Pebbles

Pebbles, Fore Street, St Day

A grade II listed account house with shop, built in the early 19th century for Collan Harvey. The building is arguably the most important surviving commercial building in St Day, a mining village that was once at the centre of what was claimed to be the richest square mile in the world, based on the extraction of tin, copper and other metals from the surrounding area.

The structure is constructed of probable rubble and studwork, rendered in splatterdash on stucco or render with stucco or render detail. The roof features asbestos slate to the front, slatehanging to the right-hand gable end, and original bitumen-grouted scantle slate at the rear and to the wings. The end stacks are rendered, and cast-iron ogee gutters run along the eaves. The building has an overall U-shaped single-depth plan with short rear wings set at right angles to either end.

The two-storey front elevation presents a six-window range of slightly irregular but broadly symmetrical appearance. The windows are mostly original hornless sashes with glazing bars, except for a wider 20-pane fixed light to the first-floor left and two later 12-pane horned sashes above the shop front at left and right. The shop front is a double frontage with an overlight featuring vertical glazing bars, over a central pair of glazed doors, with paired sashes flanking them and a similar original paired sash centrally above. The house doorway towards the left has an overlight with leaded coloured glass and a panelled and glazed door. The left-hand return, a three-window range, features six original 16-pane hornless sashes.

The ground floor contains a room on either side of an entrance hall on the left, and a wide shop on the right. The first floor has four rooms along the front, with the right-hand room extending deeper. It is likely that the entire area above the shop was originally one large room, used for board meetings and business luncheons.

Stucco or render detail includes a plinth, mid-floor string, window architraves and framing resembling a strutted tie-beam truss to the left-hand gable.

The interior, not fully inspected but noted as having simple features reflecting its commercial origins, contains two old or original staircases, the main staircase following an L-plan. The left-hand front room retains panelled shutters. Original floor and roof structures survive.

Collan Harvey built this as his shop, the largest general store in the parish, and operated his notorious "Truck" system from here, by which he enriched himself while impoverishing the miners. Harvey also built the adjoining Carew House where he lived, and other buildings in St Day. He became wealthy enough to move to Pengreep, where he died in 1846 and was buried at St Day. His son Richard continued the business after his death; the truck system remained in operation for some 60 years. The building additionally served as the Account House for mines owned by the Williams family (to whom Harvey was related by marriage), where all business from the mines was transacted.

Count houses are a rare building type, and this is a remarkably complete surviving example.