Tregenna Castle

Tregenna Castle
Tregenna Castle
Location in Cornwall
General information
Type	hotel
Town or city	St Ives, Cornwall
Country	United Kingdom
Groundbreaking	1774
Client	Samuel Stephens
Design and construction
Architect	probably John Wood, the Younger
Designations	Grade II listed

Tregenna Castle, in St Ives, Cornwall, was built by Samuel Stephens in the 18th century. The estate was sold in 1871 and became a hotel, a purpose for which it is still used today.

The castle is a Grade II Listed building. It is surrounded by 72 acres (29 ha) of gardens and natural woodland, and has views along the coastline of Cornwall.

Tregenna Castle was built in 1774 by Samuel Stephens a member of an important local family. The architect was probably John Wood, the Younger. The building was extended in the 19th century. The estate was put up for sale by auction on 31 October 1871. The castle – "an imposing castellated edifice, very substantially built of granite" – at this time included three pairs of bedrooms on the upper floor and another bedroom on the ground floor; a school room; billiard room; WCs; and servants' quarters in the basement. The sale included the "park, lodge, glen, pasture grounds, gardens, woods, plantations, and lands in hand 90 Acres, 1 Rood, 20 Perches."

The Great Western Railway (GWR) opened its St Ives branch line on 1 June 1877 and it leased the Tregenna Castle as a hotel the following year, opening it on 5 August 1878. Early railway hotels had only been situated near large terminals or junctions, but this one was the first intended by the GWR as a holiday destination in its own right.

Sir Daniel Gooch, the chairman of the GWR, stayed at the hotel a few weeks after it opened to the public. He recorded in his diary that

The GWR purchased the hotel outright in 1895.

One of the GWR's buses, a 1.5 ton Milnes-Daimler type, was stationed at the hotel from 1913 to convey residents to the golf links at Lelant but the service was suspended in 1916 due to fuel shortages during World War I. It was replaced in 1922 by a new bus on a Burford chassis. This operated for seven years until the arrival of a new Thornycroft bus with a Duple body in 1929.