Trelaske Lodge

Summary

Former lodge, 1842, architect unknown.

Reasons for Designation

Trelaske Lodge, Lewannick, Cornwall is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* the lodge is a considered picturesque Gothic Revival design constructed in local materials, and suits it location well;
* the building retains its plan and a large proportion of its historic fabric, including decorative timber bargeboards and prominent chimney stack,

Historic interest:

* as a representation of improvements on the Trelaske estate in the C19, of which it is the sole complete survivor.

Group value:

* with a Grade II-listed milestone opposite which is visible on exiting the coach road and gives distances to Launceston and Lewannick, and which is probably contemporary.

History

The manor of Trelaske near Lewannick in north Cornwall is first recorded in 1087. After passing through the Upton and Lower families, in the mid-C18 it was inherited into the Archer family. From 1802 the estate and house were owned by Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Archer but, preferring to live near his wife’s family at Plympton, both lay derelict until his son Edward inherited the estate on his father’s death in 1822. Edward set about remodelling or rebuilding the house in a neo-classical style and landscaping the surrounding parkland. A coach road was built in 1827 from the road at Trekelland Bridge, snaking up the valley through parkland and past ornamental lakes. Edward died in 1834, and the estate was inherited by his son, also Edward, who continued his father’s work on the estate. These early-C19 developments were carefully recorded by Northmore HP Lawrence, County Clerk, for Edward Archer in 1849, including a record of the ‘new lodge built at Trekelland Bridge’ in 1842.

A design for an ‘entrance lodge at Trelaske near Launceston’ was included in a series of volumes entitled ‘Architectural works of George Wightwick’ made between 1832 and 1850 by the architect’s articled pupils (see Sources). The drawing is clearly not Trelaske Lodge as it was built, and therefore there is currently no evidence that it was designed by George Wightwick. A photograph from around 1900 shows the lodge much the same as it survives today, although all of the windows have diamond leaded lights and the stack is brick and not rendered.

The Archer family’s ownership of the Trelaske estate ended in 1959, when most of the manor house was demolished and parts of the estate were sold off.

Details

Former lodge, 1842, architect unknown.

EXTERIOR: the lodge is Gothic Revival in style, two storeys, roughly T-shaped in plan and constructed of snecked stone on a moulded plinth, with granite dressings, and granite quoins to the front elevation. The pitched roof is Delabole slate with crested ridge tiles and has decorative timber bargeboards with pendants at the corners and in the apexes; there are no bargeboards on the rear elevation. On the south-east ridge is a rendered axial stack comprising three attached diagonally-set square-profile shafts. The principal elevation faces north east and is asymmetrical. The gable end to the cross wing to the right has a two-light timber casement window with a hood mould, below which is a square bay window with a moulded cornice and hipped stone roof, set with a three-light timber mullion and transom window. To the left is a two-light mullion and transom window with a hood mould, and there is an identical window on the ground floor of the south-east elevation with a two-light timber casement window with a hood mould above. The north-west elevation has a central gable and is symmetrical apart from an added window on the first floor to the right of a central window with a timber casement and hood mould. Below this is the main entrance which has a timber panelled door, flanking which are two single windows with timber casements and hood moulds. The south-west elevation (to the rear) has an entrance fitted with a late-C20 timber door and, lighting the stairs, a single rectangular window with diamond leaded lights. Most of the ground-floor windows also have diamond leaded lights to their top panes and most of the casement windows are fixed.

Attached to the rear elevation, at the north end, is a stone-built privy with a planked timber door and corrugated plastic roof. Nothing survives internally.

INTERIOR: the main entrance leads into a sitting room which has an exposed stone wall opposite containing an inglenook with a timber lintel and cloam oven (no door), and a C20 slate hearth and woodburning stove. The bay window to the front and window to the side retain evidence of internal shutters (hinge marks) and the mullions and transoms have roll-moulds to the edges. The sitting room door is timber with three vertical panels, to the same pattern as the main external entrance door. From the sitting room, at the right-hand end of a hallway is a small kitchen (probably formerly a larder or pantry) which has four substantial meat hooks to the ceiling, a slate flag floor and a recess with a timber lintel fitted with a C20 Rayburn. The kitchen doorway has pintle hinges, but the door is the same as that to the sitting room and not fitted to them. At the other end of the hallway is a further room (possibly the original kitchen although there is no evidence of a range) with a slate flag floor and window seats. The doorcase to the hallway has pintle hinges but no door, and there is an external entrance door to the rear. The timber staircase is located off the hallway, against the rear wall, and has simple a square-section baluster and newel posts.

At the top of the stairs to the left is a small room, now a bathroom, probably adapted from another use when a new window opening was added. The two bedrooms are in the eaves and have softwood floorboards and panelled timber doors to the same pattern as the ground floor. A slate hearth remains in one room although the fireplace has been removed and blocked.

Sources

Books and journals
Newberry, P, The Country Houses of Cornwall, (2023), 154-155

Websites
RIBAPix ‘Design for an entrance lodge, Trelaske: plans and front elevation’, accessed 12/03/2024 from https://www.ribapix.com/Design-for-an-entrance-lodge-Trelaske-plans-and-front-elevation_RIBA82988
Landed families of Britain and Ireland: Archer of Trelaske, accessed 12/03/2024 from https://landedfamilies.blogspot.com/2015/05/165-archer-of-trelaske.html
Heritage Gateway: Cornwall and Scilly HER (Trelaske settlement), accessed 12/03/2024 from https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MCO11441&resourceID=1020
Heritage Gateway: Cornwall and Scilly HER (Trelaske House), accessed 12/03/2024 from https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MCO10954&resourceID=1020

Other
‘The Trelaske Book or A Collection of Ancient Papers and Documents connected with the Manor and Estate of Trelaske Arranged for me by Mr Northmore HP Lawrence in 1849’ Kresen Kernow - AD47/16

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