Tehidy House

Summary

Tehidy is a country house designed by Thomas Edwards of Greenwich for John Pendarves Basset in 1736. The house was altered and extended in 1806, and improved in 1863 by William Burn for John Francis Basset. Following a devastating fire in 1919, the house was largely rebuilt as a tuberculosis hospital, including a war memorial tower. The hospital closed 1988 and the house was converted into residential apartments between 1997 and 2000.

Reasons for Designation

Tehidy House is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* the neatly designed Palladian pavilions by Thomas Edwards of Greenwich are a reminder of the early history of the house built for John Pendarves Basset;
* despite conversion in the late C20, the C19 and early C20 elements of the house, its plan and several quality architectural features are still discernable.

Historic interest:

* for its long association with the Basset family, one of Cornwall’s eminent mining dynasties;
* despite depletions, the house remains recognised as a significant hub of C18 and C19 entrepreneurship within the richest mining area in Cornwall;
* the clocktower stands as an eloquent witness to the tragic impact of the First World War on communities, and the sacrifices made in the conflict.

Group value:

* with the associated walled garden, coach house and stables at Tehidy House which are listed Grade II.

History

The manor of Tehidy was acquired by Walter Basset through marriage to Cecilia de Dunstanville in around 1150. The Basset men continued to marry well, bringing other manors into their ownership, and the family became one of the greatest Cornish mining dynasties and the Tehidy estate a hub of mining entrepreneurship. However, little is known of the Bassets’ early houses: records suggest that a licence was granted in 1330 to crenelate a dwelling; in 1379 William Basset had a licence for a chapel; and in 1497 a house may have been destroyed during the Cornish uprising against the Crown.

Financially boosted by shrewd exploitation of their mineral assets, in 1736 John Pendarves Basset commissioned Thomas Edwards of Greenwich to design a new Palladian mansion at Tehidy, comprising a main pedimented block at the centre of four quadrant pavilions. 12,000 bricks were shipped from London to Hayle, and 74 tonnes of Portland stone and 30 tonnes of Bath stone were imported, supplemented by granite from the quarries at Carn Brea.

By 1806 the house had been extended to the west with the addition of a new dining room with chambers above, and the central block heightened and a curved bow added on the north side of the house. The pavilions may also have been altered during this time. In 1858 John Francis Basset – the fifth richest commoner in England - married the Honourable Emily Vereker – daughter of the 2nd Viscount Gort. In 1863 he set about improving the house to the standard expected of a Victorian country house, using the London architect William Burn to remodel it in an Italianate style and almost doubling it in size. However, this was the end of the Basset family’s fortunes. Thoughtless extravagance by Arthur Basset in the last years of the C19 coupled with the declining revenues from mining led to the estate being put on the market in 1916; it was eventually broken into lots and sold at auction. The part of the estate including the house was purchased by a London syndicate in 1917, who offered the house and 250 acres to Cornwall County Council for £10,000.

In November 1917, the County Council issued a public appeal to collect funds for the purchase, with the aim of converting the house into a tuberculosis hospital as a memorial to the Cornish men and women who had given their lives for and continued to serve in the ongoing Great War. A Cornwall War Memorial Committee (CWMC) was established and a deadline of the end of the year was given, by which time over £11,000 had been raised. The fund had reached £17,000 when the title deeds were presented by Viscount Falmouth, chairman of the CWMC, to Mr WC Pendarves for the County Council at a ceremony at Tehidy on Whit Monday, 20 May 1918. Eventually over £18,000 was raised for the full purchase of the house and grounds and the necessary equipment for its conversion into a much-needed facility.

Work on the new hospital was almost complete when on the night of 25 February 1919 the house was almost completely destroyed by fire. The conservatory and kitchens and three of the pavilions survived, which were incorporated into the rebuilt hospital with an administration block linking the north and south pavilions and the main ward block linking the north and west pavilions. Stone from the earlier house was reused; four stone columns on the east front may have come from the porte-cochère of the C19 house. From the original Cornwall War Memorial Committee funds £849 was used to construct a large clock tower above the administration block and a plaque was installed in the entrance hall below; the hospital and tower together became a memorial to the 6,200 people of Cornwall who gave their lives during the Great War. The inscription on the plaque was written by Sir Arthur Quiller Couch. The hospital reopened in 1922, with 64 male patients and local criticism about the cost of rebuilding, much of which was published in the local press (see Sources).

The hospital closed in 1988, and the buildings converted into private residential apartments between 1997 and 2000.

Details

Country house, then hospital, now apartments, 1736, by Thomas Edwards of Greenwich for John Pendarves Basset. Altered and extended 1806. Improved 1863 by William Burn for John Francis Basset. Rebuilt 1919-1922 as a tuberculosis hospital, closed 1988. Converted into residential apartments 1997-2000.

MATERIALS: rebuilt using freestone from Illogan Down; pavilions scored stucco, painted white. Slate roofs. Incorporating C18 material (including London bricks, Portland stone, Bath stone, and local granite from Carn Brea) and C19 fabric.

