Antony House

ANTONY HOUSE

A country house built between 1718 and 1729, attributed to the architect James Gibbs according to the antiquarians Daniel Lysons and Samuel Lysons (writing in Magna Brittania: Vol III, Cornwall, 1814). The master mason was John Moyle of Exeter. An addition was made by Sir Reginald Pole-Carew but was removed after 1945.

The house has a brick carcass faced in Pentewan stone ashlar, with a hipped slate roof with lead rolls to the hips. The plan is rectangular with double depth. The south front features a large entrance hall with an arcaded area screening it from the stair hall to the right. The hall is entered through a mid-19th-century porte cochere. The library lies to the left of the stair hall and the saloon occupies the central room on the north front. A mid-19th-century addition to the east side has since been demolished, though basement service rooms remain, screened by a wall along the north front which forms a lower service courtyard to the east.

The south front has two storeys with basement and attic, set on a plinth with a bandcourse and rusticated pilasters to the sides, arranged in 3:3:3 bays. The central three bays project forward with a pediment and cornice. All windows are 18-pane sashes with thick glazing bars and first-floor arches with voussoirs. Three gabled dormers sit to right and left of the pediment, with the central ones having segmental pediments, all containing sashes. The basement has three 2-light casements to right and left, also with first arches and voussoirs. A central single-storey porte cochere with Tuscan columns was added in the mid-19th century. Within it sits a recessed round-arched doorway with moulded arch, keystone and imposts, a half-glazed door with fanlight, and French windows on each side.

The east side is rendered with pilasters, bandcourse and cornice, featuring three sashes at first-floor level and three similar dormers. Nineteenth-century additions at ground-floor level include a porch, casement windows and flat roofs. The west side is five bays wide, with all windows being sashes and a central half-glazed door with 9-pane overlight. It follows the same arrangement as other façades with plinth, bandcourse, pilasters and cornice, with three dormers. The basement has two 2-light casements to the left and a raised terrace to the right with wrought-iron screen. Attached to the right is a wall forming the rear of the arcade for forecourt buildings, with a blind window. A fine set of four lead rainwater heads with downpipes is present.

The north front has 3:3:3 bays, with the three central bays projecting forward under a pediment, all windows being sashes. The central bay has a window to right and left of a doorway—a round-arched opening with moulded arch, imposts and keystone, with panelled and glazed double doors with fanlights, pilasters and cornice carried forward over the pediment. Six dormers match those on the south. Four rows of rendered and lined-out stacks with caps are visible. Lead rainwater heads sit to the sides of the central bays. The basement storey has three 2-light casements to right and left, with a central flight of four granite steps with low flanking walls and a wrought-iron screen around one metre high. This forms a terrace with an archway underneath on each side.

The interior preserves a very fine, unaltered early 18th-century scheme. The hall and principal ground-floor rooms are panelled in oak; the first-floor rooms are panelled in pine, some painted. The staircase is in the inner hall, an open well with barley-twist turned balusters and columnar newels, retaining the original light fittings of glass globes on shaped brass arms. Each room has a marble chimneypiece of different coloured marble with bolection moulding. The central corridor at first floor is also panelled, with service stairs at each end giving access to the attic storey.