Tresillian House, Cornwall

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Tresillian House

Cornwall


Entrance drive to Tresillian House
Type: Country house
Location
Grid reference: SW855583
Location: 50°23’9"N, 5°1’4"W
Village: Tresillian
History
Built 18th century
Country house
Information
Owned by: George Robinson

Tresillian House is a country house at Tresillian in eastern Cornwall, to the north-east of St Newlyn East, off the A3058 road.

The estate was long held by the Gully family, from whom it passed by marriage to become for two centuries the seat of the Bennet family. Of the latter, the first was John Bennet, Curate of Antony and later Richard Gully Bennet is recorded as owning Tresillian in 1837, and who was also a magistrate in Cumberland.[1][2]

In 2000 however the house was sold to its current owner.

The house is a Grade II listed building.[3]

Architecture

The house is dated to the late 18th-century but was extended in the mid 19th-century for the Gully-Bennett family. It is a two storey house, made of gritstone and granite flush quoins, with a dalabole slate roof and twelve paned windows with Georgian glazed panels, five of them at the front.[3] The central entrance hall on the north-east front leads to a large oak staircase and the library (refurbished in late 19th -early 20th century) and main drawing room are located on the south-east side.

The drawing room has a central floral rose and a Carrara marble chimneypiece. It was recently restored by Robert Rowett Architectural Services.[4]

History

Gully

Samuel I Gully of Leigh, Devon, purchased Tresillian in 1699.[5] Enodor Gully (d.1748), left the estate to his nephew Samuel Gully (d.pre–1748) (son of his late brother Ezekiel Gully).[6]

This latter Samuel Gully was succeeded by his son, Richard, who left no children, then his daughter Phillippa, who was the wife of Reverend John Bennet (d.1785), Vicar of Enoder.[7] Their son and grandson were also clergymen; their grandson Riichard inherited the estate in about 1785.

Bennet

The Rev. John Bennet (d. January 1805) was Curate of Antony, the son of Reverend John Bennet (d.1785), Vicar of Gwinear in Cornwall, who was the son of Reverend Thomas Bennet (d.1767), and Phillippa Gully, the last Gully heiress of Tresillian. From him descended the line taking the double name "Gully Bennet".

The Bennet held the estate until after the Second World War, when eventually it was sold.

Robinson

In 2000 Tresillian was purchased by George Edward Silvanus Robinson (born 1956), who was a founding partner of a City of London hedge fund and a trustee of the think-tank Policy Exchange. Tresillian had been purchased from the Bennet family after Second World War by his maternal grandfather, a noted gardener and specialist breeder of daffodils, who created the Summerscourt daffodil, a variety of narcissus. George's mother spent her childhood at Tresillian. He kept on the head gardener since 1985, John Harris, now a well-known gardening expert and broadcaster who follows the principles of 'Moon gardening',[8] plant management in accord with the phases of the moon.[9]

Sources

Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry, 15th Edition, ed. Pirie-Gordon, H., London, 1937, p. 136, Bennet of Tresillian

References

  1. Burke, Sir Bernard; Pirie-Gordon, Charles Harry Clinton (1937). A genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry. Burke Pub. Co.. p. 136. http://books.google.com/books?id=jurmAAAAMAAJ. Retrieved 27 January 2012. 
  2. The Gentleman's magazine. Printed by F. Jefferies. 1837. p. 108. http://books.google.com/books?id=I-QIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA108. Retrieved 27 January 2012. 
  3. 3.0 3.1 Tresillian House, St Newlyn East - British Listed Buildings
  4. Tresillian House Estate - Robert Rowett Architectural Services
  5. Burke's, 1937, p.136
  6. Will of Enodor Gully (d.1748), transcript by David Brown
  7. Burke's, 1937, p.136
  8. Mark Diacono, Daily Telegraph Newspaper, 12 July 2014, Should you use the moon to garden?[1]
  9. Tresillian (Kirsty Fergusson) Country Life Magazine, 20 June 2012, pp.92-6