England · Restored
Carn Brea Castle
Carn Brea Castle is a small granite folly on the Carn Brea outcrop in Cornwall, originally built as a chapel in the 14th century and remodelled in the 18th century as a hunting lodge. The compact, embattled stone building is built into huge natural boulders and is privately used as a restaurant. It is a grade II listed structure notable for its crenellated roofline and four rectangular turrets surrounding a central block.
Its prime
1780
Today
Restored
As it stood in 1780
What Carn Brea Castle looked like in its prime.
A compact, elongated granite block with four rectangular turrets set at its corners and an embattled parapet running around the flat roof; walls of rough grey granite with tall narrow arched window openings and small slit windows. The building is closely built into and overhangs massive uncut boulders that form part of its foundations, with a steep drop at the rear. The main façade features a simple doorway beneath paired arched windows.
Its story
The story of Carn Brea Castle.
A Chapel on the Granite
The building on the granite outcrop of Carn Brea was put up in 1379 as a chapel, thought to have been dedicated to St Michael. The antiquarian William Worcester counted thirty-two castles on the Cornish peninsula and included Carn Brea among them, described as a tower.
The Basset Family's Hunting Lodge
The chapel was extensively rebuilt in later periods, principally in the eighteenth century, when the Basset family remodelled it as a hunting lodge in the style of a castle. It was designed as a lodge rather than a dwelling and is small, sixty by ten feet (18.3 by 3.0 m), with an irregular layout of four rectangular turrets round a core of the same height under an embattled parapet.
It is counted a folly, decorated in the romantic ideal of a medieval Gothic castle. Huge uncut boulders make up part of its foundations, giving the impression of a structure melting into the land, and it is set into a large stone outcrop with a steep drop at the rear.
A Light in the North Window, 1898 to the 1980s
A lease of 1898 stipulated the castle's use as a beacon for shipping, the tenant agreeing to show a light in the north-facing window. The building then went through periods of disuse and disrepair from the 1950s to the 1970s, before a private renovation carried out between 1975 and 1980.
English Heritage classed it a grade II listed building in 1975, the designation dated 9 April. In the 1980s it was converted into a Middle Eastern restaurant, and it remains in private use as one.
Step inside
7 places to explore in 1780.
The record describes 7 distinct spots at Carn Brea Castle, including 1 interior: former chapel / main chamber. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
Build Your Own Castle
Recreate Carn Brea Castle with AI to explore it.
The artist rebuilds it as it stood in 1780, a photoreal reconstruction that belongs to you alone. Pay with coins, no subscription needed.
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Clans who held Carn Brea Castle.
The families that held Carn Brea Castle for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Basset
The Basset family remodelled the 14th-century building as a castellated hunting lodge in the 18th century.
