Restormel Manor

Restormel Manor is a farmhouse built in the mid to late 17th century, with significant alterations and extensions added over the following centuries. The building stands at two storeys with a complex plan that reflects its phased development.

The original structure was probably a three-room house with a through passage, with the upper end positioned to the right and a single room in the lower end to the left. The arrangement suggests it may originally have been a four-room plan with two rooms on each side of the passage. The right-hand rooms were heated by back-to-back fireplaces in an axial stack, while the left-hand room possibly had a gable end fireplace originally. During the late 18th-century refronting, this was extended to two rooms on the left, also served by back-to-back fireplaces.

A stair tower was added at the rear right of the passage in the later 17th century and was remodelled with a new stair inserted during the mid-18th century. The interior early 18th-century remodelling was followed by a substantial late 18th-century refronting that created a symmetrical facade with the end two bays to right and left slightly advanced. At this time, a two-storey wing was likely built to the rear left. In the mid-19th century, a passage was formed along the rear right, inside the original external wall, providing access to service rooms.

The exterior is constructed of slatestone rubble, rendered with granite dressings. The slate roof has hipped ends over the two bays to left and right, with brick ridge stacks. The facade is arranged as 2:2:1:2:2 bays on a granite plinth, with a granite embattled parapet. The central feature is a three-storey slate-hung and embattled porch with a two-centred arched chamfered granite doorway. The doorway has studded double doors with Gothic tracery toplights and is flanked by granite piers with a four-centred arch. Above the porch, 12-pane sashes with four-centred arched heads appear at first and second floor. The rest of the front elevation has 12-pane sashes at ground floor, with the inner bays to left and right of the porch containing 9-pane sashes set in four-centred arched heads.

The right side is rendered and features 12-pane sashes at ground and first floor. Attached to the left is a curtain wall approximately five metres long, embattled, with a two-centred arched chamfered doorway. The left side is not rendered.

The rear elevation is complex. A two-storey wing to the right has a hipped roof, with a six-pane light at ground floor and a two-light hipped dormer. Set within the angle to the main range is a single-storey 19th-century addition with a hipped roof, featuring a 16-pane sash and door to the side. To the left stands a single-storey 20th-century addition with three windows and a three-light casement under the eaves. The stair tower, originally gabled, was extended in the later 19th century from the left side and contains a six-pane sash and plate glass at first floor. A two-storey 19th-century addition for service rooms extends along the left end, with a porch, door, two-light casement, 20th-century door and six-pane light at ground floor; the first floor has a 12-pane sash, two two-light casements with timber lintels and a tall 12-pane sash, beneath a hipped roof.

The interior is not fully accessible. The stair tower contains a fine mid-18th-century open well stair with turned and knopped balusters set three to each tread, a ramped handrail and carved string. The ceiling over the stairwell features an egg-and-dart and dentil cornice with a central rose, with earlier 17th-century plasterwork remaining on the soffit of the rear wall, displaying a strapwork hearts and flowers pattern. At first floor, all doors are two-panelled with HL hinges. The porch has an inner granite doorway with a four-centred arch, wave moulded with pyramid stops, and a Gothic glazed door. The rear of the passage has a Gothic half-glazed door. In the roof, three trusses remain over the room to the left of the passage, featuring straight principal rafters pegged at the apices with a saddle, and cambered collars pegged to the faces of the principals. The rest of the roof dates from the 19th century and later. The roof is open to the left end beyond the ridge stack to the left.