Trelowarren House

Trelowarren House is a great house with chapel. It has a possible late medieval core with some features from around the early 16th century that may have been reused. The building was substantially rebuilt, remodelled, and extended between around 1609 and 1665 by Sir Francis Vyvyan, who was granted a licence for the chapel in 1636. Further remodelling took place in the 18th century involving the architect Thomas Edwards, followed by considerable works in the 19th century, principally during the period of Sir Richard Rawlinson Vyvyan from around 1827 to around 1870. All these building phases were carried out for the Vyvyan family, who still own and occupy the property.

The house is built of various kinds of rubble and brick (mostly with incised rendering to resemble ashlar), with granite dressings including mullioned windows, doorways, weatherings, hoodmoulds, and parapet and gable copings. The west extension of the chapel uses Pentewan stone. The roofs are mostly of dry Delabole slate laid in diminishing courses, with hipped roofs surrounding a central valley over the main west range and coped gable ends elsewhere. The chimneys are of granite ashlar, mostly lateral with some axial examples.

Plan Development

The original plan is now difficult to determine but was probably U-shaped in the 16th century. The main range probably had a three-room plan including a hall, on the site of the present inner courtyard west side of the east range. At either side, at right angles to the front east side, was probably a wing, each with a first floor hall, great chamber, or solar above. The position of this 16th-century building is still expressed outwardly by the surviving windows with arch-headed lights and the ends of the wings by the buttresses flanking the arched windows in the east entrance. An early 19th-century elevation drawing shows the right-hand wing as three storeys, though a Borlase print of 1758 shows two storeys. Also in the 16th century was probably a service range set back on the right-hand side of the present entrance front, with walls that largely survive.

In the 17th century, the space between the wings was filled in, the house was probably extended on the left-hand side and greatly at the rear (west), which became the entrance front during the 17th and 18th centuries. At the rear left-hand side, at right angles, a chapel in Gothic survival style was added (around 1636), which returned at right angles at the end, forming a short wing pointing away from the courtyard. On the other side at the rear, a parlour wing was added with a similar overall plan, so the house became once more an overall U-shape but open at the west side instead of the east. There is a service range parallel to the outer side of the parlour range, originally with a narrow courtyard between. This may be 17th century and remodelled in the 18th century, or possibly entirely 18th century, as there are no surviving pre-18th-century features.

Possibly in the late 18th century but perhaps in the 19th century, the building at the end of the chapel was removed (still shown in a print by Richard Polwhele) and the chapel was extended or the last three bays rebuilt. The so-called Strawberry Hill Gothic plasterwork may have originally been by Thomas Edwards, together with some other slightly Gothic features in the house, but 19th-century additions and remodelling make interpretation difficult. In the 19th century, probably during the Sir Richard Rawlinson Vyvyan period from around 1827 to around 1870, the end of the other wing was remodelled and slightly extended, but a 17th-century gable with scrolled kneelers (like those shown in the Polwhele print) still survives at the north side, with the rear of the roof steeper than the front. This was possibly arranged so that the more hidden rear roofs could be thatched or shingled for economy while the front was slated.

In the final phase, around the early 20th century, a service range was added, set back on the right.

East Entrance Front

The building is two storeys plus attics with dormers facing the central roof valley. The east entrance front has five bays with weathered buttresses between the bays, plus the service range set back on the right. Both have embattled parapets. The main five-bay range has a central doorway (probably 18th or early 18th century) with an earlier basket-arched (probably 17th-century) doorway on the right. The former probably 16th-century wings are bays two and four. Bay two (from left) on the first floor has a probably 16th-century five-light mullioned window with arch-headed lights. A similar window to the first floor of bay four is a 19th-century copy but probably replaces an original window. All the windows have hoodmoulds. The other windows are either 17th century or 19th-century copies: from left, the first bay has a four-light window to the ground floor and above; the second bay has a six-light window to the ground floor; the central entrance bay has a three-light window over the doorway; the fourth bay has a four-light ground floor window; and the right-hand bay, probably added in the 19th century (not shown on the Borlase picture of 1758), has a six-light ground floor window and a similar window above. The doorway has a four-centred arch and square hoodmould, with early 19th-century double doors with octagonal and traceried panes. The older doorway (now blocked, rediscovered in the 20th century) may align with the former through passage position of the pre-17th-century house.

The south end of the range includes the parlour with ballroom above, rebuilt in granite ashlar probably by Thomas Edwards around the mid-18th century (pre-1758). This has a canted two-storey bay window in the middle flanked by two-light windows. Set back on the right of the east front is a two-bay 17th-century front with three-light mullioned windows. Set back slightly from this on the far right is a three-bay service range front dated 1828 with two-light mullioned windows.

Courtyard Front (West)

The courtyard front has three bays with a central octagonal two-storey granite ashlar window projection, formerly with an entrance to the ground floor. This part of the house is a 19th-century remodelling of the 17th-century entrance front. A plaque below the sill of the middle first floor window is dated 1662. The window at the first floor right, five-light with arch-headed lights, is probably 16th century. The six-light ground floor window is probably from 1662, and the two windows on the left of the porch are similar but 19th-century copies.

South Range: Chapel

The chapel was built around 1636 in freestone, originally as five bays with a doorway to the fourth from left bay on the inner courtyard (north) side. The first four bays survive; the western end was partly rebuilt as three bays around the early 19th century, repeating the Gothic survival style of the original part. There is some classical influence: round-headed windows and a hoodmould resembling an open pediment over the doorway.

