Nance Farmhouse

Nance Farmhouse is a dower house, now a farmhouse, dating to the earlier 18th century with earlier origins, and subject to slight alterations. The facade is of sandstone ashlar, while the remainder of the building is of uncoursed sandstone rubble with granite quoins, covered by a scantle slate roof. The house has a double-pile plan, formed by two ranges of different builds, with a later range added to the front.

The south front, facing higher ground, presents a symmetrical, two-storey appearance over a basement. The central entrance is accessed by a bridge over the basement area and features a six-panelled door with a Gibbs surround in low relief, a prominent keystone, and a pediment. The basement level has a doorway and four square windows with replaced four-pane sashes. The ground floor has tall twelve-pane sashed windows, and the first floor has square six-pane sashes, all with thick glazing bars and flat-arched heads with raised pendent keystones. The front range has a hipped roof with projecting eaves and chimney stacks finished with modern brick. A lean-to addition is present on the left end.

The earlier rear range is two storeys tall with attics and extends further west. It features a doorway in the third bay, twelve-pane sashed windows to the left and four above, a reduced window to the right, inserted garage doors in the right-hand half, and irregular fenestration including a small horizontal-sliding sash window beneath the eaves and a dormer window.

The interior of the front range includes an exceptionally fine 18th-century staircase in an open well, extending from the basement to the first floor, with a flying flight to the attic. The staircase has bolection moulded soffits, an open string, scrolled brackets, columnar newels, two twisted and turned balusters to each tread, and a ramped moulded handrail. The basement contains a room in the rear range, known as the "apostles room", with eleven painted panels depicting the apostles. Elsewhere on the ground floor, a wide segmental-arched fireplace is found at the west end and a rectangular fireplace with a built-in clom oven is at the east end. Doorways have 18th-century pedimented architraves with pulvinated friezes and dentils. A drawing room features fine contemporary decoration, including a fireplace with a shouldered surround and a swan-neck pedimented overmantel panel, shouldered architraves to four doorways (one opening to a coved cupboard with fluted sides and scalloped coving), a moulded plaster cornice, and rococo ceiling decoration. A similarly decorated dining room is situated to the east.

The house is said to have been built for a daughter of the Basset family of Tehidy, and the wife of John Collins, Rector of Illogan.