Langford Hill

Langford Hill is a house of 16th-century origins with substantial early 18th-century remodelling and extension, together with some early 20th-century alterations. It is built of stone rubble with scantle slate roofs with gabled ends, dressed stone chimneys (4 of which are dressed stone, others brick), and some 16th and 17th-century handmade ridge tiles.

The evidence suggests that the original 16th-century house was of large 'L' plan. The 18th-century remodelling incorporated this earlier house into a larger, double-depth 'L' plan consisting of a south-facing main range with service rooms to the east and north-east. The 18th-century build probably also included the addition of projecting front wings adjoining the east and west corners of the main range. In the early 20th century these projecting wings were rebuilt: the west wing became a single-storey billiard room and the east wing became a chapel.

The present plan of the main range features a south entrance into a 19th-century passage leading into a stair hall and stair gallery running axially at the rear. The house is 2 storeys tall. The south front is asymmetrical with 8 windows and includes a large 19th-century glazed gabled conservatory with interlaced glazing bars in Gothick style within the gable. Ground-floor windows have granite lintels and are grouped in irregularly spaced bays with first-floor windows directly above. The ground floor to the left contains 2 hornless sashes with 6 panes above 6 panes, with 2 other windows to the left of the conservatory of the same pattern but with horns. To the right of the porch are 3 sashes with 6 panes above 6 panes under segmental heads. The 8 first-floor windows are hornless sashes of 6 panes above 6 panes under pediments which rise above the eaves line. All sashes except 2 to the left of the conservatory have exposed boxes. The east front displays 3 18th-century segmental sashes over 2 wider 18th-century sashes with 10 panes top and bottom, flanking a 4-panel door.

The interior includes a ground-floor room to the left of the porch with a moulded plaster ceiling featuring a central oval with mouldings that continue into the entrance passage, where part of the room has been partitioned off. This room retains panelled shutters to its windows. The ground-floor room to the left is completely panelled in white-painted early 18th-century panelling. The dining room, the ground-floor room to the right, is panelled throughout in early 20th-century work. An early 18th-century open-well stair with turned balusters is lit by a large Venetian window in the stairwell. The kitchen and service rooms have slate floors.

A chamfered stone Tudor blocked doorway, now internal, formerly led into the north-east wing of the earlier house, now largely containing service rooms. The north-east wing roof has 3 trusses with principals with curved feet, probably raised crucks, and 2 tiers of trenched purlins. The roof at the east end of the main range has 2 similar principals, 2 tiers of purlins, collars halved and side-pegged, and wind bracing. A first-floor room in the main range to the left of the porch has boxed-in principals, probably 2 raised crucks. The roof space above was inaccessible at the time of inspection. A cupola with weathervane stands at the rear of the main range.

The ground-floor windows to the left of the porch have granite sills reused from a mullioned window. The front wall was formerly cob with stone facing; the cob was removed in the early 20th century.

John Langford is recorded as the owner of Langford Hill in 1602 in Richard Carew's The Survey of Cornwall. The house was in the possession of the Bray family when the Church of England Institute was built in Marhamchurch in 1913.