Epiphany House

Epiphany House is a substantial rectory and chapel on Kenwyn Church Road in Truro. Originally built in the 18th century on an older site, it was extended and remodelled in 1878 for Bishop Benson, with a chapel added around 1906 by Edmund Sedding for Bishop Stubbs. The building served as home to The Community of the Epiphany and Truro Cathedral School until 2001, and has been used as a conference centre and Christian retreat since 2003.

The house is constructed of freestone ashlar and roughcast with freestone dressings to the front elevation, elsewhere roughly coursed local rubble with granite and brick dressings. The roof is Delabole slate with hipped ends to the front range and hipped roof dormers, gable ends elsewhere, and a coped gable to the south-west wing. Brick axial stacks and two gabled stone lateral stacks serve the rear. The building has a large irregular plan incorporating remains of a double-depth 18th-century house on the left and 19th and early 20th-century extensions. It is two storeys plus attics, with a six-window-range front elevation.

The front comprises a remodelled three-window front of the original 18th-century house on the left with a projecting gable end of the 1906 chapel, and a two-window front of a late 19th-century extension on the right. The left-hand return and right elevation feature early 19th-century hornless twelve-pane sashes and late 19th-century wooden modillions to a moulded eaves cornice. The ground floor contains three Palladian windows: one to a study bay at the far left connected to a three-bay Tuscan colonnade loggia, one set back within the loggia, and another to the right of the chapel. Within the loggia on the left is the principal doorway, which has a round arch and pediment with spoked fanlight over a pair of three-panel doors. A further doorway to the far right has an overlight with glazing bars over a panelled door.

The chapel features a coped gable end with a semi-circular broken scrolled pediment containing a niche with a small triangular pediment over, supported on three-quarter columns on consoles that flank a three-light round-arched window. The ground floor includes a large bowed three-light window with small-paned sashes. An octagonal stair turret surmounted by a round-arched cupola with bell-shaped copper roof stands in the angle left of the chapel.

The south front is a four-window range with original 18th-century ashlar, flat arches over early 19th-century sashes to the first floor, and late 19th-century horned sashes elsewhere, including a Palladian window to a flat-roofed study extension on the right. At the far left is a projecting Gothic-style gable end of a late 19th-century wing with a granite canted oriel window to the first floor and mullioned windows with hoodmoulds and four-centred-arched lights. The rear stair projection has a large four-light granite mullioned window with double transom. The chapel's rear features a freestone lunette with mutules over dentils.

The interior contains a late 18th or early 19th-century open-well stair with moulded plinths to stick balusters and a possible 18th-century plaster ceiling cornice above. Other interior work is largely late 19th-century carpentry, joinery and plasterwork with moulded and carved cornices to principal rooms. The stair hall to the right of the chapel has an early 20th-century open-well stair with triple rectangular balusters and moulded handrail. The 1906 chapel features a stone coffered barrel vault and exposed stone walls. Its fittings, including an alabaster reredos, stalls by Ninian Comper, and a large carved crucifix originally from Oberammergau, came from the former convent now known as Alverton Manor Hotel.

Historically, John Wesley, who was a friend of the vicar Richard Milles, stayed at the house in 1781. The building was formerly named Copeland Court in acknowledgement of a generous gift made by the Copeland family.