Churchtown House And Garden Walls

Churchtown House and Garden Walls

A rectory, now a private house, located in Perranuthnoe Churchtown. The building dates from the 17th century or earlier, with significant remodelling undertaken in the late 17th century and again in the late 19th century.

The house is constructed of granite rubble with some dressed granite, with scantle slate roofs and gable ends except for a hipped end over a truncated parallel former rear wing. Stuccoed brick chimneys with moulded cornices and late 19th century chimney pots sit over the gable ends to left and right.

The building now has an overall L-shaped plan, one room deep except for a service room (now the kitchen) roofed parallel to the front roof in the angle. The layout comprises two reception rooms at the front with a cross passage between them, a stair hall in a wing at right angles behind the left-hand room, and basement rooms behind the stair hall with chambers over. The left-hand side of the house is built into a high bank.

A Glebe Terrier description from 1727 indicates the building's form at that time, though without the present kitchen. In 1727 there was a courtyard behind the right-hand room (then the hall) and a kitchen at the rear of this courtyard. A building on the site of this former kitchen was demolished a few years ago (1986).

The exterior presents two storeys. The west front is symmetrical with three windows and a central doorway. In the late 19th century the front was remodelled from a five-window front and the eaves heightened. The contemporary features include a doorway with four-panel door, overlight and stucco doorcase with entablature carried on carved console canted bay windows to the ground floor with dentilled entablature, four-pane horned sashes, and a moulded eaves cornice with shaped wooden brackets.

Internally, the earliest feature is a truss partly embedded into a first floor partition of the front range, which probably has curved feet (seen only as an impression in the right-hand chamber) and predates a 17th century heightening and remodelling. From this phase survive various features and much of the structure, including roof trusses. Notable features from this period include a fine open-well closed-string stair with unusually heavy column-turned balusters and moulded ramped handrail, a two-panel door leading to an attic stair (in 1727 a garret), and a fine plaster barrel ceiling with moulded cornice in the right-hand chamber. A similar ceiling possibly formerly existed in the left-hand chamber, now indicated only by a roughly semi-circular shape in the wall plaster.

18th century features include a door between the stair hall and the kitchen with fielded bottom panels, glazed above with original heavy ovolo-moulded glazing bars and some crown glass. 19th century features comprise early 19th century six-panel doors and architraves, and a wooden chimney-piece in the right-hand chamber, with most other features dating to the late 19th century, including a chimney-piece in 18th century style in the right-hand room (resited from another house).

Running roughly parallel to the front and parallel to the right-hand side of the house is a high slate-coped granite rubble wall with a small arched gateway at the front (west) and a carriage gateway into a rear courtyard. The carriage gateway has brick piers with dressed granite plinths and bonders and squat pyramidal caps.

Churchtown House represents an interesting example of how Cornish houses often developed by retaining an early core and plan while introducing fashionable features at each phase of remodelling. The late 17th century stair and barrel ceiling are particularly notable and rare features.