Trelissick House And Walls Surrounding

Trelissick House and Walls Surrounding

Large country house with associated walling, built circa 1750 for John Laurence by the architect Davey (grandfather of Sir Humphrey Davey). The house was largely remodelled and extended during the 1820s for Thomas Daniell, with further extensions added in the later 19th century.

The main structure consists of stucco over stone rubble and brick on the south and west fronts, with hipped roofs of dry Delabole slate above parapets and stuccoed brick chimneys positioned over partition and side walls. The original plan appears to have been a 2-rooms wide double-depth house, which survives within and to the rear (north) of the south portico. Single-storey wings were added to the left (east) and right (west) of the original house in the early 19th century, along with a left-hand side entrance front (west) and front (south) porticos. These wings were later heightened, and a further wing was added to the north of the west front, accompanied by service wings to the rear (later partly demolished). A solarium to the right (east) of the south front was rebuilt in its present form circa 1930s.

The house is two storeys plus attic. The symmetrical south front comprises 3:5:3 bays plus a 3-bay solarium to the right. The wings flanking the portico on the west front feature a plinth, wide string course, moulded window architraves, a moulded cornice with egg and dart enrichment, and a plain parapet. Windows are sashes with glazing bars to first-floor sashes. A giant hexastyle Ionic portico screens the recessed 5-window front of the original house at lower level. Behind the portico is a wide 12-light roof dormer, a circa 1900 alteration made for a billiard room, with small flanking dormers. The solarium has a central Ionic doorway. The west entrance front is 3:3:2 bays, with each group of bays broken forward from the left. A tetrastyle Doric portico with fluted columns and triglyphs to the frieze stands before the middle group of bays. Windows are horned 12-pane sashes, except for two early 19th-century windows with crown glass flanking the doorway within the portico. There are four roof dormers with pediments.

The interior contains a wealth of early and later 19th-century panelling in oak and mahogany, oak and mahogany doors, window shutters, plaster ceiling cornices and bands. The west entrance hall has panelled walls and a plastered ceiling divided into six panels with two shell roses. A doorway leading from the entrance hall to the stair hall is flanked by two Doric columns. The oak-panelled stair hall with a lantern over it contains an open-well open-string stair with iron balusters, some decorated with trailing vine and rose motifs. Underneath the stair are guilloche-moulded bands, and fine plaster ceiling cornices; the cornice under the lantern is enriched with egg and dart detail. The stair hall probably occupies the walls of the rear rooms of the original 18th-century house.

The front rooms of the original house adjoin but were remodelled in the early 19th century with dado panelling in both rooms. The west room has an acanthus cornice and a trailing harvest ceiling band. A marble fireplace surround may be reused from the 18th century. The new library, formerly the dining room, to the east of the original house, has a chimney piece and doorcases with enriched pulvinated friezes and cornices with dentils and other detail, all in mid-18th-century style, possibly inspired by original decoration that survived in the 18th-century house. The drawing room to the west of the original house features much fine detail, including a deeply coved cornice and band, mahogany doors with fluted friezes over them, and a fine marble chimney piece with caryatids. Circa 1880 silk coverings with stylized plant design fill panels surrounding the room. The library to the north of the entrance hall has a deeply coved ceiling with double tiers of acanthus leaves and bead decoration to window shutter panels. Additional fine detail appears in further first-floor rooms. Rooms over the west room of the original house and an adjoining dressing room retain possibly original mid-18th-century ceiling cornices and therefore retain evidence of the original plan of the house, including evidence that the entrance passage originally lay under the dressing room.

The property includes adjoining granite-coped walling surrounding the rear service area and low coped walls before the front. Trelissick is a complicated house where later accretions have been cunningly absorbed to give the appearance of being original and of one period. The early 19th-century interiors are very complete.