Description

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SW 73 NW
2/262

STITHIANS
KENNAL VALE
Kennal Vale House, including adjoining garden walls, gate-piers and gates

GV
II*

Small country house adjoining including garden walls and gate-piers. Circa 1830. Stuccoed walls. Slurried scantle slate roof hipped around square lead flat and behind parapets to garden fronts and entrance front. Stuccoed brick chimneys, one chimney over rear wall of each rear room. Rear wings have low pitched roofs corrugated. iron..

Plan: Double depth plan with two fairly large reception rooms at the principal garden front (deeper principal parlour on the left). Kitchen behind the left-hand room; entrance hall behind right-hand room leading to central rear stair hall and study, behind the entrance hall. At the rear is an original and complete service courtyard flanked by two similar two-storey service wings whose doorways are linked to the house by an open lean-to cloister. The service wings are built into a high bank at the rear and both wings have first floor loading doorways. At the rear of the courtyard is a high retaining wall with a central gateway to a flight of stone steps down to the courtyard and under the steps is an integral dog kennel. The plan and function of all the rooms of the house is unaltered since built.

Exterior: two storeys. Virtually complete elevations with original stuccoed features, with high plinth, mid-floor band with Vitruvian scroll, moulded parapet cornice and plain parapet; originally doors and windows. Symmetrical 1:1:1-bay south-east garden front with bowed bays at left and right. Central bay has arched niche to each floor. Nearly symmetrical three window north-east entrance front has doorway slightly right of middle. Original six-panel door later glazed to top four panels and original distyle Tuscan porch. Windows are hornless sashes with thin glazing bars. Elliptically arched stair window with traceried head.

Interior has most of its original features including mahogany panelled doors; moulded architraves with lion's heads in the corner blocks; open well stair with mahogany handrail scrolled over the newel; marble chimney-pieces in the front reception rooms; fine plasterwork with trailing bands and a cross vault over the junction between the axial and cross passage. Service rooms are also unaltered and were fuel stores and pantries to the ground floor and probably apple stores or servants quarters above.

Parallel to the rear of the house is a high rubble retaining wall with square-edged granite copings. There is a narrow gateway at the rear of the courtyard, a wide gateway at far right and a small gateway towards the left. The gate-piers are integral with the walls and rise as square chamfered heads above the walls. Small gateways have their original wrought-iron gates with roundels to the lock rails, arched top rails, ball and steeple finials over lock rails and arrow -head finials over the top rails. At the left-hand end of the garden the wall returns at right angles to the front.

Kennal Vale House is one of the most interesting and complete early C19 houses in this part of Cornwall. The rear courtyard with its cloister and service wing is particularly interesting.

Listing NGR: SW7463037099

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17532416

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

• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living
• 
  Harrow on the Hill: A photographic portrayal of listed buildings and structures (Historic Buildings Picture Guides)
• 
  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy