Rick Stein’s Cornish Arms gets the Carpenter Oak treatment

If you’d like to experience the beauty of an oak frame in Cornwall, take a trip to Rick Stein’s Cornish Arms in St Merryn, near Padstow.

Rick’s son Ed has recently overseen the build of an oak framed extension to the pub, featuring a Carpenter Oak frame built by our Cornish based team of carpenters, and traditional masonry walls.

“This was a really great project. It was unusual to be able to work purely with handcrafted natural materials and all the builders involved with the project really loved the fact that we were using oak and stone,” said Ed.

“The comments we have been getting are very positive – people love the smell of the oak and they relate to it as a material, maybe because it’s textural and it’s a raw earth material.”

Ed has a background in stone sculpture carving so the project was a natural fit for him, with its traditional stone masonry walls. The build was inspired by the 14th century church across the road and Ed is quite sure this new build will be around for just as long, if not longer. “We hit bed rock when we were building the foundations, so this is going to last hundreds of years.”

Ed worked very closely with Carpenter Oak’s frame designer Tom Jubb from the start of the project and was involved in the design phase.

“We wanted it to look seamless and to tie the extension into the existing building so from the outside it wasn’t noticeable. The frame has worked really well for us – we’ve incorporated traditional elements and we wanted to maintain the feeling of being an old pub, and this has been very successful. Given that it’s a single storey there is a great sense of space, all the structure of the building is on show and we were able to keep the rafters visible. It came together really well.”

Ed added that the acoustics of the new dining room work really well too. “One of the reasons we chose oak was for the acoustics – because there are so many different elements and surfaces in the frame it breaks the sound up. This can be the most overlooked aspect of a restaurant design but for us it was one of the most important elements.”

“Tom was great – I would work with Carpenter Oak Cornwall again without a doubt. On design they were fantastic, they delivered everything when they said they would and it was astonishing how quickly the frame went up. Tim and the guys were great too – really dedicated despite heavy rain when they put the frame up, but they turned it round in four days. They were fantastic.”

You can visit the Cornish Arms at Churchtown, St Merryn, Padstow, PL28 8ND from 11.30am to 11pm seven days a week. Free parking is available at the pub and dogs are welcome.