Trewitten

Trewitten is a house dating to around the early 17th century or possibly earlier, constructed of slate stone rubble with a rag slate roof and gable ends. The building features a particularly interesting and rare early 17th-century two-room plan with a through passage, which survives largely unaltered.

The house follows a distinctive layout. The entrance opens directly into the smaller room on the right side, which was possibly originally unheated. A blocked drain hole is visible in the lower right-hand gable end, suggesting this room may have functioned as a shippon, though the small size and lack of ventilation slits make this uncertain. A thick wall containing a chimney flue is positioned on the higher left-hand side of the passage, with no evidence of a screen on the lower right-hand side. The larger hall room on the left is heated by an axial stack that backs onto the passage and is lit by a window in a two-storey projecting bay on the higher side of the rear elevation. A relatively large semicircular newel stair contained within a rectangular stair turret to the right of the front elevation provides access to the chamber above the lower end and probably originally to a chamber above the left-hand room. It remains uncertain whether the hall was originally open to the roof, though it is probable it was floored.

The building is two storeys with an asymmetrical three-window front. The hall on the left has no ground floor window on the front elevation, with only a small single-light window lighting the chamber above. The stair turret is lit by a small casement window. To the right are a twentieth-century part-glazed plank door and two-light casements on both ground and first floors, with rendered lintels. The rear elevation has a three-window front with the two-storey hall bay projection on the higher side and a service outshot to the rear of the lower end.

Several alterations have been documented. Around the 18th century, a fireplace was inserted in the lower right-hand gable end to heat the right-hand room. An outbuilding of rectangular plan was added to the higher left-hand gable end in around the early 19th century, and further outbuildings and service rooms were added to the rear right and right-hand gable end in the mid to late 19th century.

The interior retains the through passage with no evidence of a partition on the lower side. The hall has a twentieth-century fireplace backing onto the passage with a curved side on the left possibly for an oven. The chamfered ceiling beams show no stops. A turretted stair with slate treads fronts the hall. The roof structure, not fully accessible, appears to have been replaced around the early 19th century, featuring a single truss above the lower room and two trusses above the hall; these are notably straight with collars lapped and pegged onto the face of the principals. The drain hole in the lower right-hand gable end is presently obscured by a Rayburn stove.

Trewitten is architecturally significant as a particularly rare survival of a small two-room plan early 17th-century house in Cornwall. All four elevations and the interior remain unaltered and unspoilt.