Redruth Masonic Hall

Masonic Hall, Redruth

This masonic hall was built between 1876 and 1878 to the design of James Hicks. It is constructed in dressed and coursed local elvan stone with Bath-stone dressings to the principal elevation, while the other elevations use rubble elvan stone with granite quoins. The roofs are pitched slate.

The building is rectangular in plan with an offset entrance on the east elevation. It is designed in an eclectic style and comprises two storeys over a basement or lower-ground floor.

The principal front faces east and features a gabled elevation with three windows each on the ground and first floors. The ground-floor windows are basket-headed with plate tracery decorated with roundels, including a square and compasses at the centre. The heads are defined by a continuous hood mould. The first-floor windows have Gothic arches springing from pilasters with triglyphs and stiff-leaf capitals, with further flat pilasters to the corners. Below the first-floor windows are five sculpted panels. The left-hand panel contains the arms of the United Grand Lodge of England above the motto AUDI / VIDE / TACE. The central panels depict the three degrees of Masonry—entered apprentice, fellowcraft and master mason—with reference to levels of building crafts. The right-hand panel contains a fleur-de-lys, as the Prince of Wales was Grand Master when the building was opened. The window openings are blocked. The gable is topped with flat copings and a stone ball-finial. On the right-hand side of the plinth is a foundation stone inscribed "THIS STONE WAS LAID BY / BRO J.F. PENROSE P.M. / JAN 10 1876".

The entrance elevation to the right is slightly lower and features a central panelled timber double-door flanked by inset columns with stiff-leaf capitals. Above the door are five cusped lancets, and the entire doorway is topped with an ogee arch surmounted by a carved figure of a Druid. This projects slightly from a panelled first floor with a further six cusped lancets decorated with a line of ball ornaments to their transoms.

The south elevation is blind except for a single ground-floor doorway with a granite lintel and red-brick dressings. The north elevation is partially obscured by the neighbouring building but is otherwise blind except for a three-light lancet window within the gable end. The west elevation has three blocked window and door openings at lower-ground-floor level, three openings to the ground floor, and two to the first floor, with those to the left slightly smaller. All have granite lintels and quoin surrounds and are fitted with uPVC windows.

Interior

From the entrance is a small lobby with an encaustic-tile floor, moulded cornices and a plain ceiling rose. To the south is a WC, and to the west are further half-glazed double doors leading to the staircase hallway. Both sets of entrance doors retain their historic door furniture.

Two doors with flat architraves on the south side of the hallway open to a dining room. It is three bays in length, with the eastern bay slightly raised reflecting the dais above. The bays are defined by chamfered ceiling beams supported by large bobbin-turned timber brackets springing from floriated corbels. The ceiling has a decorated pierced cornice, the floor is partly boarded, and there is a mid-20th-century timber dado to the walls between a tall skirting and moulded dado rail, with a moulded picture rail above. To the west of the dining room, next to a mid-20th-century corner bar, steps lead to a corridor with two spaces to the west housing a modern kitchen and the lodge's museum. A further doorway leads back into the staircase hall. Below the stairs, a door leads to the lower-ground floor where there are two spaces, formerly the Tyler's flat.

The principal staircase has a bobbin balustrade with a decorated newel post at ground floor. At the head of the stairs, a six-panelled door with moulded architrave leads to the committee room, which has a fireplace on the south side with a simple timber surround. To the east, an identical door leads to the main lodge room.

The lodge room is double-height and four bays long, with a raised dais to the east. The tripartite arched ceiling, decorated with the constellation, is defined north to south by pierced ribs decorated with Tudor-flower motifs and fretwork, and horizontally along the spring course of the main ceiling arch by fluted plasterwork. The cornice has an egg-and-dart moulding. At the centre of the room is a diamond-set tiled chequerboard floor. On the west side of this are two pillars: one of the Ionic order for the Master denoting wisdom, with its globe representing the celestial world, and one Corinthian for the Junior Warden denoting beauty, with its globe representing the earthly world. The Doric order, for the Senior Warden and denoting strength, is represented on the west wall, framing the Senior Warden's chair with fluted pilasters and a frieze and segmental arch with mutules. On the east wall above the Master's chair is a floating pediment. To the north of the dais is a recess containing a segmental pointed arch springing from floriated corbels, within which are timber four-panel double-doors below blocked overlights with segmental heads and decoratively carved spandrels. Within the arch-head is a Star of David. The doors lead to the current robing room, which has 20th-century storage cupboards for each of the lodges.