THE GREAT FAMILIES OF CORNWALL: The Bassets of Tehidy

The Bassets of Tehidy

Last updated: 19/11/2014

The great manor of Tehidy was owned by successive Bassets as Lords of the Manor from Norman times until 1916. A mansion was built from 1734 at a time when the Bassets were enjoying high profits from their copper mines and extensive grounds – together with the first lake.

Tehidy House
A large mansion was built 1734-39, by Thomas Edwards of Greenwich, for John Pendarves Basset and in 1861 John Francis Basset commenced a rebuild, completed in 1863, using his vast wealth arising from his tin mining ownership. In the C20th the house became the basis of Tehidy Hospital. When this closed in the 1980s the house was converted to residential apartments. The surrounding Tehidy Estate is now owned by Cornwall Council and is open to the public as Tehidy Country Park.


Important figures of the day dined and danced the nights away here and the great house became a symbol of wealth and power in the county. Influential mining engineers like Trevithick, Woolf and Hornblower – whose revolutionary technological developments went on to have international impact – first discussed their ideas at Tehidy.

Peerage gained thanks to Cornish miners

In 1779 the combined fleets of France and Spain unexpectedly anchored off Plymouth where the city’s defences were woefully inadequate. The following year the then owner of Tehidy, Francis Basset, became a national figure and received his peerage as Baron de Dunstanville for marching his fit Cornish miners all the way to Plymouth where they made the marine fortifications safe.

Between 1798 and 1842, 400 acres of Tehidy land were cultivated to cater for an influx of miners who came to work the thriving 19th century copper mines. Cornwall’s first horse-drawn tramroad, transporting copper ore from Poldice to Portreath from 1809, was largely financed by Sir Francis Basset. When he died in 1835, 20,000 people gathered at Tehidy to process with his coffin and 150 carriages. The de Dunstanville monument was erected on Carn Brea in his honour.

Tehidy becomes one of the finest buildings in Cornwall

In 1855 Sir Francis’ nephew John Francis Basset took over Tehidy and he also prospered from the mines. He rebuilt the mansion to create one of the finest buildings then in Cornwall with 40 bedrooms and a lavish drawing room with a gold ceiling.

The end of Basset Rule

In 1916 the great manor was sold, ending 700 years of Basset rule. The house and estate was divided and in 1919 it opened as a hospital for the treatment of TB sufferers. A great fire devastated the building only two weeks after the hospital opened - one of a number rumoured to be the work of Tehidy ghosts.

In 1983 the grounds were purchased by Cornwall Council and developed as a Country Park. Part was leased to Tehidy Golf Club and part sold for the 1995 rebuilding and development of new houses around the central core of the original building.

BASSET of Cornwall, Family of. The Bassets were amongst the early Norman settlers in England (one Thurstan Basset appears in the roll of Battle Abbey), and they have been, from at least the days of the Plantagenets, associated with Tehidy, the seat of their present representative. According to Hals, a Basset held some military post in Cornwall as early as the time of Robert, Earl of Mortain: but Lysons (who had a good opportunity of forming a sound judgment, from his personal acquaintance in the early part of the present century with Sir Francis Basset, first Baron de Dunstanville) says that the Bassets (who seem to have been first settled in Oxfordshire and other of the midland counties) can scarcely be said to have become Cornish folk (although they may have held property in Cornwall earlier) until the marriage of Adeliza de Dunstanville with Thomas, Baron Basset of Hedendon, Oxfordshire, in the time of Henry II; her ancestor, Alan de Dunstanville, was lord of the manor of Tehidy as early as 1100. Mr. G. P. Scrope, M.P., in his 'History of the Manor of Castle Combe, Wilts,' corroborates this account. This Thomas Basset appears to have been a descendant (probably a greatgrandson) of Henry I's justiciary (Osmund Basset), and himself held a like post under Henry III. Other members of the families of Basset and De Dunstanville also intermarried in the reign of Richard I; and in fact it is extremely difficult to trace the details of the first settlement of the Bassets in Cornwall.

