Trecarrell Manor

Trecarrell Manor is a grade I listed manor house, now a farmhouse, located in Lezant parish. Built in the early 16th century for Sir Henry Trecarrel on an earlier site, the house was left unfinished around 1511 and subsequently extended in the late 17th and late 18th centuries, with later additions and alterations.

The building comprises a basic L-plan with a hall range aligned south-west to north-east and a range at right angles to its lower end. The hall range is constructed of granite ashlar to its long sides with roughly coursed slate-stone and polyphant to the gable ends. The farmhouse range is built of roughly coursed slate-stone with granite quoins, mainly rendered to the west side. All sections are roofed in slate.

The hall range is single storey with a moulded plinth, while the remainder of the building is two storeys. The south side of the hall range features a tall 4-light window with ogee heads, transom, carved spandrels and intersecting panel tracery to the top. Two similar 4-centred 3-light windows stand to the right, with a square-headed 4-light window below the rightmost one, probably inserted in the mid-17th century though its mouldings and carved spandrels reuse early 16th-century work. A slightly recessed moulded 4-centred archway provides the entrance to the screens passage. The arch is decorated with carved leaf spandrels and a segmental tympanum above bearing carved leaf decoration and the Trecarrel arms impaling those of the Kelway family (his wife's family) at the centre. A 20th-century ledged door with internal strap hinges now closes this opening. A stepped buttress stands at the south-east corner; the east wall above the granite blocks to its base was largely rebuilt in the mid-20th century. A single-storey lean-to abuts the building at this point.

The north side of the hall range has two 3-light windows corresponding to those on the south, and a moulded 4-centred arch with carved leaf decoration to its spandrels leading to the screens passage. Tusking appears to either side of the windows, and an integral lateral stack with a tapering shaft stands immediately to the right of the right window. A neatly infilled segmental arch at the far right probably gave access to an external staircase leading to an intended or demolished solar. Evidence for the solar is visible in the west wall, which shows an infilled fireplace with a large granite lintel at ground floor level and a fireplace with moulded jambs and a lintel with an ogee-shaped cut at first-floor level to the right. At first-floor level to the left is the outline of part of a round-headed arch, probably associated with a peep-hole visible internally. Tusking appears at the right corner.

The east (farmhouse) range has a 2-storey lean-to running most of its length with a straight joint to the right, the section to the right being early 20th-century work. The main section of the lean-to has four small chamfered mullion windows on each floor (the outer first-floor window has had its mullions removed), with two to each side of a moulded segmental arch with a 20th-century boarded door. All have wooden casements except the inner right window on the first floor, which retains leaded latticed lights. The windows and doorway have probably been relocated from a previous front wall. The section to the right of the straight joint has a doorway immediately to the right and a small casement on the first floor. The main range has a small inserted integral brick end stack to the left, a large granite ridge stack with chamfered drips and capping between the third and fourth windows from the left in the lean-to, and a slender integral lateral brick stack at the junction with the lean-to (on the line with the straight joint). An integral end stack to the right is similar to the ridge stack. A lean-to projection runs beneath.

The west side comprises a section to the left of the ridge stack in three bays, with tripartite horned glazing bar sashes, those to the ground floor having slate-stone voussoirs and keystones to segmental heads. A central flat-roofed porch, reusing the segmental head and carved spandrels of an earlier arch, has a 6-panel door, boarded to the bottom. The section to the right of the ridge stack has an infilled window on each floor to the left and unhorned tripartite sashes on each floor to the right, with ground-floor openings both segmental-headed. A late 19th-century casement appears at the far right on the first floor.

Internally, the hall range has a moulded arch-braced collar truss roof in ten short bays with moulded purlins forming four panels to each side of a moulded ridge-piece. The celure at the lower end has St Andrew's Cross to each panel, with the upper three on each side intersecting with a foliated cross as found in the Church of St Michael, Lawhitton Rural CP. The wall-plate is richly moulded. A doorway in the north corner of the east wall leads to the former service end and has a reset granite pillar adjoining it in the angle with the north wall. The integral lateral stack features a richly moulded granite fireplace with an ogee cut to its lintel and a segmental-headed polyphant relieving arch. A fireplace with a wood lintel at first-floor level at the west end was inserted after mid-17th-century flooring over of the hall. An infilled rectangular slit peep-hole opens from the intended solar to the right. The slate floor of the hall is 20th-century and is raised to the former dais end.

The farmhouse range contains infilled inglenook fireplaces, plastered-over ceiling beams, inset panelled wall cupboards and plank doors. Panelled window shutters survive to the unhorned tripartite sash on the ground floor to the west side. A north ground-floor room has a richly decorated wooden cornice. A 19th-century dog-leg staircase in the hall, behind a 6-panel door, has slender turned newels, stick balusters (two to each tread) and a carved open string. Further plank and panelled doors appear on the first floor, and a wooden spiral staircase gives access to the roof space. This has a 17th-century collar truss roof in seven bays with through purlins to the north of the ridge stack. Access to the section south of the ridge stack is not possible, but this area appears to have five jointed upper crucks, truncated to the top, which may be contemporary with the hall roof.

Local tradition records that Trecarrel abandoned work on the house in 1511 following the death of his infant son and subsequently devoted his attention to rebuilding the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Launceston, which bears the date 1511 on its south porch and shares several stylistic affinities with Trecarrel Manor. It is likely that Trecarrel originally envisaged a courtyard plan for his house, but only the south (hall) range and part of the east range (the section with the upper cruck roof) were completed. The east range may have been built as a detached kitchen block, though positive evidence is lacking. Although the great number of early 16th-century architectural fragments on the site appear to be unused and were presumably abandoned when building work ceased, more may have been constructed than now survives. A reference to a chapel in 1405 and the discovery in 1987 of a Romanesque capital indicate that buildings occupied this site before Trecarrel commenced his work.

The hall was probably still open to the roof in 1644 when Charles I stayed here, but was floored over soon after and later used as a barn. The floor was removed and the hall restored in the early 1960s. None of the hall windows is grooved for glazing; all have iron bars with transoms to which glass would have been fixed by twisted leading.

Sir Henry Trecarrel was Mayor of Launceston in 1536 and 1543, and died in 1544.

The building is a scheduled ancient monument (County No. 577).