Plans unveiled for cliffside hotel on Devon's Burgh Island

The development will form part of the Grade II listed Burgh Island Hotel, which sits on a 26-acre tidal island off the coast of Bigbury-on-Sea.

Architecture firm Carmody Groarke has won a Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) competition to create the ‘unique’ development designed to mark a 'contemporary' contrast to the island’s Art Deco hotel.

The new design will bridge two separate cliff faces and is inspired by the land formation of the island's mud-stone cliffs.

Built in 1929, the hotel inspired Christie's novels Evil Under The Sun and And Then There Were None - where a group of strangers are killed off one-by-one in an isolated island hotel.

Tony Orchard and Deborah Clark, shareholders in Burgh Island Ltd, said: “When we bought the Island, in 2001, we lived for five years in The Beach House with our young sons.  Life on a cliff over the sea was magical, momentous and uplifting in turns.  We have been thinking for several years about a site, on the adjacent cliffs, to create a further space for guests to share that experience. 

“Having finalised the full restoration of the hotel, we were able to turn our attention to the project. The hotel itself was in the avant-garde when first built and we see this new project as a 21st century complement to it’.”

At Burgh Island the tide ‘meets’ and ‘parts’ approximately every six hours, and the hotel can only be accessed by water tractor at high tide.

The hotel has played host to a raft of famous faces over the years including The Beatles, Noel Coward, Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson.

It is said that Eisenhower and Churchill met at the hotel in the weeks leading up to the D-Day landings.