Trereife : A House of Character and Characters

Trereife, Tim Le Grice’s historical Cornish residence, described by Pevsner as ‘one of the most charming houses in Cornwall’ has been home to a diverse range of characters over six generations of the author’s ancestors.

Brought together within this book are fascinating forbears on both sides of the family. Charles Valentine le Grice, educated at Christ’s Hospital with his great friends Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Charles Lamb; Herbert Ward who served with the explorer Stanley in Africa before becoming a sculptor of some renown and who was the dear friend of Irish Nationalist Roger Casement until Casement was convicted with treason; and Andrew Downes, youngest lieutenant commander in the Royal Navy before the First World War, represent just a few of the many characters who made Trereife their home.

This book with a Cornish core charts the life of these and other personalities of Trereife from the late seventeenth century to the present day; residents, visitors, guests are all brought to life through the sharing of a vast array of family stories, letters, and other personal archives, memoirs, and material.

Triumphs and tragedies abound, and the work to preserve Trereife for future generations continues.

Author Tim le Grice was born in 1942, not at Trereife but in London during the ‘Blitz’ – a word that perhaps describes much of his subsequent life at ‘Trereife’ in an ever-changing world. A life of variety, undeniably, and one which encompassed a number of attempts at being a jockey while training to become a solicitor, a profession he settled into and practiced for many years. Attempting to look after Trereife is now the center point of his life, including the opening of the house and gardens. A rather different life to that of his forbears.