Trelissick House, Cornwall

Trelissick appears to have existed as a farm by the late 13th century.

Soon after inheriting, John Lawrence built a mansion at Trelissick to the design of Edmund Davey and laid out a small park. When Lawrence died in 1790, the estate was divided, the larger portion being held by his widow. Trelissick was let to Francis Pender, while another portion of the estate, including King Harry Quay, was let to Ralph Allen Daniell.

In 1802 Trelissick was described in the Royal Cornwall Gazette as standing 'much elevated', with grounds including a 'large walled garden well cloathed with fruit trees, a good orchard behind the house and a handsome lawn in front'.

The Lawrence family experienced financial difficulties after 1790, and in 1805 Trelissick was offered for sale as the result of legal action by the family's creditors, including Ralph Allen. Daniell, who now acquired Trelissick, was the son of a wealthy tin and copper mine owner, Thomas 'Guinea-a-Minute' Daniell and his wife, the niece and heiress of Ralph Allen of Prior Park, Bath. R A Daniell expanded and developed the 18th century park, creating rides through woodland to the north and south of the house; these developments are shown on an estate plan of about 1821, which also includes a vignette view of the house and park from the south.

When Daniell died in 1823 the estate passed to his son Thomas, who in 1825 commissioned the architect P F Robinson to enlarge and remodel the existing house. Robinson's design was published in his Designs for Ornamental Villas (1827). In the same year it was noted that 'the plantations and shrubberies round the mansion are extremely beautiful, especially the latter, which abound with many varieties of choice shrubs'.

The agricultural and mining depressions in the early 19th century left Thomas Daniell's fortune depleted, and in 1831 he was declared bankrupt. Trelissick came into the hands of Viscount Falmouth of Tregothnan who held a mortgage over it; the house remained unoccupied from 1832 to 1844, and Lord Falmouth tried, unsuccessfully, to sell the property in 1837 and 1839. Finally, in 1844, he sold it to John Davies Gilbert (1811-1854) who had inherited the manor of Eastbourne in Sussex, which he began to develop as a fashionable resort.