A History of Lavethan
Origins
There has probably been a house at Lavethan for about a thousand years. The name Lavethan is thought to mean “house in the meadow”. Lavethan began as a typical Cornish longhouse with an upper room for humans and a lower room for animals, separated by a passage (which still exists between the granite porch and the arched entrance on the opposite side of the house). Lavethan was gradually extended over the years: in the 16th century a separate kitchen was built, then a South wing which took the form of a double-height banqueting hall, or perhaps a chapel – nobody knows. The remains of two tall granite window frames can still be seen inside, but these windows were later blocked up. The quirkiness of the South Wing raises many questions, leaving the most distinguished architectural historians scratching their heads in bewilderment.
15th – 17th Century
The first prominent owners of Lavethan arrived in 1475: the Kempes, the Cornish branch of a powerful family that included an archbishop of Canterbury (John Kempe 1380-1454), were probably responsible for the earliest development of the current house. When they finally sold Lavethan in 1654, the estate included 4 mills, 16 orchards, 16 gardens, 400 acres of land, 50 acres of meadow, 200 acres of pasture, 40 acres of woodland and 300 acres of heath - a huge agricultural enterprise. From the Kempes, Lavethan passed to the Treise family in the 17th century and then by marriage to the Morsheads in the 18th century.
Between the 17th and 18th centuries, Lavethan was substantially extended with a North wing, an upper floor and a separate dower house. The west-facing courtyard was re-fashioned as the main entrance, with rendered walls and new wooden sash windows replacing nearly all the earlier granite casements, transforming Lavethan’s appearance from a Cornish granite house into something more gentlemanly. The datestone showing 1653 is misleading, as wooden sash windows were not introduced into Britain until well after this date. Perhaps the 1653 datestone marked an earlier remodelling rather than what we see today – another puzzle.
18th – 19th Century
The most ambitious development of Lavethan was undertaken in the late 1700s by Sir John Morshead, sometime MP for Bodmin and close associate of the Prince Regent. Sir John inherited one fortune (including Lavethan) from his father and another fortune (plus another big house) through marriage to his glamorous wife Elizabeth. He enjoyed the good things in life, commissioning a lavish double portrait of himself and Elizabeth in 1786 from the celebrated artist George Romney. Sir John probably masterminded the exquisite wood-panelled bedrooms and grand staircase in the North wing. He also ordered an elaborate gentrification of the parlour (which would, in the original 15th Century longhouse, have been the animal dwelling), adding a new bay window facing the valley, rounded internal arches and a plaster frieze. His most bizarre undertaking was to transport, stone by stone, an impressive turreted archway from Blisland’s Mansion House (which he also owned) down to Lavethan, to frame the pathway between the main house and the long barn. This arch is perhaps Lavethan’s most distinctive feature, and thankfully the subsequent owners of the Mansion House have never tried to reclaim it. Apart from building new facilities to impress his friends, Sir John was busy fishing (as satirised by Rowlandson, see below) and gambling. Unfortunately, he gambled away the two fortunes and eventually had to surrender Lavethan to his brother who had bought up his debts. Another of Rowlandson’s caricatures of Morshead shows him frantically chopping up trees to satisfy his creditors (see reproduction below).
Nonetheless, in the 19th century, Lavethan was still a very large estate with holdings extending out onto Bodmin moor, Lavethan wood on the opposite side of the valley, the water mill at Tresarrett and a good part of the village of Blisland, including the pub. Lavethan was featured in Edward Twycross’ book of 1846 depicting the 80 most impressive houses in Cornwall (see reproduction below). After the Morsheads’ tenure, Lavethan changed hands several times, and eventually in 1920 the bulk of the estate was sold off piecemeal at auction.
1930s - 1950s
In the mid-1930s Lavethan was bought by Colonel Geoghegan who was looking for a suitable residence on his return from India, not wishing to return to Ireland. He was introduced to Lavethan by his military associate Edward-Collins, whose family still resides on the other side of the valley at Trewardle. Colonel Geoghegan embarked on a substantial modernisation of Lavethan, introducing plumbing and chimney extensions. He also constructed a leat and a turbine in the river, which generated the first electricity in Blisland (Penelope, the Colonel’s granddaughter, remembers from her childhood visits that when the lights in the house went dim, she would run down to the leat to help clear the leaves blocking the turbine). Lavethan was a welcoming and hospitable place, and a regular visitor in the 1930s was Eugene Pini, Argentinian violinist and tango band director, the talk of London’s dance halls.
Colonel Geoghegan held on at Lavethan until the 1950s but struggled to find anyone to take on the job of looking after the estate. Next to take up residence were the Lumley-Smith family, who used the main building as a Children’s Hotel during school holidays. Their young daughter Jane would lead the band of children off to swim at Carbilly Quarry on the moor. The Lumley-Smiths restored the east-facing granite courtyard and reinstated it as the main entrance to the house, sweeping away the collection of sheds and agricultural clutter that had accumulated there during the 19th century, and they handed over Lavethan Wood to the Woodland trust.
1980s - Today
In the mid-1980s Lavethan was purchased by Nick and Venetia Lilley, who converted one of the long agricultural barns into holiday cottages. Their pet pig was a friendly presence in the kitchen. Nick kept vintage cars in the stable barn and a light aircraft at Bodmin Airfield, which he used to drop his children off at boarding school and occasionally fly over to France for lunch. In the mid-1990s Lavethan was bought by Christopher and Catherine Hartley. They transformed the gardens, terracing the former walled vegetable garden, planting many roses and creating a deep herbaceous border next to the stable barn.
Since arriving at Lavethan in 2016, the current owners Simon and Krysia have restored the interior of the stable barn, repurposing it as a superb performance space where they host regular concerts. They have had the crumbling granite courtyard repointed, and their main gardening project is the recreation of the Victorian water garden, where they are uncovering many wonderful features which had been hidden for more than a century. Lavethan continues to work its magic: the project is endless, and the work goes on.
