Churchtown House and Garden Walls

Details

SW 52 SW
1/106

PERRANUTHNOE
CHURCHTOWN,Perranuthnoe Churchtown House and garden walls

GII
Rectory,including garden walls and gate piers,now private house.C17 or earlier,remodelled circa late C17 and circa late C19.Granite rubble with some dressed granite.Scantle slate roofs,gable ends except for hipped end over truncated parallel former rear wing.Stuccoed brick,chimneys with moulded cornices and circa late C19 chimney pots over gable ends left and right.Plan:now an overall L-shaped plan,one room deep except for service room(now the kitchen)roofed parallel to the front roof in the angle:two reception rooms at the front with cross passage between;stair hall in wing at right angles behind the left hand room(in 1727 it was the parlour)and basement rooms behind the stair hall with chambers over.Left-hand side of the house is built into a high bank.Glebe Terrier description of 1727 is obviously of the surviving building but without the present kitchen.In 1727 there was a courtyard behind the right hand room(then the hall)and a kitchen at the rear of this courtyard.A building on the site of this former kitchen was demolished a few years ago(1986).Exterior:two storeys.Symmetrical three window west front with central doorway.In circa the late C19 the front was remodelled from a five window front and the eaves heightened.The features are of that date:doorway with four panel door,overlight and stucco doorcase with entablature carried on carved console canted bay windows to the ground floor with dentilled entablature;four-pane horned sashes and moulded eaves cornice with shaped wooden brackets.Interior:earliest feature is a truss partly embedded into a first floor partition of the front range.This truss probably has curved feet(seen only as an impression in the right hand chamber and predates a circa C17 heightening and remodelling from which some features and much of the structure including the roof trusses of that period survive.The features include a fine open-well closed-string stair with unusually heavy column-turned balusters and moulded ramped handrail;a two-panel door leading to an attic stair (in 1727 a garret) and a fine plaster barrel ceiling with moulded cornice in the right hand chamber.There was possibly a similar ceiling formerly in the left hand chamber(now only indicated by a roughly semi-circular shape in the wall plaster).C18 features:a door between the stair hall and the kitchen with fielded bottom panels,glazed above with original heavy ovolo-moulded glazing bars and some crown glass.C19 features:early C19 six-panel doors and architraves;wooden chimney-piece in the right hand chamber;otherwise mostly circa late C19 features including a chimney-piece in C18 style in the right hand room(resited from another house).Roughly parallel to the front and parallel to the right hand side of the house is a high slate coped granite rubble wall with small arched gateway at the front(west)and carriage gateway into a rear courtyard.The carriage gateway has brick piers with dressed granite plinths and bonders and squat pyramidal caps.Churchtown House is an interesting example of way in which Cornish houses often developed retaining an early core and plan but introducing fashionable features at each phase of remodelling.The late C17 stair and barrel ceiling are particularly notable and rare features.Sources:A Calendar of Cornish Glebe Terriers,by Richard Potts.

Listing NGR: SW5379329595

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

70017

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Potts, R, A Calendar of Cornish Glebe Terriers 1673-1735, (1974)

End of official list entry

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