Trevego

Trevego is a dower house, later adapted as a farmhouse, built in the late 16th century for the widow of Sir William Mohun, who purchased Boconnoc in 1579. The house is constructed of rubblestone with a 19th-century slate roof featuring gabled ends and an asymmetrical gable end to the front projecting wing. It has massive stone square stacks on gable ends and a projecting wing to the rear. The original plan included a cross passage and a staircase within the projecting wing to the rear; a later staircase was added, and the house was extended to the rear in the mid-19th century.

The east front is asymmetrical, with four windows and a projecting wing to the right, the central part set slightly forward. A straight joint runs towards the left-hand gable end. The ground floor has a 20th-century three-light casement with glazing bars to the right of an early 20th-century plank door. There are also two- and three-light 20th-century casements to the right. A C20 porch with a plank door and hipped roof shelters the entrance door at the junction with the projecting gabled wing, which also has a three-light window. Above, four three-light casements with glazing bars are visible.

The ground-floor rooms have been altered. Doorcases flanking the staircase on the north side have ovolo moulded frames with scroll stops and small pyramids at the bases. A large fireplace on the left-hand (south) gable end is partly blocked, extending across the full length of the gable. One room on the north side was originally panelled with fine plasterwork. A framed staircase leads from the ground to the first floor, and another from the first to the attic. The mid to late 17th-century oak staircase has a closed string, ovolo moulded and stopped square newels with flat bun finials, vase-turned balusters, and a heavy moulded handrail. The first-floor rooms on the south side contain elaborately plastered ceilings from around the early 17th century, now partially divided by a plasterboard partition. The ceiling has a ribbed layout with figures in deep relief holding garlands of flowers, surrounded by ovals of foliage. A simple bolection moulded fireplace, with a panelled upper section continuing to the cornice, frames a painted board bearing the text, “strive for the truth unto death, and defend justice for thy life, and the Lord God shall fight for thee against thine enemies.”

A central first-floor room is now partly divided. A 17th-century doorcase displays ovolo moulding and scroll stops, leading to a two-panelled door. The ceiling has coved plasterwork with intertwined foliage and shells, dating back to the 17th century. A fireplace is surmounted by plasterwork depicting the heraldic arms of the Hawkey family, who were granted arms in 1656 (possibly slightly predating the granting). A first-floor room on the north side contains a small, deep niche on the rear wall, with a painted head and a granite shelf.

The roof has 10 bays with cambered, chamfered collars, side-pegged and pegged at the apex. Roof timbers to the projecting gable end on the front are covered over.

Trevego passed from the Mohun family to the Knapman family and then, by marriage, to the Hawkeys. Information relating to the plasterwork and staircase is illustrated in H Lander’s House and Cottage Interiors, 1982, pages 62 and 83.