The north front has 3:1:3 bays, with the fifth bay slightly wider. There is a high plinth with weathered buttresses of diminishing width dividing the bays, an impost string linked to round-arched hoodmoulds over the windows, and a moulded cornice with plain parapet with moulded coping over. The windows are three-light with cinquefoil-headed lights and quatrefoil tracery; the original windows have replaced tracery. The doorway is four-centred with a bracket-shaped lower hoodmould up to impost string level, and a studded Gothic traceried panelled door.

The south side of the chapel is similarly detailed with a window to each of the seven bays and a lateral chimney with octagonal shaft between bays two and three from left. The gable end (west) has a tall ordered round-headed four-light traceried window with ogee-shaped hoodmould, octagonal corner buttresses with Gothic-style spirelets, and a stepped coping with pinnacles. All the windows of the chapel have leaded glazing.

North Range: South Front

The south front of the north range is two storeys with six bays. The left-hand bay was rebuilt in the 19th century; the other bays are substantially original. Bays one to three from left have three-light mullioned windows with 19th-century replacement mullions. The right-hand three bays have original outer frames of former mullioned windows but with early 19th-century three-light casements with octagonal panes. The first floor windows are gabled half dormers. All the windows have hoodmoulds.

The west return wall is entirely from around the mid-19th century with 1:2:1 bays. The gable ends project slightly left and right with two-storey bay windows with embattled parapets. There is a doorway in the third from left bay. This front overlooks the Ladies Garden.

The north wall has a highly irregular disposition of openings in size and shape, with various sashes, some presumably from around the mid-18th century with wide glazing bars, and two from around the late 18th century, five panes wide with thin glazing bars. On the right is the gable end of a projecting 17th-century wing with scrolled kneelers to an irregular coped gable.

Interior

Much of the interior is Strawberry Hill Gothic from around the late 18th century, though part may be from around the early 19th century following the same theme. There are, however, a few more robust details including some moulded plaster cornices from around the mid-18th century.

The entrance hall and stair have plaster panelled walls, coffered under landings, in Gothic mode. There is an open-well open-string cantilevered stone stair with heavy turned and carved newel over curtail steps, a ramped mahogany handrail over scrolled wrought iron balusters, carved tread ends, and some Vitruvian scroll detail. There are six-panel mahogany doors, with one doorcase having an ovolo architrave and entablature with modillioned cornice carried on consoles. The stair rises to different floor levels of the former wings on either side.

The drawing room, once a library, has sunk panelling with trefoil heads, an anthemion cornice, a marble chimneypiece with an overmantel formerly in the chapel, and plasterwork in 18th-century manner, possibly Victorian.

The library, once a parlour, has mid-19th-century panelling, an Italian marble chimneypiece, and a doorway into the east (ritual west) end of the chapel.

The morning room has 18th-century panelling with dentil cornice, six-panel doors (one of which is an iron fire door), and a marble chimneypiece from around 1830.

The old kitchen in the far north range has an early 18th-century granite fireplace with segmental head, impost blocks, and keystone, and a built-in 18th-century dresser.

The ante-room to the ballroom is possibly 18th century but may well be a 19th-century pastiche. It has panelled walls with Gothic-style plasterwork and ogee-headed doorways.

The ballroom dates from around 1840 and has guilloche moulding to a canopied ceiling and a marble chimneypiece. There is a probably original 18th-century plaster ceiling cornice over the window bay.

The room known as Saint Martin's has an 18th-century egg and dart cornice and a 19th-century chimneypiece.

The room above Saint Martin's has an early 18th-century chimneypiece with bolection moulded surround.

Three chambers in the courtyard range of the north wing have plaster barrel vault ceilings, probably 17th century in origin but probably renewed in the 18th century. The west room ceiling is probably a 19th-century copy. The roof structure over this range is from around the early 17th century with halved lapped dovetail jointed collars and threaded purlins. The roofs over the east range were not inspected, but the roof over the chapel is of a similar structure to the north range according to Sumpster.

Chapel Interior

The chapel interior is Strawberry Hill Gothic with very fine plasterwork, possibly originally by Thomas Edwards but it may have been renewed in the 19th century; certainly the west end work is 19th century. There is dado panelling with Gothic-style panels, paired seats with canopied heads set into the piers between the windows, doorways with crocketted heads above, a brattished cornice with florets, and a plaster ribbed vault with central spine rib with carved bosses over the intersections.

Historical Background

Trelowarren has been the home of the Vyvyans since the 15th century. In 1227 it was held by Robert Cardinan, passing by marriage to the Ferrers family and again by marriage to the Vyvyans. The first Vyvyan baronet was Sir Richard, Master of the Mint at Exeter during the Civil Wars and a supporter of the King. Sir Richard Vyvyan was probably responsible for much of the 17th-century work at the house. Another Sir Richard Vyvyan carried out much work in the 18th century (the Thomas Edwards period), and in the 19th century Sir Richard Rawlinson Vyvyan made many alterations.

This house has a complicated plan development, now difficult to unravel because of the number of periods involved. However, there may well be some of the late medieval structure reused, but the periods best represented now are the 17th, 18th, and early and mid-19th centuries. The chapel is very fine with its part 17th-century exterior and plasterwork of uncertain date. The internal features of the house are a complex transition from one period to another, with the changes of period flowing one to the other in an uncertain mixture, suggesting that much work was started then not completed. The 19th-century alterations and renewal, some in probably replica style of replaced features, add to the problem, making accurate dating difficult. The overall effect of the exterior, however, is very satisfying, with the 19th-century work linking well with the earlier periods.