Parish Vestry

CAMBORNE CHURCH LANE SW 63 NW (south side) 10/31 Parish Vestry GV II

Parish Vestry building. Dated 1820 on lintel of former door in rear wall, altered. Facade of snecked killas rubble with granite quoins but covered with render above ground floor, sides and rear of uncoursed rubble; slate roof. Rectangular plan, gable to road but facing churchyard, with added porch at north end. Two storeys; the facade to the churchyard is of 3 bays under 2 gables, symmetrical, in Tudor style, with 3 wide Tudor-arched openings at ground floor (a window and 2 doorways) and 3 windows at 1st floor, all with chamfered surrounds and hoodmoulds and all the windows of 2 lights with chamfered mullions and diamond leaded glazing (but that at ground floor boarded at time of survey, 1988); a rectangular granite panel in each gable, and gable copings with apex finials. The left (north) gable wall has a flight of external steps to a doorway at 1st floor, protected by a brick porch of c.1900; and to the left of this a large rendered panel with pilastered architrave and stilted segmental head enclosing raised lettering "PARISH VESTRY". The rear has inter alia a former doorway with lintel inscribed "1820". Interior not inspected. History: ground floor was used as lock-up 1820-1858. Probably erected in consequence of Sturges Bourne's Act of 1819, which empowered parishes to appoint select vestries "for more effectual execution of the laws for the relief of the poor" (the style being a reference to the Tudor origins of the Poor law); as such, a rare survival of a building for this purpose, and the earliest Local Government building in the area covered by this list.

Listing NGR: SW6457039984