Cotehele House - Trehill Cornwall (NT)
Hidden within the Tamar Valley, accessible only via narrow Cornish lanes or by boat up the Tamar River, this Tudor house has been excellently preserved. The present house was built between 1485 and 1539 during the reigns of Richard III, Henry Tudor and Henry VIII. Sir Richard Edgcumbe (d.1489), having been handsomely rewarded for his loyalty to Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth, started the remodeling of the original 13th century property in 1485. Following his death 4 years later at Morlaix in Brittany , his son Sir Piers (1472-1539) set about its completion. It is a combination of durability of its local granite and slate stone out of which it is built and the decision of Sir Piers' son, Richard, to build a new family seat in 1553 overlooking Plymouth, that has resulted in Cotehele's architectural preservation.
An interesting architectural feature is that the windows on the outside of the property are sited high in the outer walls and are very small. The property was built very much with defence in mind. It is not until you enter the protected inner courtyard that the grand large windows appear. There is no electric light in the house which means that its rooms can appear rather gloomy on dull days and gives visitors an insight into what it would have been like to live here.
Windows on the outside of the property are
sited high in the outer walls
To the left of the south wing is the Retainers' Court, providing outbuildings to the main residence, and Sir Richard Edgcumbe's Chapel projects into this space. The moulded granite of the Chapel can be seen, with its bellcote and decorative finials. There is evidence of late fifteenth century building in the two light, pointed windows, with square dripcourses and the low broad west window to the Chapel. A wide pointed arch with a porter's squint was probably the original mid-fourteenth century entrance. Through the square gate-tower, you enter the main courtyard. The passageway is cobbled and just wide enough for a laden pack-horse. From here, several arched doorways lead into the various parts of the house, and the abrupt juxtaposition of the walls in the north west corner shows where Sir Richard's building ended and Sir Pier's began.
Inside the Hall, which unusually is directly off the courtyard and not separated by a screens passage, the high and decorative wooden ceiling was old-fashioned at the time, but is light and gives a sense of spaciousness. The walls are limewashed and would originally have been hung with armour and weaponry for convenience rather than decoration. The raised dais at one end, from where the Lord would survey his guests, has long been removed but the fifteenth century stained glass still proclaims the arms and history of the family.
Retainers' Court
In the Old Dining Room are the first of many tapestries which line the walls of Cotehele. Used as much for warmth and comfort as for decorative display of wealth and taste, the tapestries have been cut and sewn together and overlap each other to fit where necessary. The Chapel is late fifteenth century, with alterations from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The roof is barrel vaulted with Tudor roses carved on the bosses. There are three squints from which the services could be watched in private, one from the Lord's Solar, now called the South Room. The Chapel floor retains some of its medieval tiles and there is a high quality Flemish early sixteenth century Crucifixion on the south chancel wall. In the south west corner is the clock installed by Sir Richard between 1485 and 1489, the earliest domestic clock to survive in its original position and unaltered. It is a pre-pendulum clock, without a face, telling the time by the striking of bells in the bellcote above and it is still in working order.
The rooms in the house give a vivid glimpse of how the Tudor lifestyle changed over the years, and the furniture was adapted or added to as the function of each room was changed. For example, the Red Room and the South Room were originally one large Solar for the Lord's private residence. The rooms downstairs entertained royalty over the years, with King Charles's Room where he supposedly slept in 1644, Queen Anne's Room and the Old Drawing Room where George III and Queen Charlotte were entertained to breakfast in 1789.
The gardens at Cotehele are romantic and peaceful
Leading from the main staircase is the smallest of Cotehele's three courtyards, the Kitchen Court. There is a lead water tank with the date 1639 and more mysterious objects whose use is conjectural.The Kitchen itself was well sited for the Hall when in use for meals, but less so for the Old Dining Room across the court. It continued in use as the Kitchen until 1946 however.The original 10 foot Tudor hearth remains, now free from the Victorian ranges inserted into it and there is a huge oven in the north wall. Storage and preparation and cleaning was done in the surrounding larders, sculleries and still-rooms.
The gardens at Cotehele are romantic and peaceful, with winding paths through exotic and native plants and trees. There is a very photogenic dovecote, probably fifteenth century, which would have supplied fresh meat to the household. The lovely old barn now houses a popular restaurant, where the National Trust serve deliciously unusual and historically based lunches. Further away from the house there are nineteenth century workshops and a forge, filled with old tools and very interesting to wander round. A water mill and apple press are also open, and it is fascinating to work out how they functioned. Life at Cotehele was not all about the Lord and his family and visitors, but also about the many workers and servants on the estate. Their working space and how they lived is just as valuable a piece of history as the grand decoration and objects inside the house.