Description

TRURO

880-1/7/220 PRINCES STREET 29-DEC-50 TRURO (South side) Princes House

II* Town house. c1740. By Thomas Edwards for William Lemon. Porch, steps and dwarf boundary wall designed by Silvanus Trevail added by S. J. Polkinhorn in 1893. Granite ashlar basement, dressed freestone with late C19 porch, otherwise painted brick with freestone dressings; roof hidden behind parapet, brick end stacks. Double-depth plan with central entrance hall leading to large stair hall, on the right, reception room on the left, large "saloon" (Lemon inventory) behind and service stair and service room behind the main stair. 3 storeys; symmetrical 5-window street front. Central porch with round-arched doorway has entablature broken forward over 2 pairs of Corinthian columns whose bases are linked to quadrant-on-plan stone balustrades of broad flight of entrance steps. Basement has flat arches with projecting keyblocks. Rusticated quoins, mid-floor platband, first-floor sill string, and modillioned cornice to parapet. Original sashes with thick glazing bars and some crown glass, within Gibbs surrounds over moulded sills on consoles to ground floor, and within moulded architraves to upper floors. Rear elevation is also complete. INTERIOR: retains its original fine quality carpentry, joinery and plasterwork including Ionic columns to entrance hall, mahogany open-well staircase with key motif and egg and dart and dentilled soffit, square panelled newels, ramped handrail and heavy turned balusters; stair-hall also has plasterwork with deeply carved acanthus decoration to oval ceiling panels and plaster wall panels with decorative pediments and drapes and Vitruvian scroll to frieze. Heavy doorcases with pulvinated friezes and cornices or pediments, in ground-floor rear room the doorcases are intricately carved. This room, the saloon, also has elaborate Rococo plaster ceiling and cornice and fireplace with pedimented overmantle and intricately carved window architraves. Other rooms are well detailed. Service stair of painted pine and has closed string and turned balusters with moulded handrail over square newels. When built, this was the finest house in Truro but soon after Lemon's death his agent Thomas Daniell "bought up Lemon's mining and mercantile interests, and built an equally imposing house in the same street (The Mansion House (qv)), employing Edwards as his architect" (Colvin).

Sources:- The Truro Buildings Research Group: Prince's Street and The Quay Area: Truro: 1980-; Colvin H: A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840: London: 1978-: 285). Architects drawing by Silvanus Trevail held in Cornwall County Record Office [CRO 888-1/7/220]

External Links

• Wikidata Q17533979

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Recommended Books

• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)