Trewinnard Manor Farmhouse, Including Garden Walls And Gate Piers Adjoining To North

Trewinnard Manor Farmhouse, including garden walls and gate piers adjoining to north

Manor house, including garden walls and gate piers adjoining to the north. Circa early 18th century, possibly incorporating remains of an older house. Built of granite rubble with granite dressings. The roofs are steeply pitched hipped grouted scantle slate with brick chimneys positioned over the cross walls between the reception rooms and over the right-hand end. Some cast-iron ogee gutters are present.

The plan is L-shaped with a projection to the rear of the reception room, which is carried on squat pier stones. The main range is double depth and three rooms long, containing a parlour to the left, hall in the middle, and kitchen on the lower ground to the right. Behind the parlour is a back parlour with a projecting window bay; a stair hall stands behind the hall, and a back kitchen or dairy is positioned behind the kitchen. A two-storey-over-basement cross wing is built forward on the left, containing a large parlour and another stair hall behind.

The exterior is two storeys plus an attic lit by two hipped dormers at the rear. The south-east front has a 2:2:2 bay arrangement, plus the end of the cross wing built forward on the left. Flat arches span the openings. There is a room behind each pair of bays. The central entrance bays contain the principal doorway, positioned under the right-hand window. The right-hand bays, which front the kitchen, have windows at a lower level. The return wall of the wing forms another bay with a ground-floor entrance.

The original doors, doorcases and windows remain. The main doorway has a pair of glazed doors with arch-headed glazing and round panes in the two spandrels. Above the doorway is a shell hood carried on consoles. Another doorway has a doorcase with panelled pilasters and a pediment, with a later fire insurance plaque. This door has nine panes above the lock rail and a six-pane overlight. The eighteen-pane windows to this front and most other windows of the house are original 18th-century hornless sashes with wide glazing bars featuring internal ovolo mouldings. The left-hand front has twelve-pane sashes and two-light chamfered granite mullions to the basement as a plinth. Another similar mullioned window appears at the rear beneath the stair window. First-floor windows are 18th-century six-pane casements. The rear has an 18th-century two-panel door and original sashes except for a horned replacement to the right of the doorway. The projecting window bay on the right is carried on squat piers (resembling a granary) and features a modillioned eaves cornice. An 18th-century sash occupies the middle, with another sash in the left-hand side wall. Set into the right-hand wall of the house on the first floor is a remarkable oriel window with a moulded granite base, presumed to be 17th-century but resited. The window itself is a later replacement. Towards the rear from this window is a joint indicating that either the rear rooms were added circa early 18th century or that this end of the house survives from an older structure.

The interior features unaltered 18th-century work throughout the parts inspected. The 18th-century features include chimney-pieces, wooden panelling, and ceiling cornices in the four reception rooms and stair halls. Two stairs with turned balusters are present. The main stair is an open well with a moulded closed string and bolection mouldings to the panelling beneath. The wall panelling in the hall and stair hall is raised and fielded. The kitchen remains unspoiled and largely unaltered since the 18th century. The first-floor rooms and roof structure were not inspected but are presumed to retain original 18th-century features.

Low 18th-century rubble walls adjoin the north corner of the house, surmounted by a hog's-back granite coping and topped by old wooden railings with turned finials. Tall square granite monolithic gate piers with moulded caps flank these walls. The walls are quadrant in plan beyond the gateway and are linked to a taller terrace wall at right angles, which features a small gateway with similar piers and granite steps down to the lower level from the front garden. A pair of gates ramps up at the sides to pairs of hanging stiles, finishing with turned finials.

In the 17th century, Trewinnard was the home of the Trewinnard family; in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, it belonged to the Hawkins family. An early 18th-century Trewinnard coach survives in Truro Museum.

Trewinnard is among the most complete houses of circa the early 18th century in this part of Cornwall and retains a wealth of original features. The surviving 18th-century sash windows are particularly rare and important.