Lawncliffe and Sun House

Details

MYLOR

1045/6/275 ST PETER'S ROAD 30-MAY-67 FLUSHING (North side) Lawncliff and Sun House (Formerly listed as: ST PETER'S ROAD FLUSHING The Lawn Cliff Hotel)

II Lawn Cliff and Sun House were built in the circa early C19 as a private house called Lawn Cliff, which was remodelled and extended in the mid C19, and has some minor later alterations.

MATERIALS: Lawncliff is built of painted shale rubble with stucco dressings and its north-west wing (Sun House) is stuccoed and lined out.

PLAN: The building has an L-shaped plan overall. The main south-range, L-shaped on plan, is a mid C19 remodelling. It has service rooms on the ground floor and its principal rooms on the first floor with access via a porch and porte-cochere at the east end where the ground level is higher. The wing to the rear north-west end of the building, now a separate dwelling called Sun House, was added by 1880, and also had its principal rooms on the first floor over the service rooms on the ground floor.

EXTERIOR: The two storey building has a hipped slate roof with clay ridge tiles and cast iron ogee-section gutters. It has axial and lateral chimneystacks with rendered diagonally-set shafts. The main entrance lies to the north-east, marked by a porte-cochere on first floor level, with a flat roof supported on four square columns and with a glazed porch with margin glazing bars and coloured glass at its corners. The five-bay south-east garden front has twelve and sixteen-pane hornless sashes to the ground floor, with that to the right of the centre replaced by a late C20 glazed garden door. The first floor has sixteen-pane bowed sashes in raised wooden frames with decorated friezes to either side of a central, grand two-storey bowed bay with stuccoed pilasters, entablature, urn finials, large sixteen-pane bowed sashes on the first floor and a panelled and glazed garden door on the ground floor flanked by blind panels. The stringcourse continues across the front and around the side elevations of the building. The south-west elevation has three bays with to the right a full height late C19 canted bay with round arch windows. On first floor level to the left there are twelve and sixteen-pane sashes, three of which are set back with a central entrance with the outline of a former porch in stucco remaining, with on both sides late C20 concrete and steel balconies. The north-west rear elevation of the main range has a large tripartite sash window with glazing bars on the first floor.

Lawncliff and Sun House stand in north-west corner of a mature garden first laid out in the early to mid C19, offering extensive views of Falmouth and Falmouth Bay. It has a gravelled walk partly lined with mature yew trees which winds down the cliff to Falmouth Bay.

INTERIOR: The first floor interior of Lawncliff is largely intact with most C19 joinery surviving. Along the south side of an axial hall with lyncrusta on parts of the walls, are three large reception rooms with elaborate moulded plaster cornices, ceiling roses and C18 style chimney pieces. Some wood panelled window shutters survive and a C19 decorative tiled floor in the entrance porch. Sun House has limestone flags to the ground floor and some of its joinery survives.

HISTORY: Lawncliff and Sun House, formerly called Lawn Cliff, was the home of George Symons, the owner of Little Falmouth ship yard. Later it was occupied by John Trethowan, a local ship owner and builder. In the later C19 the house, by then surrounded by a large garden with a circular walk, was owned by Captain N Norway and was described by Lake in 1867-1873 as follows: `Lawn Cliff, the beautiful marine residence of N Norway, Esq., adjoins Flushing; the scenery from this interesting place is very picturesque'. In the mid C20 Lawn Cliff was converted into a hotel, and since the 1980s it has been divided into two separate private dwellings.

SOURCES: Tithe Map of Flushing, 1839 Lake's Parochial History of the County of Cornwall 1867-73, Joseph Polsne, vol iii, introduction by Charles Thomas (1974), p 396. 1st edition OS published 1888 2nd edition OS published 1907

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: Lawncliff and Sun House were built as a small country house in the mid to late C19. The building is mostly intact, despite some later alterations, and in the national context it displays good quality architectural detailing and decoration. Fairly unusual is the fact that the building's principal rooms are on first floor level with the service rooms below. Additionally, the house has a strong relationship with its surrounding landscape: it stands in a mature C19 garden on the edge of the village of Flushing (designated as a Conservation Area) and it takes a very prominent position on the north shore of the River Fal.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

63553

Legacy System:

LBS

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