Treverbyn Vean

Treverbyn Vean is a house built between 1858 and 1862 for Colonel Charles Cox. The exterior was designed by G Gilbert Scott and the interior by William Burges. It stands as a remarkable collaboration between two leading Gothic Revival architects.

The house is constructed in squared, coursed limestone with granite dressings. Large external chimney stacks rise from the sides and rear, and the kitchen block has a particularly notable external stack with setoffs and a round shaft. The roof is grey slate with cross gables.

The plan is double-depth with a great hall to the north and service rooms to the northeast. A detached kitchen block is connected to the main house by a short passage. The building is two storeys tall with a five-window garden front.

The exterior presents an irregular range in Tudor Gothic Revival style, with well-developed elevations on all four sides. Windows throughout have simple chamfered mullions beneath label moulds. The southeast garden front is particularly substantial, with coped gables at each end set forward. A two-centre arched doorway with hood mould opens from the central section, leading up steps to a boarded door with strap hinges. A pair of three-light transom windows sits to the left beneath a four-light window and two two-light windows on the first floor. The gables feature four-light transom windows and a two-light first-floor oriel with moulded base to the left gable. The southwest side has a large canted bay with seven transom lights and a hipped roof, with an external stack at the right-hand corner and four-light windows to the left. A large central four-light transom window serves the stairs. The northeast side has an external stack with a three-light window to its right and a projecting servant's block with its own external stack and three-light window. The main entrance front displays a large central gabled porch with a four-centre arched moulded door, its label mould rising to frame a heraldic device with decorated spandrels. Gables at either end of this front each have exterior stacks on the inner side, the right-hand one blank and the left-hand one containing four-, three-, and two-light windows. The left side of the porch has irregularly spaced two-light windows, while the right-hand hall features a large four-light transom window. The detached kitchen range has a square plan with a pyramidal roof and bellcote, a wide six-light transom window on its west side, and a large north-facing external stack. A single-storey former larder and scullery adjoin it on the east side.

The interior retains many original features of exceptional quality. A fine dogleg stair survives, and the great hall rises through two storeys beneath a fifteenth-century-style arch-braced collar truss roof with wind braces. A gallery runs along one side with cusped braces and pierced panels. A French Gothic style fireplace, now lost, once dominated with attached columns and a tall tapering hood. Ceiling panels are carved with bosses throughout. Doors remain in their original form as four-centre arched boards with strap hinges and catches; two-leaf doors retain linen-fold panelling and fine brass furniture.

This house represents an exceptional survival of William Burges's interior design philosophy. Apart from his work for Lord Bute at Cardiff Castle and Castle Coch, and for Sir John Heathcote Amory at Knightshayes in Devon, Treverbyn Vean retains more of its original interior than any other Burges house. In his interiors, Burges sought to conjure up in Victorian terms the artistic spirit of a medieval house—an ambition many contemporaries regarded as the pinnacle of his success. The building is graded both for the importance of these surviving interior features and for the fine exterior composition by Scott, an unusual stylistic choice for this architect. Drawings by Scott remain in the possession of the owner.