Tremayne House

Tremayne House is a farmhouse dating from the 17th century or earlier, which was remodelled in the 18th century, substantially remodelled in the early 19th century, and extended to become a small country house in the early to mid 19th century.

The building is constructed of incised stucco over rubble with granite and slate sills. The roof is of scantle slate with original wooden launders carried on paired brackets, hipped except for a gable end on the right with a brick chimney over. There are brick chimneys over the original rear wall (now an axial wall), over the original left-hand gable end wall (now a cross wall), and over the side walls of the cross wings.

The original plan appears to have been a 3-room through-passage design, with a lower end room to the left of the passage, a hall to the right, and an inner room at the far right, built against a bank. In the 18th century, the hall and lower end room were retained as two front reception rooms and a hipped stair wing was added at the rear of the passage, possibly with service room outshuts on either side. In the early 19th century, the house was greatly extended with a new parlour and dining room in a cross wing projecting at right angles from the front and rear, with a further parlour in the rear part and a butler's pantry between them. Additional wings were added for servants' quarters between the rear parlour and stair wing, a kitchen and service wing at the rear right of the stair hall, and an axial passage behind the original hall. The original inner room at the far right survives in remodelled form as the present kitchen. Recesses remodelled as niches in the axial wall to the right of the cross passage may be window openings of the 17th century house, which probably originally faced roughly north.

The house is of two storeys. The front elevation has a rectangular plan with a 1:4:1 bay arrangement, roughly facing south. The arrangement comprises a 4-window front of 18th-century remodelled design in the middle, a 1-bay slightly recessed section from the original house on the right, and an early 19th-century projecting hipped parlour wing on the left. The central part has a wide doorway in its original position beneath the second window from the left on the first floor. The door is an 18th or early 19th-century 6-panel door with an elliptical-arched fanlight over. The early 19th-century parlour bay has ground and first floor 3-light bowed windows with 24-pane hornless sashes to the middle lights and 18-pane hornless sashes to the sidelights. Most other windows are early 19th-century 12-pane hornless sashes. There are three 2-light Gothic style windows lighting the rear of the parlour range: one on the ground floor of the left-hand wall and two at the rear overlooking a small garden. All have similar details with octagonal panes, but the rear ones have Y-traceried heads with quarterfoil pierced spandrels and pointed stucco hoodmoulds. The stair window is round-headed with a fanlight-headed sash.

A particularly interesting feature of the rear is a louvred pantry, complete and unaltered.

The interior is predominantly early 19th-century in character, with 6-panel doors, moulded architraves with corner blocks, and moulded and enriched plaster ceiling cornices and bands to the reception areas. Several chimney-pieces are present, some with hob grates. The geometric stair is open-well, open-string and cantilevered, with an ornate cast iron balustrade and mahogany handrail scrolled over the curtail bottom step. A high panelled dado, probably of later 19th-century date, is also present. The ceiling of the stair hall, with a modillioned cornice, is 18th-century, as are some fielded panelled doors to the chambers, which were refurbished in the early 19th century with bead mouldings to one side.

In the front room to the right of the passage (the original hall of the 17th-century house) is the original circa early 17th-century splayed moulded granite fireplace with 4-sided pyramid and ball stops. In the chamber above is a curious wooden Gothic-headed chimney piece, probably of 19th-century date, with diabolo stops.

Tremayne House is essentially a good quality early 19th-century house. The surviving 17th and 18th-century features explain its slightly unusual plan and give it additional historical interest.