Tullimaar House

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Tullimaar House is a private mansion just east of Perranarworthal in west Cornwall, England. It sits in about five acres of woods and gardens, with a gardener’s lodge and a separate cottage. The entrance gate can be seen from the road, but the house itself is not visible from the main A39.

The house was built in 1828 for Benjamin Sampson, a mine carpenter who made his fortune from gunpowder works at Kennall Vale, and who also managed and invested in the Perran Foundry and Tresavean Mine. He lived there until his death in 1840 and was buried at Gwennap.

Over the years Tullimaar hosted several notable people. In 1861 it was occupied by William Henry Lanyon, manager of Kennall Vale. In 1870 the diarist Rev. Francis Kilvert spent about three weeks there on holiday. By 1891 the solicitor Francis Hearle Cock and his family lived there, including his nieces Mabile Mary Arundell and Katherine Mary Arundell, granddaughters of Baron Arundell of Wardour. The Hearle-Cock family remained there at least until 1918, after which the house presumably passed to Catherine Paull.

During World War II, American troops used the house, and General Dwight D. Eisenhower stayed there for about two weeks before the D-Day landings in 1944. The troops left behind packing cases at Rosemanowes Quarry. A brass plaque in the central east room mentions a shot fired through a window by a sentry in 1944, said to have occurred during Eisenhower’s stay.

In 1957 the Franco-Romanian writer Marthe Bibesco bought Tullimaar and lived there until 1973. She had a plaque claiming that the Normandy landings were planned at Tullimaar, though historians have doubted this; the plaque was later covered but survives.

From 1985 to 1993 the Nobel Prize–winning author Sir William Golding lived at Tullimaar with his wife, Ann Brookfield. He described the house as “a devastatingly beautiful house in the middle of a flowering wilderness” and drafted several novels there. Golding’s son, David Golding, lived at Tullimaar from 1940 until his death in 2022.

Tullimaar means “House on the Hill.” The house’s tall windows run from the ground to near the ceiling on both floors, adding to its airy, light-filled character.