Bosvathick House Including Adjoining Walls To West

Bosvathick House is a country house of late 17th or early 18th-century origin, significantly extended and remodelled in the early to mid 19th century and again around 1895. It is constructed of granite ashlar on the south front with dressed granite and granite dressings to the rear, beneath slate hipped roofs with red clay ridge tiles and deep eaves. The chimneys are granite ashlar with cornices and weathered caps.

The house plan reveals its complex development. The original late 17th or early 18th-century structure survives as a five-bay south front containing what were originally two principal front rooms and a central entrance hall, now arranged as drawing rooms with the entrance reoriented to the right side. The early to mid 19th-century remodelling introduced a single-storey rear wing to the right and a porch to the right side, completely reorganising the interior. Around 1895, this rear wing was raised to two storeys and extended along the back and left side, with a library projecting to the left of the south front and creating a small central courtyard. Fragments of what is probably a 16th-century house survive as granite doorways reused in the adjoining garden walls and outbuilding to the west.

The exterior is two storeys. The south front's original section, to the right, presents a symmetrical five-bay front of granite ashlar with a cavetto moulded plinth and torus moulded string course at first floor level. The windows have flat granite arches and cills; the original openings now contain early to mid 19th-century twelve-pane sashes, with the central first floor window slightly wider. The central ground floor window occupies the position of the original pedimented front doorway. An illustration dated 1782 in the owner's possession shows a much steeper hipped roof; the existing roof appears to be a 19th-century replacement with deep eaves.

To the left, the circa 1895 wing projects slightly with a two-storey granite canted bay containing sashes without glazing bars on each side and a moulded string course at first floor level. The left-hand return of this addition is pebble-dash rendered with twelve-pane sashes. The right-hand return, where the original house wall appears to have been rebuilt in the early to mid 19th century when this elevation became the entrance front, features early to mid 19th-century twelve-pane sashes and a large granite ashlar porch with quoins, heavy cornice and blocking course. The porch has a round-arched doorway with similarly arched windows on either side and contains a plaster modillion cornice and lantern with acanthus decoration inside. To the right of the porch, a single-storey three-window range (now the dining room) with tall twelve-pane sashes was added; around 1895 a second storey was added above with smaller twelve-pane sashes. The rear north elevation has a three-window range of sashes and a projecting hipped roof wing to the right. A well at the rear encloses the service yard.

The adjoining garden wall to the west is of granite rubble with a 16th-century four-centred arch granite doorway incorporated into it; another similar doorway is reused in a small lean-to outbuilding on the north side of the wall. There is also a section of low wall with late 17th or early 18th-century coping.

The interior contains principal rooms on the south front arranged as drawing rooms, refitted in the mid to late 19th century with mid 19th-century plasterwork and what appears to be earlier 19th-century joinery, though the chimney-pieces are late 19th-century. The circa 1895 west wing contains the library facing the south garden, complete with late 19th-century chimney-piece and moulded cornice. The dining room to the back has a late 19th-century black marble chimney-piece and moulded cornice, with window shutters appearing to be early 19th-century. The stairhall has a modillion cornice and late 19th-century staircase. The entrance vestibule likewise has a modillion cornice and an elaborate wooden chimney-piece incorporating a clock.

Bosvathick has been the seat of the Horsfords since the late 18th century.