadog. It was upgraded to take steam locomotives some 30 years later.
Constructed from slate and granite hewn from the mountains around, the cottage was first inhabited by a superintendent called Henry T. Hovenden. His wife and seven children also lived there, which must have been a squeeze. Today, any mewling in the area is more likely to come from birds of prey such as red kites, hen harriers and buzzards.
Naturally, no holiday at Coed y Bleiddiau would be complete without a trip on the Ffestiniog Railway. Rather thrillingly, the cottage has its own private platform, where you can board or alight from a steam train. If you fancy a longer journey, you can hop onto the Welsh Highland Railway (also festrail.co.uk) at Porthmadog and steam all the way north to Caernarfon.
Coed y Bleiddiau sleeps four and costs from £520 for four nights. There are steps on the ground floor and steep steps to the second bedroom.
9. Fairburn Tower, Muir of Ord, Ross-shire
One of the Trust’s most recent renovations, this 16th-century tower house shows off the delights of the Scottish Renaissance and draws its guests back into a world of intrigues and rebellions. Transformed from a wreck in imminent danger of collapse into a five-storey dwelling fit for a laird or lady, the tower house dominates a once strategically important corner of the Highlands, west of Inverness.
Built around 1545 for Murdo Mackenzie, a favoured member of the court of King James V of Scotland, the tower provided the Crown with a stronghold between the Rivers Orrin and Conon, its upper floors allowing inhabitants unfettered views of the undulating countryside that surrounds it. Those views can best be enjoyed from the top-floor bedroom which benefits from not just one but two stylish roof turrets.
If you just want to visit Fairburn Tower, you can book for 6/7 September as part of the Doors Open Days weekend. If you stay as a guest you can walk in the 1,000-hectare Fairburn Estate with its rare alluvial forest. Fairburn Tower sleeps four and costs from £432 for four nights. The rooms are reached by a steep circular staircase.
10. The Pigsty, Robin Hood’s Bay, North Yorkshire
It’s safe to say that no pigs ever lived in such classy surroundings as those once kept by one Squire Barry of Fyling Hall near Whitby. A well-travelled man, he was reportedly taken by some of the ancient buildings he had seen on a Grand Tour during the 1880s and decided that his pair of pigs should live in the same style. He thus built them a neo-Classical sty in one of his fields. As a perhaps unintended bonus, the elevated location also gave his porcine tenants marvellous views of hills that border the North Sea.
After Barry died in 1920, the sty became a hen coop and later a kennel. However, decades of neglect took their toll and, by the 1980s when the Landmark Trust rescued the building, it had become almost ruinous. They added a small extension that now gives the property the same proportions enjoyed by the temples of antiquity (and also affords human occupants a little more room).
For those wishing to stretch their legs, the 109-mile Cleveland Way and the beaches of Robin Hood’s Bay are close by. So too is Whitby, the setting that inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula and is home to a dramatic ruined cliff-top abbey and a fascinating museum. The North Yorkshire Moors Railway also runs from the gothic seaside town to Pickering, the ‘Gateway to the Moors’.
The Pigsty sleeps two and costs from £388 for four nights. There are steps up into the property and a sloping garden.
