Whiteford Temple
| Whiteford Temple | |
|
Landmark Trust | |
|---|---|
 Whiteford Temple, Callington | |
| Grid reference: | SX353738 |
| Location: | 50°32’27"N, 4°19’29"W |
| Information | |
| Website: | Whitefod Temple |
Whiteford Temple is a building at Stoke Climsland, north of Callington in eastern Cornwall, which once graced the ground of Whiteford House. The house was built in 1773 for Sir John Call, a military engineer who had made a fortune in India but, after serving for some time as an estate office for the Duchy of Cornwall, was demolished 1913. Some of the stone of the house was used to build the nearby Duchy College.
The remaining buildings of the estate are its stables and Whiteford Temple, now restored.
History of the Temple
Whiteford Temple built in 1799 for Sir John Call in the grounds of his new house, Whiteford House. The purpose of the building has been obscured by its later fall into dilapidation but it has the form of a summer house beautifying a lofty vista in the gardens. It appears to have been well appointed and larger in former days than as it stands now, judging by the account of a party held in the Temple in 1847.
The estate was sold to the Duchy of Cornwall in 1879. The house was demolished in 1913. By the latter part of the century, the temple was in the last stages of dilapidation; it was being used as a cattle shelter, its arched entrances boarded and barred, its roof gone so that the building was roughly roofed with corrugated iron and with an earthen floor. Its past was hinted at by the Coade stone plaques on the exterior walls, contemporary with the building with classically styled depictions representing the harvest season, America and India.
In 1984, the Duchy gave Whiteford Temple to the Landmark Trust, which restored it to a beautiful condition. It is now let as a holiday cottage.
Outside links
- Whiteford Temple: The Landmark Trust