Copplestone House

Copplestone House is a large house dating to circa 1840, incorporating a fragment of 16th-century work. The house is constructed of plastered rubble, with the front portion featuring volcanic ashlar, and has stone rubble stacks with plastered brick chimney shafts and a slate roof. The plan is irregular, with rooms arranged around a central entrance hall and staircase, and a rear wing at right angles, and a parallel service wing under a separate roof. A three-storey section with a gable roof projects slightly forward in the centre.

The symmetrical front facade has five windows arranged as 2:1:2. The central bay, rising three stories, features a large doorway with a flat-roofed Doric porch supported by granite columns on granite steps, topped with a moulded entablature. A C20 double door replaces the original. Above this are painted stone Tudor Gothic windows; a four-light window on the first floor and a three-light window on the second floor. The first-floor window has a king mullion, and the second-floor mullions are carved with wreathed enrichment and crocketted finials, both with moulded hoods and carved labels. Each of the outer two-window bays contains C20 horned sashes without glazing bars, set within eared and shouldered architraves. A plain eaves cornice with shaped brackets runs along the top, and the roof is hipped at each end. A blocked C16 volcanic stone arch is visible in the wall between the central bay and the window to its right.

The irregular rear elevation incorporates several original windows, including 12-pane sashes and a tripartite sash in the rear block, as well as first-floor nine-pane sashes. The service wing at the left end has 19th-century casements. A pent roof, supported by square-section timber posts, runs along the front.

The interior retains much original joinery, plasterwork, and several fireplaces. A grand staircase, an Imperial stair with open string, slender turned balusters, a mahogany handrail, scrolled wreath, and curtail step, is located in a large stairwell. While a blocked C16 arch is visible on the front, no other features from that period are known; in 1793 Polwhele noted that there were ‘scarcely any remains of a mansion house’ on the site. An original six-panel door, protected by a moulded stucco architrave and flat hood on shaped brackets, is found on the left end wall.