Welcome to Your Community Centre

Your centre is a hub of services, facilities and history

History

The building now called the Camborne Community Centre in South Terrace, Camborne was built around the time of the death of Lady Basset, Lord de Dunstanville's unmarried daughter, in 1855. It's original principal purpose was as a residence for the steward of the Basset family of Tehidy this being the main large wing where the main community centre large hall now is. The slightly lower wing at the police station end was the Tehidy estate office from c1855-1945, where people went to pay their rent four times a year on quarter days (Lady day, Midsummer's Day, Michaelmas and Christmas) and to do estate business. This area still has some barred windows, for security reasons, I think. It also housed the estate archives of the Basset family dating from the fourteenth century onwards which were brought over from one of the four corner pavilions of Tehidy house to be housed in this new building in the 1850s.

Arthur Francis Basset (1873-1950), the last squire of Tehidy, sold Tehidy mansion in November 1916, along with a vast amount of property in Camborne, Illogan and Redruth, though not all of this property was sold off at this time. A much reduced estate continued to be administered from the west estate office wing of the building until 1945 when the estate office was closed down, and the last agent, Mrs Edna Powell, then administered the estate from her private home. At the time of the break up of the estate office in 1945 a huge amount of Basset records such as maps, plans and ledgers were thrown out from the office on to the pavement for disposal by dust cart, though much of this was rescued by the late Mr Fred Harris of Redruth and subsequently deposited in the Cornwall Record Office at Truro.

In 1919 the mining and mineral interests of the former Basset (and Clifden of Lanydrock) estate(s) were acquired by a new company called Tehidy Minerals and the mining archives of the former Basset estate, formerly also kept in the estate office, along with the other Basset archives, were hived off and transferred to this new company, at first administered from South Crofty mine site, but subsequently from a new office in Basset Street, Camborne, under the control of Captain Bernard Kelly.

The refurbished former steward's house and annexes were gifted to the town of Camborne by C.V. Thomas on November 20th 1937 and became known as the Camborne Community Centre, as per the plaque within the building, and in accordance with terms of the Trust deed.

The centre was officially opened by Sir Edward Bolitho on 20th November 1937, and was visited by King George V1 during December 1937

Jean Charman.
Chairman February 2024

Timeline

Section 106 grant

Awarded in (date required)

The Community Centre was awarded a grant of £239,000 from Section 106 funds to carry out renovation and refurbishment work to the main building. Looking after a building that is over 150 years old comes with significant maintenance costs, which is why we are grateful to Cornwall Council for this grant.

Refurbishment works begin

March 2021

Works to include:

New bay and arched windows in the hall and rooms 2 & 3
New front and back doors
All flat roofs replaced
All old plastic guttering has been replaced with black aluminium
The old cantilever room at the end of the building to be removed and roofed replaced with granite castellets.
Upstairs toilets to be replaced
Replace ground and first floor lighting with energy efficient LED units.
Clean, repoint and lead cap chimneys

Finally a full redecorate inside and out.

Final stages of refurbishment

October 2021

Finals works include a little redecorating to finish, a little plumbing work and one final flat roof, plus our granite castellets.

Completed

January 2022

The major work is done, what a journey it's been, but the old building looks so much better and is set for a few more years service to the community.

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