River House

River House is a vicarage, now a private house, located on St Sampson Church Hill in Golant. The building was probably constructed in the 18th century, then extended and substantially remodelled around 1840, with further alterations made during the 19th and 20th centuries. It is constructed of slatestone rubble, partly rendered and partly painted, with hipped slate roofs featuring lead rolls to the hips and ridge, and rendered chimney stacks.

The house is arranged in two parallel ranges. The early building forms the front, originally planned with three rooms but substantially remodelled when the rear range was added circa 1840. The rear range projects to the left and contains service rooms positioned to the rear of the original range, with a stair hall at the centre. An entrance hallway in the front range now leads through to the rear stair hall. A service corridor with pantry connects to the kitchen in a rear wing to the right, which may be part of the original building. The front range features lateral stacks heating the rooms to the left, with an axial stack serving the central room. The remodelling is executed in a picturesque Gothick style; despite its circa 1840 date, it resembles 18th-century Gothic revival work.

The building is two storeys, with an entrance front comprising three bays to the left and a blind bay to the right, rendered in painted rubble. A 20th-century door to the left retains a Gothick ogee head with fanlight and recessed spandrels. To either side are two-light casements with diamond lattice glazing, each topped by an ogee head with splayed glazing bars and decorative foliage in the spandrels, beneath square hood moulds. At first floor, four tall gabled dormers feature pointed arched single-light casements with matching glazing and pointed arched fanlights, arranged with three to the left and one to the right. The right side displays a 20th-century door and mid-19th-century 16-pane sash at ground floor, with two 12-pane sashes and a central 20th-century light at first floor. The left side, facing the garden, shows the left end of the front range in painted rubble, with the later range projecting left and rendered. The early range features a canted bay rising through two storeys with a bellcast hipped roof. At ground floor, this bay contains four ogee lights with diamond glazing and plain spandrels; at first floor, four ogee lights with splayed glazing bars to the heads and decorated spandrels. The projecting bay to the left has a narrow canted bay through two storeys with four ogee lights at each level, similarly glazed with plain spandrels. The rear elevation includes a gabled dormer with pointed arched single light and diamond glazing at the centre of the main range, a 20th-century addition, and a gable over the stair hall with a single pointed arched light. A single-storey lean-to addition extends along the rear of the main range.

The interior has been substantially altered in the 20th century, though Gothick features remain. The front left room of the front range retains plasterwork from the Gothick phase, including a star of the east on the ceiling, together with a plain moulded cornice that has been partially renewed. An open well stair with stick balusters occupies the rear centre of the house. At first floor, the room to the front left contains two rear corner cupboards with ogee arches, and central ceiling plasterwork depicting a cluster of oak leaves.