But, once settled in the county, they have steadfastly remained there, at Tehidy, near Camborne, up to the present time; and the bones of many generations of Bassets lie in Illogan church. They intermarried with Trenouth, Trengove, Trelawny, Marrys, Enys, Carveth, Godolphin, Prideaux, Grenville, Pendarves, Rashleigh, and others, many of which families are now extinct, and their blood is thus intermingled with that of most of the prominent Cornish fnmilies. Amongst the early Cornish Bassets may be cited Sir Ralph, who was summoned from Cornwall to attend, with other knights, Edward I in the Welsh wars at Worcester in 1277, and it was probably he or one of his sons who obtained from Edward III a patent for certain markets and fairs for the neighbouring town of Redruth, He also procured a license to embattle his manor house of Tehidy in the year 1330–1 (Rot. Pat. 4 Ed. III, mem. 10), and Leland mentions it as 'a castelet or pile of Bassets.' The name of a William Basset appears in the time of Edward II (1324) amongst the 'nomina hominorum ad arma in com. Cornubiæ' (Carew), and another Basset of the same name held a military fee at Tehidy and Trevalga in 3rd Henry IV. During the reigns of the 6th, 7th, and 8th Henries the Bassets were frequently sheriffs of Cornwall; and during the reign of Edward IV, according to William of Worcester, a Sir John Basset held the castle, the ruins of which still stand, on the summit of Carn Brea, not far from Tehidy. Their 'right goodly lordship,' as Leland calls it, extended over the parishes of Illogan, Redruth, and Camborne, the advowsons of which pertained to the manor of Tehidy, and the livings were occasaionally held by some member of the family; but their wealth has in later times been mainly derived from the enormous mineral riches of this part of Cornwall, albeit they likewise had considerable property in the north-eastern part of the county. The names of the earlier Bassets are little known in history, save that in the time of Henry VII a John Basset, then sheriff of Cornwall, found his posse commitatus too weak to suppress 'the Flammock rebellion.' About the middle of the sixteenth century the Bassets seem to have divided into two branches, one becoming a Cornish and the other a Devon family, the latter of which became extinct at the dose of the last century; but the Cornish branch was continued by George Basset, M.P., whose son married a Godolphin, and whose mother was a Grenville of Stow. Amongst their descendants were the two most distinguished members of the Basset family, viz. Sir Francis, vice-admiral and sheriff of Cornwall [q. v.] in the time of Charles I and another Sir Francis first Baron de Dunstanville [q. v.] in the time of George III. The little port of Portreath was formerly named after this family Basset's cove The Bassets were staunch royalists during the civil wars and held St Michael's Mount till 1660 when it was acquired from them by the St. Aubyns. A most amusing account of Francis Basset (under the pseudonym of Bassanio), grandfather of the first Baron de Dunstanville, and a sketch of Tehidy life 150 years ago, will be found in Mrs. Delany's 'Autobiography.' vol i. passim, and vol. iii p 431

The present representative of the family is Gustavus Lambart Basset, Esq., of Tehidy (late lieutenant of the 72nd Highlanders).

Tehidy and the Bassets tells the story of the Basset family from Norman times, their development of Tehidy Park and the building of the mansion. Michael Tangye describes the end of the family's reign and the making of the TB hospital and the more recent development of the estate and mansion.
Meticulously researched the book reveals details of the daily life through the centuries of the Bassets, their servants and tenants. Written with knowledge, enthusiasm and insight, the book is very readable and gives a fascinating picture of, not just the Basset estate, but life in Cornwall as it must have been.

Nearly ninety years have passed since the last of the family vacated the mansion, but their legend lives on - the Bassett name is ever-present in streets, roads, schools and pubs. Many older inhabitants of Redruth will have been brought up with stories of the pre-eminence of the Bassets, when the family ruled like kings over their subjects. The great house at Tehidy was the centre of their kingdom, a symbol of power, wealth and at times, benevolence. It grew in pace with an ever-increasing fortune derived from numerous rich tin and copper mines and a succession of marriages into other wealthy Cornish families.

The story of this remarkable family and the ultimate collapse of their empire makes fascinating reading. The history of the Bassets is a history of Cornwall and its people.

Michael Tangye is a well known and respected local historian. He is a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedd - Bardic name Whythrer Meyn (Examiner of Stones), an Ex-President of the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies and Recorder of Archeology for same.