A derelict “haunted” house once owned by actress Kate Winslet is to be rebuilt as a cutting-edge hillside eco-home.
Winslet, 37, bought the 19th century Castle Minor in 2001 for just £380,000 as a bolt hole for her and then husband Sam Mendes.
She spent tens of thousands of pounds on renovations but 10 years later sold the two-storey property in Tintagel, Cornwall, without ever moving in.
The house, 500 yards from the ruins of Tintagel Castle – said to have been King Arthur’s Camelot – was sold to an ex-pat living in America for £700,000 but remained empty.
It later became a haunt for homeless people – and was then gutted by fire.
But local firm CSA Architects has now secured planning consent to turn the abandoned retreat into a cutting-edge eco-home dug into the hillside.
The design will combine stone buttresses, an Iron Age “keep”, a moat and a drawbridge, with modern renewable technologies and a grass-topped roof.
Justin Dodge, CSA managing director, said: “Hewn out of the landscape, the new house will take a sculptural form which relates to the quarry face and the surrounding landscape.
“Our design draws inspiration from King Arthur’s castle but benefits from modern renewable technologies that make it sustainable.”