PLAN: courtyard plan, open to the south, comprising 1919 to 1922 east range with central clocktower (now North Villa, South Villa, and Clocktower House) linking the north and south C18 pavilions; 1919 to 1922 former ward block to the north (now numbers 1-4 The Courtyard) linking the north and west C18 pavilions; former mid-C19 conservatory or orangery to the west (West Villa and The Italian Pavilion).

EXTERIOR: the C18 pavilions are Palladian in design, and the C19 elements and the rebuilt house are designed in a neo-Classical style. The two-storey principal range is to the east and is rectangular, aligned roughly north to south. The east elevation has a symmetrical composition, on a granite plinth of channelled rustication, similarly decorated corner pilasters, and a modillioned cornice. In the centre is a two-storey three-bay pedimented porte-cochère with Tuscan columns on very high pedestals, set-back semi-elliptical arches to the ground floor, wrought-iron railings to the balcony, a modillioned cornice, and an oculus in the pediment. The doorway has double doors and a doorcase of semi-columns with triglyph frieze and mutule cornice. The central bay is flanked by four window bays on each side: Timber sash windows throughout, with 18 panes at ground floor and 15 above, and raised surrounds with keystones. Above the porte-cochère, and at the centre of the front slope of the hipped roof, is a two-stage clocktower surmounted by an octagonal bellcote with a domed cap and weathervane. The range has two axial and two end stacks, and at each end of the elevation is a narrow two-storey link with a round-headed window to the first floor.

Adjoining each end of the elevation is a C18 pavilion; these now form cross wings, are rectangular in plan, two storeys, three bays to the east and five bays to the return. Hipped roofs with four chimneys and a central lantern with large, keyed oculus in each side and ogival cap with finial. Each pavilion has a first-floor band, cornice and blocking course. They have 12-pane sash windows at the ground floor and low four-pane sash windows with thick glazing bars above, all with raised surrounds and keystones. Their return walls are of sandstone ashlar; that to the south has a ground floor round-headed arcade with an impost band containing round-headed windows (glazing altered) and doors in alternation, and a lead downspout fixed by brackets decorated with stars. The north return wall has a central doorway altered as a window, and a C19 tripartite window to the right. The rear of the main east range has alternating canted bay windows to the ground floor and a central flat-roofed porch with a round-headed doorway and a hood mould on console brackets to the window above. The rear of the south pavilion has a recessed Venetian-style arrangement, with two sash windows in the central part and niches flanking; and the west pavilion has inserted double doors in the north wall, a large ventilator attached at first floor, and C19 glazing in the windows.

The former ward range (north) has a hipped roof, and the south elevation has a row of tripartite timber windows to the eaves set back above a 10-bay arch-headed arcade (formerly a loggia, now infilled with doors and windows) with a central round-arched doorway and Dutch gable above.

At the south-west corner of the sunk garden the rusticated basement of the 1863 drawing room forms a raised terrace leading to the former conservatory. This is a single-storey seven-bay building raised on a high plinth, with a three-bay canted centre, channelled rustication to the plinth, an arcade of large round-headed windows, and balustraded parapet.

INTERIOR: the interior was converted into apartments in the late C20, although some features from the 1919 to 1922 rebuilding, such as octagonal granite columns in the former ward range, are understood to survive.

Within the entrance hall to Clocktower House is a large timber plaque inscribed with the text: ‘The mansion park and residences of Tehidy were purchased by a fund subscribed to perpetuate in a house of benefit for living Cornishmen and Cornishwomen a proud memorial of their dead who in health laid down to defend their country 1914-1918. The title deeds were handed over to the County Council of Cornwall on Whit Monday, 1918. On the night of 25 February 1919, the main mansion was destroyed by fire and has since been rebuilt in its present form. This tower of remembrance was erected by special subscription in gratitude triumphant over death and difficulty through Divine mercy. Majorem hac dilectionem nemo habet’ followed by the names of the Cornwall War Memorial Committee officers.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

66760

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Beacham, P, Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Cornwall, (2014), 625-626
Newberry, P, The Country Houses of Cornwall, (2023), 20-26
Lauder, R, Vanished Houses of Cornwall, (2020), 69-100
Tangye, M, Tehidy and the Bassets, (1984)

Websites
House and Heritage: Tehidy, accessed 13/04/2026 from https://houseandheritage.org/2019/04/05/tehidy/
Heritage Gateway: Cornwall & Scilly Historic Environment Record, accessed 13/04/2026 from https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MCO11323&resourceID=1020

Other
County of Cornwall War Memorial Committee records (Kresen Kernow X932)
‘The Future of Tehidy’, in The Cornishman, October 11 1917, p5
‘Cornwall War Memorial: The Tehidy Scheme’, in Royal Cornwall Gazette, December 6 1917, p4
‘Tehidy Sanatorium’, in The West Briton, December 27 1917, p4
‘Cost of Tehidy’, in The West Briton, March 15 1923, p4

End of official list entry

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