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The Rose in Vale Country House Hotel, Cornwall, England
The Rose in Vale Country House Hotel, started as a Cornish Long house that consisted of two cottages. Mr Thomas Nankivell bought the property and in 1761 added the Iconic Georgian frontage. When Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Nankivell lived there, John Opie, the renowned local painter, visited them, his sister being in service there.
Ada Earland, in her book John Opie and his Circle says, "Mr. Thomas Nankivell of Rosenvale and his daughter, Joyce, had also been kind to the boy”; there is a tradition in the family that Opie painted young Mrs.Joseph Townsend (Joyce Nankivell) out of gratitude for assistance she had given him in his artistic training.
Joyce Nankivell was a local beauty, possessing "great sweetness and animation." The name of her father’s house, "Rose-in-Vale, is said to have been given as a pretty compliment from a visitor to this fair Cornish flower set in the deep valley in which stood the house." Joyce has been described elsewhere as "The Belle of Mithian."
The house was bought by as a winter residence for Captain John Oates.
Captain Oates was the owner of the Great Wheal Leisure Copper Mine at Perranporth. He was involved in other mines and is said to have controlled all of the mines in the locality. It was an elegant private house with its Gatekeeper's cottage at the entrance (on the right as you enter the drive).
It is not known when Capt Oates took up residence but it was probably during the very early 1800s. He was definitely living here in 1830 up until the 1850s.
From that time the house was owned by a South African Diamond Miner and the founder of Nalders Solicitors in Truro. In the early 1900's is passed to a local farrier called Fabian and in the 1940 to the Dores family, who are still remembered locally, it was at this time that the house started accepting houses guests who had often come to Cornwall by train and alighted at the Mithian Halt at the top of the hill. The next owners were Mr &Mrs Turner in 1963, Mr &Mrs Turner continued to take paying guests, despite the closure of the railway line by Dr Beecham, the Rose in Vale became a two star hotel, and the house started to expand during this time. The main passion of Mr &Mrs Turner was breeding horses and Rose in Vale became the birthplace of Pirran ponies.
In 1983 Tony and Vanda had to come up with a plan if the Rose in Vale were to continue, which they did. The ugly flat roofs disappeared and a distinctive form appeared hidden behind the beautiful old house, and it became a three star hotel, at the time they were on other three star hotel on the north coast between Newquay and St Ives.