HISTORIC buildings at Sway Tower are to be given a new lease of life.

DMG Retirement Trust has recently bought the range of buildings at the former Arnewood Court turkey farm.

The buildings, made of concrete and designed and built by former colonial judge Andrew Thomas Turton Peterson in the 1870s and 1880s, include the trial Sway Tower.

The trial tower is about 50ft high and stands in the shadow of the 218ft landmark Sway Tower.

The test tower will be included in the garden of the old coach house and lodge, which will be converted into a luxurious home with granny annexe and staff flat.

Other buildings on the site will be restored for light industrial or storage use and the concrete wall around the site repaired.

Planning agent and architect Robin Bryers said the buildings were some of the first in the country to be constructed in concrete.

Restoration and improvements will cost in the region of £800,000.

"I think it will be a very attractive house. We didn't want to turn it into flats," he said.

"We want a single house that people would fall in love with."

New Forest District Council planning development committee members agreed the project was a worthwhile one.

They told head of development control Chris Elliott to give permission when the council's assistant conservation officer Jonathan Duck said he was satisfied the proposals would secure the future of the listed buildings.

Mr Duck said: "We don't want anything that will appear uncharacteristic or brash on the site."

The 50ft tower is currently in a poor condition but is more elaborate that the main tower.

Yorkshire-born Judge Peterson spent his legal life in Calcutta. He retired from India to Sway where he set out to prove that unreinforced concrete was a viable building material.

Using local labour he constructed a range of buildings which now comprise the Sway Tower conservation area.

First published: November 15