What Three Words: ///discussed.guilty.crunching
OS Grid Reference: SX104597
The building known as the Duchy Palace is a rebuilt remainder of a part of a Great Hall, built by the Earls of Cornwall during the 12th century and that served as an administrative centre for royal regulation of land, tax, shipping, and the tin trade. It was also the base for the Sheriff and the courts. The Hall was held by the Black Prince, the first Duke of Cornwall, subject to his father King Edward III, though it was never a royal residence. It was here that Cornish tin was assessed and stamped for export and that the tax levied by the King was collected. The Hall comprised the Exchequer Hall, Convocation Hall, Coinage Hall, assay buildings, smelting house, and stannary prison. The Duchy treasury was housed in the Exchequer Hall and its undercroft, visible through the large doors onto Fore Street, was used as a strong room for holding tin and other export goods such as wine.
In the 14th Century, the Great Hall was at this time the second largest secular building in Europe, the largest being second only to the Great Hall of the Palace of Westminster after which it was said to be modelled and named. This complex was deliberately placed right next to the original medieval market. Shops are mentioned in 1361 as being ‘under and around the Great Hall and the quays’. A monopoly over the Cornish tin trade was awarded during the 14th century, and the Great Hall became the seat of the Stannary parliament, a guild of tinners with the power to regulate their own affairs. It was later the venue of the County Court, continuing its role as the principal town of Cornwall. The original Shire Hall, on the site now occupied by the Church Rooms, was where knights and local gentry were ‘elected’ to sit in the Westminster parliament. Lostwithiel was a ‘Rotten Borough’, only the mayor and the town councillors having the right to vote in parliamentary elections. These elections were controlled by the local landowners, most notably the Pitts of Boconnoc, who paid each member of the electorate £6 as an inducement to vote for their preferred candidate. This did not change until the Reform Act of 1832.
Much of the Great Hall was destroyed by a fire in 1644, during the Civil War. The ruins are depicted in the rather idealised picture above. The only substantial part of the building to have survived the fire is the impressive Exchequer Hall, which can best be viewed from Quay Street. Further along Quay Street can be seen those parts of the Hall that were rebuilt in the eighteenth century and are now in private hands. The original bars of the debtor’s prison can be seen behind the glass of the three upper windows of the house adjoining the rebuilt Shire Hall, though the surviving reinforced doors, walls, and ceilings are not open to public inspection. It was here that French prisoners of war were held during the Napoleonic War. Next door, the Coinage Hall can be seen through wrought iron gates. Shops occupy the remainder of this range of buildings: the building occupied by Palace Printers was used as a slaughterhouse in the 1930s.
The archway at the end of the range is a survival of the original Great Hall, and the change in the stonework is clearly visible today. The arch was built over the Cober, a small tributary of the Fowey that runs from the hills above Tanhouse Road. The stream now runs in a culvert under granite slabs that run the full length of South Street (formerly Cob Lane) and enters the Fowey through a sluice gate at the quays. The Cober is now officially known by the Environment Agency as the Tanhouse Stream.
The Palace was sold to a Mr Thomas in 1874 but then passed into the ownership of the Freemasons in 1878. It remained in use as a Masonic Hall until 2009, when the Duchy of Cornwall acquired it and began the work of restoration. For a comprehensive architectural study of the building and more information on the reconstruction work, go to the website of the Cornwall Buildings Preservation Trust (opens in a new page).