St Stephens Cottage St Stephen'S House, St Stephen'S Cottage, Attached Walls And Gazebo

St Stephen's House and St Stephen's Cottage, Launceston

A rectory, now divided into two houses, dating from around 1700 and extended during the early to mid 18th century and again in the mid to late 18th century. The principal building is finished with stucco to its front and left-hand return, while the rear is constructed of rubble with some slate-hanging on studwork. The roof is of steep rag slate in a hipped form, with rubble axial stacks (possibly originally lateral) and a rear gable stack serving the wing.

The building follows a double-depth plan, likely developed in the mid 18th century from an original single-depth layout, with a later single-storey wing on the right and two small rear lean-tos. The house has two storeys over a basement. The front elevation presents a symmetrical composition of three windows with an additional window to the wing, and a central elliptically-arched doorway with an early 19th-century six-panel door. The windows are late 19th-century four-pane horned sashes. A 20th-century conservatory spans the entrance, approached by two flights of granite steps. The basement contains a six-panel door with continuous ledges visible inside the central wine cellar.

The rear elevation features five early 19th-century hornless sashes with glazing bars, including a tall window to a slate-hung stair projection. Openings have flat arches or oak lintels. An original two-panel door, an old basement door, and a shuttered coal hatch are present.

The service wing, known as St Stephen's Cottage, displays early 19th-century sixteen-pane hornless sashes to its front and symmetrical three-window composition to the right-hand return with twelve-pane and horned-copy sashes, above 20th-century windows and a central blocked opening over a 20th-century door.

Interior Features

The interior retains many original and mid 18th-century features of considerable interest. A wide open-well open-string staircase displays a moulded ramped handrail over turned balusters, carved tread ends, panelled newels, and fielded dado panelling. Most two-panel doors retain H hinges, though some have HL hinges; several feature fielded panels, and a primitive three-plank door with planted rails survives in the rear right-hand attic. A smaller attic stair has turned balusters. Moulded ceiling cornices appear in the stair hall, rear right-hand room, and two rear chambers. The front right-hand chamber contains a bolection-moulded chimney-piece with moulded cornice; the rear left-hand chamber has a slightly later eared chimney-piece. Some muntin and plank partitions survive.

Basement floors are of slate. The original roof and floor structures employ an interesting mortice-and-tenon joinery throughout. Floor structures visible show cross beams, axial trimmers, and cross joists. The front roof structure features fat tie beams serving as cross beams for the floor, some morticed collars alternating with lapped and pegged examples, and butt purlins with mostly morticed butt rafters. Roofs are arranged around a central valley with a lead gutter running through the front attic. Rear roofs have plastered ceilings with visible sections of plastered trusses and probable butt purlins. Rear attics serve as chambers; the front right-hand attic may have been a chamber originally, while the front left-hand attic was originally plastered throughout and possibly functioned as a granary.

The basement contains an original central well with an old pump fitted with a lead pipe in wooden housing and a granite trough. A large two-cell granite trough with one drain hole and quadrant inner corners, located in the gardens, may have been connected to this pump. The left-hand cellar features a large fireplace with an oak lintel, possibly the original kitchen (cellar windows are blocked). The rear cellar excavation extends into as much as four feet of bedrock, providing further evidence of plan deepening.

The front rooms were remodelled in the early 19th century with complex-moulded ceiling cornices and six-panel doors with beaded panels within moulded architraves and corner blocks. Window shutters are likely contemporary with the late 19th-century sashes.

The interior of the former service wing retains a 18th-century four-centred arched wooden surround with moulded cornice to the kitchen fireplace and several tiers of hanging brackets above.

Ancillary Features

Eighteenth-century slate-coped rubble walls front the road, returning to a gateway at the bottom. Three original elliptically-arched doorways (two blocked) are flanked by buttresses. A late 19th-century door with remains of older hinges is fitted to one doorway near the house.

Within the garden walls, below a lower doorway, stands a timber-framed, weatherboarded and thatched gazebo, probably of early 20th-century date, positioned at a high vantage point overlooking the town of Launceston.

St Stephen's House is important both structurally and architecturally, retaining significant features from each phase of its development.