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

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17533979

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990: Updated version
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair