Sir Robert Harvey Memorial Hall

Summary

A village hall of 1933 by the prolific Cornish practice of Cowell, Drewitt & Wheatly, in the Arts and Crafts style.

Reasons for Designation

Sir Robert Harvey Memorial Hall at Grampound Road, a village hall of 1933 by Cowell, Drewitt & Wheatly, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Architectural interest: as an assured and striking articulation of Arts and Crafts architecture in a design that responds to the traditions and tastes of its locality, expressing civic pride in its historical references and scale and being designed by a practice of regional importance;
* Interior design: the hall has well-proportioned rooms handsomely fitted out and decorated to provide a unified architectural ensemble of quality;
* Historic interest: the hall was built in memory of Sir Robert Harvey, an important figure in the C19 nitrate trade, the Cornish tourism industry and in the political life of Cornwall and Devon;
* Intactness: a significant proportion of its original fabric and decoration remains intact;
* Context: the hall’s frontage with an ornamental well, constructed of local stone and slate on the lawn, adds interest as part of a village hall set-piece.

History

Cornish by birth, Robert Harvey (1847-1930) became a prominent producer in the nitrate industry of the late C19, making his fortune in Bolivia, Peru and Chile before returning to Cornwall in 1885 and purchasing the Trenowth Estate to the west of the village of Grampound Road. He invested in the Cornish tourism industry, forming a partnership in the Cornish Hotels Company with architect Silvanus Trevail, along with returning émigrés George Hicks and John Jose. Harvey served as High Sheriff in both Devon and Cornwall towards the end of the C19 and was knighted in 1901.

Following Harvey’s death in 1930 his son Robert Alexander Harvey commissioned architects Cowell, Drewitt & Wheatly to design a village hall in Grampound Road in his father’s memory. The architects had previously designed a Neo-Georgian house for Sir Robert one mile to the west (Trenowth, 1929). The hall was opened as the Sir Robert Harvey Memorial Hall by Averil Harvey on 23 December 1933. The building has been in community use since that time and in the early C21 has had a new kitchen, additional heating, solar panels installed on part of one roof slope, and a wood pellet boilerhouse built in the grounds.

Details

A village hall of 1933 by Cowell, Drewitt & Wheatly for Robert Alexander Harvey.

MATERIALS: constructed of concrete and steel with a rough cement render and Delabole slate roofs, and stone and slate details. The fireplaces are built of rubble stone with brick and slate detailing. There is timber joinery including panelling, partitioning, doors and balustrades. The windows are metal casements set in timber frames.

PLAN: single-storey on an L-plan to form two adjoining halls with service rooms and conveniences between. The main north/south hall has a storage loft at the north end and a first-floor projection booth at the south end.

EXTERIOR: using local materials on the Arts and Crafts theme, the village hall is chiefly characterised by its deep half-hipped roofs covered in Delabole slate. The walls covered in thick rough render with regularly-spaced buttresses, curved in the Voysey style, and with slate offsets. The main entrance is in the south end of the main hall under a portico with sandstone Doric columns, a vaulted roof and a slate-hung projection booth above. The upper room has a plank door to the right and a south window. The west door to the main wing is in a full-height projecting porch, set within the roofs at the junction of both wings. It has a wide opening of slender, polychromatic stone pieces and in the right jamb at lower level is a granite foundation stone inscribed: THIS STONE WAS LAID BY/ AVERIL HARVEY/ DECEMBER 23rd 1933. The doorway has a deep reveal and a round-arched head under a shallow hood with label stops. The timber two-leaf doors have cast-iron decorative strap hinges. The two stone steps are riven and patterned. In the gable is a narrow single-light opening with slender stone jambs and a stone cill and lintel. The eaves have stone kneelers. The west gable of the smaller wing also has a door under a round arch. It has five sets of triple stone pieces forming voussoirs to the head. The door has plain strap hinges and there is a three-light opening above.

Across the building there are slate vents at ground level and angled slate cills to the windows. There are three tall rendered stacks to the roofs.

INTERIOR: the main hall has five exposed arch-braced trusses with decorative rose, foliate and patterned painting to both faces and the underside, and insignia RH for Robert Harvey to south faces. The trusses rest on stepped corbels also painted with roses (those at the north end have been overpainted). At the south end, above the metal-studded door are openings in the gable: one for a projector and one for the projectionist to view from. In the east wall is a wide stone fireplace with a flared smokehood covered in slate and supported on tile stacks above a brick hearth. Above, the substantial bressumer is painted: THIS HALL WAS ERECTED FOR THE PEOPLE OF GRAMPOUND ROAD/ IN MEMORY OF SIR ROBERT HARVEY KT. 1847-1930/ BY HIS SON ROBERT ALEXANDER HARVEY OF TRENOWTH. At the north end is a modern stage with re-set 1930s balustrades to each side. A ladder leads to upper doors at the north end to a lofted storage area. At ground-floor level at the north end is a modern kitchen and a storage area.

By the storage area is a rear corridor serving a back door, former coal cupboard and the toilets, which are screened by timber panelled partitions that form cloakrooms with pegs. The area connects with the lobby from the west door of the main hall, which has double doors, glazed above, that lead back into the main hall. To the west is the smaller hall with three open trusses on stepped corbels. The fireplace in the north wall has windowseats built to both sides of the hearth. The fireplace has stone detailing and a slate hearth. Most of the doors in the building are original with their original furniture.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: in the grounds to the south west is a well with handpump under a conical roof covered in Delabole slate and supported on four round columns constructed of rubble stone. The base of the well is paved.

Sources

Books and journals
Beacham, P, Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Cornwall, (2014), 223

Websites
The Cornish in Latin America - Sir Robert Harvey, accessed 26/11/2015 from http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/cornishlatin/Sirrobertharvey.htm

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Print the official list entry