Trenoweth House

Trenoweth House

Trenoweth House is a vicarage, now a private house, dated 1888 by datestone. It is built of granite rubble walls with dressed granite quoins, doorways, mullioned windows and gable copings. The building has steep roofs on three levels with some gabled dormers and most gables coped. The roof is covered with dry Delabole slate on the garden front and grouted scantle slate elsewhere, with large stone chimney stacks (some lateral, some over gable ends, two external) and crested clay ridge tiles. The gutters, rainwater heads and downpipes are cast iron ogee.

The building displays a deliberately irregular L-shaped plan overall. The principal axis runs north-south with a taller double-depth main part at the south end under parallel roofs. The entrance front faces east and the garden front faces west. A lower single-depth service wing continues to the right (north) of the entrance front, also with an entrance, and returns at right angles with a still lower wing. The principal stair is positioned to the right of the main entrance. The main reception room or study is to the left of the entrance with a south-facing window, while a small room sits to the right of the stair. Within the parallel garden front range are two reception rooms, both with large west windows; the left-hand (south) room also has a canted bay window in the south wall.

The building is two storeys plus attics and is inspired by Tudor style. The irregular east entrance front features a tall principal part on the left with a roughly central 4-centred arched doorway with an original door; the gable of the attic rises to full ridge height at the left side. The lower service wing to the right has a shallower 4-centred arched doorway near the angle, with a short lower gable-ended wing projecting at the front right. Each part has a central roof dormer in scale with its respective front and a ground floor window (the latter now a doorway).

The windows of the main part are irregularly dispersed. The mid-floor stair window to the right of the doorway and the first floor window central to the gable on the left each have two arch-headed lights with recessed spandrels and square hoodmoulds. A square-headed 2-light window appears at ground floor right; elsewhere single-light windows have arched heads positioned left of the doorway, above, and middle of the gable on the left. A small round oculus sits under the eaves on the right. A weathered buttress projects from the left side.

The west garden front has a fairly regular 2-window service range on the left, set back, and a nearly symmetrical 3-window principal garden front on the right. The main part has a central date plaque between the two ground floor windows, a 2-light window over, and a single-light window to the central roof gable. All windows have arched lights and, except for the attic window, are moulded. The ground floor and central first floor windows have aquarez hoodmoulds; the ground floor has a 4-light window on the left and a 3-light window on the right. The first floor left and right windows are 3-light, spaced wider. A weathered buttress projects from the right side. The 2-bay service range front on the left has a 4-light window on the left and a 3-light window over, rising partly into a tall gable; the simple right-hand bay has a central single-light window and a similar window over.

The 2-bay south wall has the tall gable end of the garden front on the left and the integral side wall of the entrance front gable on the right. The left bay has a central window to ground floor, first floor and attic (canted 4-light, 2-light and single-light respectively); the right bay has a 3-light ground floor window only. All windows have arch-headed lights; the 2 and 3-light windows have square hoodmoulds. All windows throughout the house retain their original casements with glazing bars. The coped gables are carried on moulded kneelers.

The interior was not inspected, but given the unaltered exterior, is likely to contain good-quality details. The house is a vicarage on a grandiose scale with deliberately asymmetrical plan and elevations, where the varying quality of architectural detail expresses the function of the rooms within. It dates to the same period as The Old School in Crowan and was probably designed by the same architect.