Godolphin House

The Goldolphin family built a grand manor house from stone quarried from Tregonning Hill. The house today has features dating from the 15th Century and was subsequently expanded on the profits from tin and copper mining and the materials from shipwrecks. The dining room ceiling is carved from the remains of a Portuguese boat that sank in Mounts Bay in 1526. By 1640, Godolphin was the largest house in Cornwall with two courtyards.

By 1785 there were no male heirs in the Godolphin family and the focus of the family shifted to London in the early 1800s. As the price of tin fell, less was spent maintaining the house and the dilapidated southern courtyards were demolished. When the Earl of Godolphin title passed to the Duke of Leeds (hence nearby Leedstown and Leeds Shaft in Great Work Mine) the stagnation of the estate continued until it was eventually sold off in the 1920s.

The Godolphin Estate was purchased in 1929 by the artist Sidney Schofield who devoted the rest of his life to restoring it. In 1970, the family committed to passing the property to the National Trust but it was not until 2000 that the wider part of the Godolphin Estate was finally sold to the National Trust. The Schofield family retained the house and gardens which they continued to restore and open to the public. Then in 2007, the house and gardens were also sold to the National Trust to secure their ongoing conservation.