Composite doors in Mullion, installed professionally.

Mullion is spread across a large parish rather than a compact village, and that shapes the door brief as much as the coastline does. The core of the village around Nansmellyon Road and the shops is granite cottages and Victorian terraces, built low and tight to shrug off wind rather than to catch a view. Out toward Mullion Cove itself, the cottages sit almost in the spray line, and further inland toward Cross Common and Predannack the housing is a mix of 1960s bungalows and newer infill that still catches the Lizard's open, treeless wind with nothing to slow it down.

Every one of these settings gets weather Cornwall's north coast towns don't quite match, because the Lizard peninsula has no high ground to break the Atlantic systems before they arrive. We template every Mullion door individually — cottages near the Cove are rarely square after a century of settling and repair, while the newer builds inland have standard openings but no shelter at all from prevailing south-westerlies.

Mullion Cove and Poldhu take breaking spray in a way that goes beyond ordinary coastal drizzle — in a winter storm, salt spray genuinely reaches properties set back from the cliff edge. We fit A4 stainless fixings throughout as standard on every door in the parish, not just the properties directly on the water, because the whole peninsula sits inside that exposure band. The threshold is dual-drained and stainless-clad, bedded on a weatherbar rather than relying on sealant alone, and the compression seal runs on a triple-brush upstand to resist the salt crust that builds up on a single seal within a season.

We also spec heavier internal reinforcement in the door leaf itself for Mullion than we would for an inland Cornish town — the wind loading on an exposed Lizard elevation is genuinely higher, and a door that flexes under gusting wind will eventually work its seals loose. It's a detail most customers never think to ask about, and one we build in regardless.

Cream, Off-White and Chartwell Green dominate around the village centre and Mullion Cove, matching the granite and lime-render tradition that's stood here for two centuries. Racing Green is a strong secondary choice on the older cottages — it reads as traditional without being twee, and it doesn't fade under the strong, unfiltered light the Lizard gets with nothing to soften it.

Inland toward Cross Common and Predannack, where the housing is newer, Anthracite Grey and Slate Grey are the two we fit most, usually with a flush-panel style and brushed stainless hardware. Duck Egg Blue turns up occasionally on the smaller cottages toward Poldhu, echoing the sea without being an obvious cliché.

Houses on Mullion's more open elevations — Predannack and the ridge toward Cross Common in particular — lose heat through an old front door faster than a sheltered inland property would, simply because the wind loading against the door is constant rather than occasional. A foam-core composite slab, properly sealed on a triple-brush upstand and pulled tight by a multi-point lock, makes a genuinely noticeable difference to draughts in the hallway compared with an ageing timber or early-generation uPVC door.

It's rarely the headline reason customers call us, but it's consistently the thing they mention after the install — the hallway simply stops being the coldest room in the house through a Lizard winter.

A meaningful share of Mullion's housing stock is second homes or holiday lets that sit empty for stretches of the year, particularly around Poldhu and the Cove. An empty property is a different security brief to an occupied one — insurers increasingly ask specifically about door and lock standards for unoccupied periods, and a PAS24-rated door with a 3-star anti-snap cylinder is usually the minimum they'll accept without a loading on the premium.

For owners who manage lets remotely, we regularly fit keyless or coded multi-point locks so a changeover team or cleaner can get in without a physical key changing hands. It also solves the practical problem of a key going missing at the end of a season when the property sits empty until Easter.

Access around Mullion village is generally straightforward — wider streets than you'd find in a harbour town like Mullion Cove itself, where the lanes narrow and parking is tight, especially in summer. We schedule Cove jobs outside peak season traffic where we reasonably can and always confirm access with the customer before the van sets off from Redruth.

The install itself follows the same pattern regardless of location in the parish: old door and frame out within the first hour, new frame templated, packed and bedded through the morning, slab and hardware fitted and the cill weathered by mid-to-late afternoon, with paperwork — spec sheet, guarantee, cylinder security card — handed over on the doorstep before the crew leaves.

The recurring fault we're called to look at on existing Mullion doors that we didn't fit is standard hardware — hinges, keeps, handles — specified without the local exposure in mind. It looks fine when new and starts showing rust streaks down the slab within a couple of winters, which is both unsightly and, eventually, a security weakness as the keep corrodes.

The second common issue is a threshold bedded on sealant alone rather than a proper weatherbar, which holds for a season or two before wind-driven rain finds the gap. Both are avoidable at the point of install and expensive to put right afterwards, which is why we build the fuller spec in as standard rather than offering it as an add-on.

Because Mullion sits in genuine marine exposure, we're more insistent here than in inland towns about a simple aftercare routine: a rinse of the frame, cill and hinges with fresh water every couple of months through autumn and winter, to stop salt residue building up and attacking metal fittings at the margins. It takes less time than most people expect and it meaningfully extends the life of the ironmongery.

The composite skin itself asks for almost nothing — no repainting, no sanding back, no annual treatment. A wipe with soapy water when it needs it is genuinely all that's required to keep the colour looking as it did on day one, which is a real change for anyone used to maintaining a timber door on the Lizard.

Mullion's property market leans heavily on second-home buyers and holiday-letting investors drawn by the Cove, Kynance and Poldhu, and both groups notice a tired front door immediately — it signals ongoing maintenance costs on a property they may only visit a few weeks a year. A composite door in a colour that suits the cottage removes that question entirely and photographs well for a listing.

If you're buying an older cottage near the Cove with an original timber door still in place, budget for a replacement in year one rather than waiting for it to fail — timber in that specific location degrades faster than almost anywhere else in Cornwall we work.

Mullion's parish covers enough ground that a single glazing recommendation doesn't fit every address. In the village centre, where terraces sit close together and hallways can be dark, a glazed centre panel or decorative sidelight brings in useful daylight without much extra wind exposure, since the surrounding buildings offer some mutual shelter. Down at the Cove and along the coast path toward Poldhu, we're more cautious about large glazed areas facing the prevailing south-westerly, simply because a bigger pane of glass is more sealed edge exposed to driving spray, and we'd rather spec a smaller top-light or a solid door with decorative side panels set back slightly from the worst of the weather.

Inland toward Cross Common and Predannack, where the wind is constant but salt-laden spray is less of a factor than at the Cove, a fuller glazed design causes fewer long-term problems and tends to suit the newer housing stock's larger window openings anyway. As with the door slab itself, we spec toughened, drained-bar double glazing units throughout the parish rather than standard units, because the whole of the Lizard sits in a higher wind-and-salt exposure band than most of the county, and it isn't worth saving a small amount on a glazing unit that then needs replacing under guarantee inside five years.

A fair number of our Mullion jobs come as part of a wider renovation rather than a standalone door swap — an older cottage near the Cove being modernised for holiday letting, or a bungalow toward Predannack having windows replaced at the same time. Where that's the case, we're happy to coordinate timing with a builder or window installer so the front door goes in at the right point in the sequence, typically after external render or pointing work is finished but before final decoration, to avoid the door frame picking up dust and debris from other trades.

For customers doing a full renovation, it's also worth thinking about the door alongside the wider security and insurance picture — a newly renovated cottage that's about to sit empty over winter while work finishes benefits from the same PAS24 and 3-star cylinder specification we'd recommend for any unoccupied Mullion property, fitted early enough in the build programme that it's actually doing its job rather than being the last item ticked off before completion.