INCE CASTLE SALTASH,

Ince Castle is named after the peninsula on which it stands, Middle English ’innis’=an island, which juts out into the St Germans or Lynher river. The land of Ince is mentioned in 1337 as being held by a tenant of the manor of Trematon from the duchy of Cornwall [that was the year the duchy was created by Edward lll ]. But it seems [from tax records etc.] that no house was built on the land until the time of the Civil War.

In 1653 there is a reference to the ‘new builte-bricke house’. Apparently the land of Ince was bought by Henry Killigrew in about 1640 to build a house on. He was a Royalist and MP for West Looe. His mother Jael de Peigne was French, which may account for the unusual appearance of the house. It is thought to be the earliest brick house in Cornwall.

Although military historians do not accept the house as a real castle its design may have been influenced by considerations of defence, especially if it was built, as seems likely, after the outbreak of the Civil War in August 1642. The main walls are nearly four feet thick. Another theory is that this thickness is because the house was originally intended to be a storey higher. Probably it was garrisoned at the time, the Royalists were building batteries at Wearde, Saltash and elsewhere. Plymouth was soon in Parliamentary hands, and Ince was actually besieged and captured from the landward side by Colnel Ralph Welden, governor of Plymouth in August 1646. All the Royalist strongholds in the west were captured during that year. Killigrew surrendered Ince after only a few hours, and afterwards escaped to France, where he soon died.

After his death his estate was confiscated, like that of other Royalists, and complicated legal battles between various parties continued for many years. In 1652 the parliamentary trustees for forfeited estates sold Ince to Edward Nosworthy [1610-1686] a rich Truro merchant who is described as having furnished the house with ‘rich furniture, plate, rich tapestry and other hangings- and above forty feather beds’. His son, also Edward Nosworthy, eventually became, surprisingly, an adherent of James ll and a jacobite exile. He died in France in 1701.

The Nosworthys died leaving many debts and the ownership remained disputed in the law courts until 1722 when its owner was John Hobart 1st earl of Buckinghamshire [1693-1722]. A drawing by Enmund Prideaux, of about 1730, shows the towers three storied with square, battlemented tops, and flat roofs. The middle floor of the towers seems to have been patterned with chevrons in plaster, and traces of rendering can still be seen on the brick west front. Hobart seems to have sold the house to a friend, Pendock Neal of Allerton, Notts, who was married to one of the Eliots of St Germans, Neal’s nephew sold it in 1805 to Edward Smith.

It is drawings thought to be by Mary Smith [probably the illegitimate daughter of Penelope Pitt, Edward Smith’s wife] that first show the little pointed roofs which give each tower an extra room, and the top storey hung with slates [presumably because the brickwork showed the infilled battlements]. About this time some of the granite mullioned windows were replaced with sashes.

The West frontage and the South frontage.

Mary Smith, married to Captain Crease, inherited Ince and lived there until the 1850s when they had to sell. Ince then passed to a series of absentee owners and was let as a farm. It was tumbledown and covered with ivy by the 20th century. It was then bought and, from 1918 substantially remodelled by Mr and Mrs Montagu Eliot,[later 8th earl of St Germans] who rebuilt the south façade and added a pitched roof and top storey behind the battlements, and built on part of the sevice wing on the north side.

It was owned between 1922-1937 by Mr H.R. Somerset whose yacht Jolie Brise, one of the first winners of the Fastnet race, was kept in the boathouse at Ince.
Mr and Mrs James Bryce Allen owned Ince from 1937-1960 when it was bought by Patricia, Viscountess Boyd nee Guiness. Lady Boyd and her husband, the former Secretary of State for the Colonies, Alan Lennox-Boyd, made the French windows which bring more light to the low dark ground floor rooms [probably, since the house is built on solid rock originally intended as cellars, storage, etc.] and extended the sevice wing.
After a fire in 1988 the house was rebuilt without the pitched roof. The present Lord and Lady Boyd moved in with his mother in 1994. Patricia Boyd died in 2001

The Garden.
The present garden is almost entirely the design of Patricia, Lady Boyd, who was a keen plants woman and vice-president of Cornwall Garden Society. She made the formal garden on the south side of the house soon after moving to Ince. Nestling in the corner of the spinney, between the pool and the summer garden, is a dovecote-like building, erected in 1963. Its interior is lined with shells collected by the first Lord Boyd in his colonial days and it is painted with UV varnish to keep their colour, as they fade in natural light.
Patricia Lady Boyd also planted the magnolias, camellias and other shrubs in the woodland garden.
In front of the house, towards the river, is a wide lawn flanked by a pair of sphinxes (concrete, and bought in a sale from Crowthers of Syon) they were made to go on the Admiralty at the end of the Mall in London, its level has been lowered by the present Lord and Lady Boyd to afford better views of the river from the ground floor of the house. You can see the magnolias coming into flower on the opposite bank, in the gardens of Antony — owned by the National Trust, but lived in by Sir Richard Carew Pole, a former president of the Royal Horticultural Society.

Ince Castle Gardens are open to the public in aid of a charity under the National Gardens Scheme.