Chacewater Literary Institute

Chacewater Literary Institute, built in 1893, was designed by W.J. Wills for John Passmore Edwards, who funded its construction. It is a literary institute with a front wall. The building is constructed of dressed rock-faced granite, brought to course, with dressed granite quoins, sills, string, copings, jambstones, mullions, and arches. It has gable-ended dry Delabole slate roofs with alternating arcaded clay ridge tiles. The plan consists of two main rooms flanking a central passage; the room to the right (east) projects further to the rear. There are also two smaller, contemporary rooms linked to the rear of the room to the left, connected by an axial passage. Each room has a separate roof with a ridge at right angles to the street, except for the central roof, which is parallel to the street and linked to the roof of the principal room on either side.

The building is single-storied, with a symmetrical two-window front facing the street. There are three granite steps leading to a keyed round-headed doorway flanked by identical tall gable ends. The doorway has pilaster jambs, an original pair of three-panel doors, and coloured leaded panes to the fanlight. Above the doorway is a nowy-headed building name plaque, forming a parapet surmounted by a scrolled plaque bearing the donor's initials, a scrolled pediment with finial, and the date within a tympanum, with raised numerals and letters. Each flanking gable end features a plinth, impost string, gable copings, pedestals with finials over kneelers, and ridge acroteria. A central blind quatrefoil is positioned over each window. The windows are tripartite, with stepped round-headed lights and moulded hoods; the tympana contain coloured leaded glass with a central quatrefoil design. A foundation stone, laid by the donor, is located to the left of the doorway.

The interior has seen little alteration, with arched bracing to the roof carried on granite corbels. A low granite-coped wall runs along the front. The Chacewater Literary Institute is the second of four institutes in Cornwall donated by Passmore Edwards and is a notable late Victorian architectural statement within a street containing many good 19th-century buildings.