Bonallack Barton

A house built circa 1860 (reputedly 1855) by Colonel S.M. Grylls for his tenant James Tyacke, reusing some 16th-century material from the old house (Bonallack Barton Cottages, Nos 1 and 2). The building was extended in 1898 for F.C. Baddeley by Sampson Hill, architect of Redruth.

Structure and Materials

The original circa 1860 part comprises granite rubble with granite dressings and a granite ashlar front wall. The 1898 cross-wing extension is shale rubble with granite dressings. The house features a steeply pitched slate roof with granite coping to the gable ends, which have moulded kneelers. Brick stacks are positioned at the gable ends and as an axial stack over the rear wing, all with diagonally set brick shafts.

Plan

The original circa 1860 house is L-shaped. There are two principal rooms in the front range with a wide entrance passage between them, leading to a stairshall behind the right-hand room. The wing behind the left-hand room contains the kitchen and service rooms at the back. In 1898, a large drawing room was added in a cross-wing at the right-hand end, and a single-storey lean-to with rear porch were added at the back, infilling the space between the two rear wings. Architect's plans were prepared for a schoolroom to be built at the right end beyond the new cross-wing, but this was never constructed.

Exterior

The house is two storeys and two storeys and attic, with an asymmetrical 3:1 window south-east front. The original two-storey three-window ashlar-fronted range to the left has a symmetrical front with six-light granite mullion windows. The centre first-floor window has three lights; all windows have four-centred arch heads to the lights with hoodmoulds. The ground floor windows have king mullions. The central doorway has a three-centred arch double-chamfered frame with sunken spandrels and a hoodmould. All hoodmoulds have a quatrefoil motif in their stops. A studded plank door hangs in a roll-moulded doorframe.

The projecting gable end of the cross-wing to the right is two storeys and attic with Gothic granite windows. The ground floor has a 1:3:1 light window with pointed arch heads and a segmentally arched hoodmould. The four-light first floor window has similar pointed lights and a depressed two-centred arch hoodmould. The attic window is similar but of three lights, with a granite shield above bearing the monogram of F.C. Baddeley and the date 1898. The right-hand (north-east) side of this cross-wing has a projecting gable and single-light four-centred arch windows. The left-hand (south-west) elevation has reused circa late 16th or early 17th-century two and three-light granite windows with hoodmoulds, some of the mullions removed.

The rear elevation has a projecting gable-ended wing of the 1860 part to the right and a slightly projecting gable end of the 1898 cross-wing to the left. The recessed section between has a three-light stair window with four-centred-headed lights and a brick single lean-to below incorporating a back porch. Most of the 19th-century windows are intact, including their original casements.

Interior

The left-hand front room has a carved wooden window lintel reused from the old house. The room to the right of the entrance also has a reused carved timber window lintel. Both lintels are decorated with carved leaf ornament. The right-hand room contains a reused late 16th-century moulded four-centred arch granite fireplace, which was probably originally a doorframe.

The large drawing room in the right-hand cross-wing has a late 19th-century granite Tudor arch fireplace in an inglenook. The late 19th-century staircase has a wooden balustrade. The kitchen has a reused chamfered granite arched lintel.

Historical Context

When Colonel S.M. Grylls established his family seat at Lewarne, St Neat, the old house (Bonallack Barton Cottages, Nos 1 and 2) was reduced to cottages for farm workers. He built this house circa 1860 for his tenant James Pellowe Tyacke. The estate was later sold to F.C. Baddeley, who extended the house in 1898. Baddeley employed Sampson Hill, architect and surveyor of Green Lane, Redruth, who was architect to the Cornwall County Council Education Committee.