Sustainable Charlbury has unveiled its largest single grant. The £31,000 award pays for the installation of secondary glazing at the Corner House, a community space and historic building in the centre of Charlbury.
SusCha has a longstanding commitment to supporting efforts to remodel the Corner House to make it more comfortable to use and as energy efficient as possible. In late 2023, we provided funding for a whole building report, conducted by Cosy Homes -an organisation that specialises in retrofitting existing buildings – which identified the key priorities for cutting emissions and upgrading facilities. Subsequently, SusCha funded a heat loss survey and the installation of energy efficient LED lighting.
‘This is seriously good news and means we are properly on our way to improving the comfort and the efficiency of the Corner House’’, commented Roy Scott, chairman of the Charlbury Corner House and Memorial Hall Trust, which manages the building, in response to the latest grant.
Complex task
Upgrading the Corner House is not simple. Parts of the building date back to the seventeenth century or even earlier. It also has Grade II listed status which means there are tight restrictions on what alterations can be made. For example, these restraints made it difficult to put in double or triple glazed windows. So, the decision was taken to install secondary glazing behind the original windows instead.
Some years ago, Sustainable Charlbury made a public commitment to invest up to £100,000 in energy efficient heating and lighting at the Corner House in the context of a complete renovation of the building. The grants awarded so far go some way towards carrying out that commitment. They fit in with a broader scheme to upgrade the Corner House to make it comfortable to use all year round and to maximise its value as a community facility.
The Corner House was donated to the town by the Morris family at the end of the second world war. It currently houses several community organisations including: Charlbury Museum, the Corner Stone (which runs a food bank), a second-hand bookshop and Charlbury arts society. It has rooms available for meetings and community events.
