Lifton Park

Lifton Park is a house and adjacent ruins dating to around 1815, built for William Arundell of Kenegie in Cornwall, who inherited the Lifton estate in 1775. The building was substantially altered in 1857 when Henry Bradshaw acquired the estate in 1844. It is constructed of stuccoed stone with some stone dressings, slate roofs, and rendered stacks. The west block survives largely intact, while the east block has become ruinous since around 1950.

The original 1815 design was an extensive Gothick house with a west entrance and a sequence of principal rooms facing south that opened into one another. The centrepiece on the south side was a single-storey room, said to have been an orangery, featuring three tall arched Gothick windows with timber tracery, positioned between slightly advanced blocks to the west and east.

The 1857 alterations were confined to the entrance front at the west, which was refenestrated with stone traceried windows and given a battlemented parapet with stepped and Dutch gables.

The surviving west block presents a two-storey symmetrical eight-bay front in stuccoed and rusticated stone. At its centre stands an embattled porte-cochere with flying diagonal buttresses and double chamfered arches carried on short shafts. The projections to the front left and right have Dutch gables crowned with crosses and slender setback buttresses with set-offs. The battlemented parapet to the central five bays rises as a stepped gable, crowned with a cross above the middle bay. Throughout the facade are Perpendicular style stone traceried windows of one, two, and three lights with cusping in the heads of the main lights. The tall arched doorway features a two-leaf door at the main entrance. Adjoining to the north of the entrance front is one bay preserving 1815 detailing: a single-storey embattled projection with a two-light Gothick arched timber traceried casement in a rectangular architrave. The south side of the west block has two stepped gables to the south and one to the east, and retains its 1815 fenestration of two-light timber traceried casements in rectangular architraves, with French windows on the ground floor. The slate roof is topped with rendered stacks featuring moulded caps and tall ornamental chimney pots.

The interior of the west block contains a plaster vault to the porch, likely dating from 1815. Most joinery and cornices are also from 1815, including large two-leaf doors with Gothick panelling. The hall fireplace surround features moulded stone pinnacles (one finial missing) and a cast iron fireplace corbelled out on Gothic heads. The principal staircase is a dog-leg design supported on iron columns with stone stairs and paired cast iron balusters. A second timber staircase has balusters with Gothick detailing and a trail of foliage carved on the newel post. The plan is double-depth with rooms leading directly off a large entrance hall.

The ruinous east block, also dating from 1815, is constructed of stuccoed stone with vermiculated rustication and rendered stacks with moulded caps. It stands roofless to the east of the house, forming a picturesque ruin. The remains of the central three-bay room on the south side feature an embattled parapet and tall arched Gothick windows with timber tracery and buttresses with set-offs between. To the east of this lies what appears to have been an irregular picturesque block with canted bays and two-light Gothick arched timber traceried casements in rectangular architraves.

William Arundell is said to have rebuilt an earlier house on the site, though no sign of a pre-1815 core survives. At the time of survey in 1985, the west block was undergoing renovation while the east part remained ruinous.