Godolphin House (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Godolphin Hall; Cairdine Castle; Godolgan

In the civil parish of Breage.
In the historic county of Cornwall.
Modern Authority of Cornwall.
1974 county of Cornwall.
Medieval County of Cornwall.

OS Map Grid Reference: SW60103184
Latitude 50.13804° Longitude -5.35843°

Godolphin House has been described as a Masonry Castle although is doubtful that it was such, and also as a probable Fortified Manor House.

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.
This is a Grade 1 listed building protected by law*.

Description

Country house, built as a courtyard house in the late C15 and extended considerably in C16. It was further extended in the mid C17 and has some C18 alterations. The house was reduced in size and converted into a farmhouse. Apart from C20 renovations it has been little altered since the early C19. Adjoining the house are C17 or possibly late C16 cobbled pavements and stabling including a fodder store. The forecourt walls and mounting block are C17. (PastScape)

The house was much reduced to open the house up from a courtyard house and this has destroyed some towers and some other elements of the earlier house have been refaced. 'The return and back walls within the colonnade are probably a C16 refacing of earlier semi-defensive work.' (Listed Building Report).

The present house was preceded by a small castle, built around 1300 by Sir Alexander Godolghan. The wall that surrounded the castle enclosed a space of four and a half acres, divided into nine equal plots. The castle itself occupied the central square, leaving the eight others as garden. (Aslet)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1021422, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number 36051
National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1158437
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 425981.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 29453.10.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Cornwall-online
Books
- Cooper, Nicholas, 1999, Houses of the Gentry, 1480-1680 (Yale University Press) passim
  Pevsner, N. revised by Enid Radcliffe, 1970, Buildings of England: Cornwall (Harmondsworth)
Periodical Articles
- Aslet, Clive, 9 Aug 2007, 'The importance of Godolphin House' Daily Telegraph online copy
  Schofield, S., 1974, 'Godolphin House' The Archaeological Journal Vol. 130 p. 262-4 plan
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England (Sutton Publishing) p. 66, 67
  Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1907, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (London: Bell and Sons) Vol. 1 p. 188 online copy
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Cooper, N. and Fletcher, M., 1995, Godolphin and its Gardens RCHME Report

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The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

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