Smale and other family history: Trenython

Extract from my father's memoirs:

In 1925 we moved to Cornwall where Dad was to take a new job as general maintenance handyman at Trenython, which was a convalescent home owned by the Great Western Railway. The mansion house had been built by a Col Peard - one time A D C to General Garibaldi. On his death the Bishop of Truro bought it and made it his Bishop’s Palace, adding even more treasures to its opulent furnishings and fittings.

With Frank and me in the sidecar Dad drove the motor bike combination to Dawlish where we stayed the night with Aunty Dorothy and family. She gave us a wonderful welcome and we had a boiled egg apiece - with soldiers of course (at that time Jack was 6 and Frank 3).

Mum came down by train with Vera (baby) and we moved into a small country cottage - damp, primitive and with no running water indoors and no gas or electricity. A chemical toilet in a privy outside and a black coal cooker completed the inventory.

It was about 700 metres to the main road - the bus route from Tywardreath to Fowey. If we were going in either direction and Mum was under pressure she would ask me to go ahead and ask the bus conductor to wait - and the bus would wait – the conductor saying from time to time 'where are they to’ and I would peer up the drive and reassure him they were on the way - and eventually Mum would come scurrying down the drive with Frank and Vera in tow. This happened many times.

Items from the Internet of interest:

It was originally built for Colonel Peard as a thank-you from Garibaldi for support during his Italian struggle. In 1891 it became the Bishop's Palace for the Diocese of Truro and lasted in this role for 15 years. For half of the 20th century it was a railway convalescent home and is now an hotel.

View of the Hall and Staircase at Trenython

History of Trenython Bell

The bell, cast at the world's most famous foundry, London's Whitechapel (famous for Big Ben and Philadelphia's Liberty Bell and still in operation today), is believed to have been purchased by Trenython's original owner, Colonel John Peard. It dates back to 1868, two years before the house was actually built. The colonel was a man of discerning tastes who had travelled extensively and fought with Giuseppe Garibaldi in the liberation of Italy. In honour to this partnership, Peard - 'Garibaldi's Englishman' - ordered the house built in Italian style.

In its nearly 140 years of history, Trenython has been owned by Peard, the Rev. John Gott, Bishop of Truro, and eventually became a convalescent home run by the Great Western Railway before it was purchased by Club La Costa Resorts & Hotels in 2006.