Murdoch House

Summary

House, now meeting room and offices; mid to late-C18, rebuilt after 1922.

Reasons for Designation

Murdoch House, built in the mid-late C18 and rebuilt after 1922, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Historic interest:

* for its association with the influential Scottish inventor William Murdoch who lived at the house in the late C18;
* as the first house in the world to be lit by piped gas, one of Murdoch’s experiments, in 1794;
* as part of continual improvements in Redruth into the C20 when it became an educational and cultural centre.

Architectural interest:

* despite losses, rebuilding and renovation, the building retains some late-C18 fabric including the principal character of its north elevation.

Group value:

* with several nearby Grade II-listed structures and buildings, including St Rumon's Cross.

History

The building known today as Murdoch House was probably constructed in the late mid to late-C18, possibly as a replacement to a mid-C17 building which, in turn, was on the site of the medieval St Rumon’s Chapel, which had been abandoned in the C17. Little is known about the early history of the present building, which is most-well known as William Murdoch’s place of residence from 1782 to 1798.

William Murdoch (1754-1839 sometimes cited as Murdock), was a Scottish inventor and engineer who made significant contributions to the advance of technology in four major areas: steam-engine design, self-propelled vehicles, machine tools, and gas lighting. Early in his career, in 1779, he was sent to Cornwall by his employers, Boulton and Watt of Birmingham, as their technical supervisor to create a steam engine for the Cornish mines. The engine was intended to solve the increasing problem of pumping water from the deeper mines and led to his invention of the ‘sun and planet’ gearing system, first implemented at a small winding engine at Wheal Maid near St Day in around 1781. This remained an essential mechanical device during the early years of the Industrial Revolution. Murdoch moved to Cross Street in Redruth in 1782 and produced a variety of successful engineering projects during his time at there, many of which were used for steam power engineering for many years. Additionally, he pioneered a way to use isinglass finings to clarify beer and created the first low-pressure steam locomotive ‘The Murdoch Flyer’ in 1785; this was later developed in Camborne by Richard Trevithick into the Puffing Devil in 1801. From 1792 Murdoch experimented with piped gas as a means of lighting. In 1794 he set up a large retort in the back yard of his house on Cross Street and used distilled coal gas to light the living room of the house, making it the first house in the world to be lit by piped gas. Murdoch’s discovery was the foundation for the gas industry of today.

There is little reliable evidence for the layout of the house and its curtilage during the period of Murdoch’s occupation in the late-C18. The first clear depiction of the building is on a 1854-1855 Board of Health map which shows the house in outline with yards to its north and south. In the latter half of the C19 the house was used as Penaluna Eating House, a shop and restaurant that acted as a hotel taking in lodgers. The site continued to be a refreshment house in the early-C20, trading as J Battens Refreshment House. Historic photographs from around this time show the south elevation with a central entrance door approached by a flight of three steps, with a large shop window to the right and a cellar entrance to the left.

The house was badly damaged by a fire on 13 July 1922 when it was in use as a second-hand furniture store. Newspaper reports from the time suggest that the interior was gutted, with the walls and roof still standing, although the roof was partially damaged. The reports also highlighted the importance of the building as Murdoch’s former home. In 1931 it was purchased by Arthur Pearce Jenkin (1863-1940), a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers). Jenkin restored the house including the reconstruction of the ground floor to form a meeting room to hold 70 people, and two rooms were refurbished on the first floor to create a library/office and a smaller meeting room. A large external flight of stairs on the south elevation allowed external access to the first floor. The builder, Mr Tom Martin of Redruth, discovered a blacksmith’s forge or fireplace in the cellar which was said to be where Murdoch created his inventions. By 1933 the building was established as an educational and cultural centre for Redruth. The building continues to provide a venue and offices for local societies.

Details

House, now meeting room and offices; mid to late-C18, rebuilt after 1922.

MATERIALS: constructed of granite rubble with parts rendered, slate hung and painted. External brick and stone staircase on the south elevation; Delabole slate pitched roof with brick chimneys. Timber six-over-six sash windows unless stated.

PLAN: two storeys with attic and basement, single-depth two-unit roughly rectangular plan. The principal front faces north, but the public-facing elevation is on the south side facing onto a small public square.

EXTERIOR: the principal front elevation (north) is almost symmetrical; it is rendered with a modillioned eaves cornice under a pitched roof with gable stacks. Offset to the right is an entrance doorway with a six-panelled door under an overlight, with two sash windows on the first and ground floor. There are two gabled slate-hung dormers in the roof, with three-over-six sashes. The south elevation is rendered to the ground floor and slate-hung above. It is mostly obscured at ground-floor level by an external red-brick staircase with an inset timber doorway at the ground floor. The steps are flanked by sash windows. There is a C20 doorway at the top of the steps into the first floor, with a sash window to the right and a small nine-pane fixed window further to the right. The west elevation is mostly obscured by its proximity to the ruins of the Druid’s Hall. On the painted east elevation to Cross Street is a tablet erected by Tangye Brothers of Birmingham in the late-C19, which records that William Murdoch lived in the house.

INTERIOR: the interior of the building was much altered after the 1922 fire. The ground floor room has C20 cross beams, and the cellar is accessible from this space via a hatch. A C20 timber dogleg staircase leads from a small lobby on the south side of the building to the first floor where there are two spaces, now offices; both have post-1922 timber fire-surrounds. The attic rooms have exposed principal rafters and purlins likely to be survivals from the historic roof structure. The interior finishes and joinery are largely C20, having been rebuilt after the 1922 fire and also refurbished in 1987.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

66815

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Beacham, P, Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Cornwall, (2014), 473

Websites
Cornwall & Scilly Historic Environment Record, accessed 15/03/2022 from https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MCO61815&resourceID=1020
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: William Murdock, accessed 15/03/2022 from https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/19561
Murdoch House, accessed 15/03/2022 from https://murdochhouse.org.uk/
Redruth Town Trail, accessed 15/03/2022 from https://www.chycor.co.uk/redruth/page5.htm
Cornish Memory historic photographs, accessed 15/03/2022 from https://cornishmemory.com/items/browse?search=murdoch
ArtUK: Murdoch House, Cross Street, RH Penprase, 1897, accessed 15/03/2022 from https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/murdoch-house-cross-street-15144

Other
Ordnance Survey, Cornwall (1:500 Town Plan, pub.1879)
1825 plan of Pedn-an-drea and Wheal Sparnon Mine Sett (Kresen Kernow, MRD/R119B)
Board of Health plan, 1854-5 (Kresen Kernow, DCKER/326/9)
The Daily Graphic, 25 March 1893
‘The Destruction of Murdock’s House: Redruth catastrophe’, in The Cornubian, 20 July 1922, pp2-3
‘Murdoch House’, in The West Briton and Royal Cornwall Gazette, Thursday 2 April 1959, p13

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