Clowance House

Clowance House is a country house now used as the administrative and leisure centre of a holiday village. Built circa 1843 as a rebuilding incorporating some older, probably 18th-century parts, it was constructed for the St Aubyn family. The house is built of granite ashlar on its front and the front sections of the sides, with granite rubble and granite dressings elsewhere. It has hipped Delabole slate roofs behind parapets over the reception rooms, positioned at right angles to the fronts with valleys between, and granite ashlar chimneys over the cross wall valleys and rear walls. The service ranges have gable ends and brick chimneys.

The plan is overall irregular L-shaped, comprising three principal rooms at the front with a stair hall behind the middle room, another reception room behind the left hand room projecting slightly to the left, and passages or small service rooms. Behind the left hand block are the remains of a probably 18th-century range, remodelled in the 19th century. At the rear of this range is a cross wing, and towards the rear at right angles to the right hand side is a service wing.

The building is classical in style and two storeys. The symmetrical south-east entrance front displays a 2:3:2 bay arrangement, with the middle three bays set back slightly and a prostyle tetrastyle Tuscan porte-cochere projecting from the ground floor. The facade features a plinth, moulded architraves to the openings, a mid-floor string, and a parapet cornice with blocking course and ball finials over the corners. The central doorway has top-glazed double doors and an overlight. Windows are sashes with plate glass. The right hand return wall is similarly detailed with a regular two-window front and a 1st floor left hand window that is blind. Set back on the right is a narrow three-storey, one-bay ashlar front, possibly originally servants' quarters.

The left hand return, facing south-west, is the garden front. This presents an overall nine-window irregular facade with regular disposition of windows in each bay. The left and middle four bays are probably 18th-century but were remodelled in the later 19th century. At the far left is an open pediment cross wing gable with brick cornice, featuring a basement mid-floor tripartite sash bay window with triangular pediment and paired sashes in the gable. The next four bays from the left are set back slightly and have a brick modillion cornice. The wider central three-light canted ground floor bay window and ground floor right hand window were inserted in the 19th century. The other openings are original, with hornless 19th-century sashes with glazing bars except where a later doorway with double doors breaks through the left hand light of the bay window. Over the ground floor left and right windows are coats of arms, both with roll moulded borders: the left hand one features a crossed shield and the right hand one features a crested helmet surmounted by a nest and chough. Arabic numerals on both give the date 1813. The taller bays on the right date to circa 1840s and are similarly detailed to the main front, except each features a canted three-light bay window to the ground floor with two windows above, those on the far right being blind. The left hand 19th-century bay projects slightly while the right hand one is set back.

An old engraving held at the National Monuments Record shows the 18th-century parts of this side before remodelling and before the 19th-century additions on the right. The original 18th-century or earlier house extended much farther to the left and appears to have comprised a range of principal first-floor rooms over a basement, with two projecting oriels carried on columns, one of which was positioned where the tripartite window with pediment now stands at the far left.

The interior retains much of its 19th-century plasterwork and joinery, though it was only partly inspected at the time of survey. Adjoining the rear of the house is a former rear wall of the old house, now serving as a garden wall, with one of the lateral fireplaces remodelled as a grotto.

Clowance House suffered two serious fires in 1837 and 1843, and was largely rebuilt and remodelled following the second fire. The house was formerly the home of the St Aubyn family, who have owned it since circa 1380 when Geoffrey St Aubyn married Elizabeth Kemyell. The family were granted arms in 1545 and produced many distinguished members, including John St Aubyn (1610-1684), a leading Parliamentarian who later purchased St Michael's Mount from Francis Basset of Tehidy. His son, another John, was made a baronet in 1671. The third Sir John St Aubyn became an MP for Cornwall, and six St Aubyns held the position of Sheriff of Cornwall. The St Aubyn line continues as Molesworth-St Aubyn, though the family ceased ownership of Clowance in 1923. Clowance is an interesting example of classical survival with some Victorian features.