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The General Wolfe was situated on Bodmin Road. This was a grade-II listed pub

Source: E. Edwards

From Historic England:

The first known record of the General Wolfe Inn is a newspaper report in 1785 which notes the continuation of the pub by Samuel Pentecost after the death of his father Richard. The report suggests that accommodation and stabling could be found at the inn alongside the best wines and liquors. Richard Pentecost is believed to have been the inn’s first landlord in 1783, and it is thought locally that the building was originally constructed as the townhouse of the solicitor Edward Coode in 1780. In 1814 the lease was transferred from Coode to William Harris, a brewer; John Williams Colenso of St Austell, gentleman; and Richard Dugger of Fowey, a merchant. The inn is shown on the 1839 Tithe map of St Austell, and the accompanying apportionment records the landowner as Sir Joseph Sawle Gaves-Sawle, 1st baronet (1793-1865) and the occupier of the General Wolfe Inn and stabling yards as Thomas May. The Tithe map shows the inn as two attached buildings: one on Bodmin Road to the north and the other facing towards Fore Street to the east. The 1880 Ordnance Survey (OS) Town Plan clearly marks the General Wolfe (PH) as a building turning the sharp corner of Bodmin Road towards Truro Road. A longstanding landlord from around 1873 to the early C20 was John Job. During this period the public house was the pick-up for letter carriers to Bodmin and Roche and was also an omnibus pick-up point. An early-C20 photograph shows the General Wolfe public house as a polite, double-fronted building with sash windows with margin lights, and a moulded central doorcase. ‘General Wolfe Hotel’ is painted on the first floor between the windows. In 1911 the building’s deeds were conveyed from the 4th baronet Graves-Sawle to FJ Hext Esq and DH Shilson, a St Austell banker, and George Bramble became the licensed landlord; he may have also been a brewer as bottles survive embossed ‘Geo Bramble General Wolfe St Austell’. By the early 1920s moulded hoods on console brackets had been added above the windows, and the front elevation was ashlar rendered. A tall, narrow building to the west (possibly a tap room and brewery) and a covered yard, both of which were historically part of the neighbouring Globe Hotel, seem to have become part of the General Wolfe at this time; the covered yard was later walled in on its west side (these buildings, numbers 5b, 6 and 6a Bodmin Road, are excluded from the List entry). The General Wolfe closed as a pub in the early 2000s, and the ground floor became a shop. The Bodmin Road range to the rear (no 5) was converted to flats in the 1990s, and the principal building was also converted into residential accommodation in around 2014 including the subdivision of the ground floor.

Listed building details:

Public house. Mid C19. Stucco with stucco detail; dry Delabole slate roof with projecting front eaves; brick end stacks. Deep plan. 2 storeys over cellar; symmetrical 3-window front. Plinth and mid-floor entablature; moulded hoods on consoles over original hornless sashes with glazing bars and margin panes. Central pilastered doorway with tall overlight and 4-panel door. Original 16-pane hornless sashes to slate-hung wing at rear. Interior has original chimneypiece to left-hand room. Included for group value, holding an important position in the historic centre of St Austell.

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