The area of houses at the bottom of Worthy Hill now called The Close was originally agricultural land, and known as Lower Trebetherick. In 1885, five years before he died, Robert Stephens of Trewornon bequeathed his farm, land, buildings and share of other properties, including Lower Trebetherick, to his son Robert Darell Smythe Stephens. The son changed his name in 1901 to Robert Darell Stephens Darell. In 1918 he sold Lower Trebetherick to Ernest Edward Betjemann, the Poet Laureate’s father, for the sum of £2,060, six shillings and threepence. He in turn left the land in trust when he died in 1934 to his wife Mabel and then his son John.
Early in 1935 EE Betjemann’s trustees sold for £500 a piece of this freehold land, formerly part of ‘Cost or Loss’ field, to Lewis Brown of Wadebridge, who was responsible for much of the new building all over Trebetherick at that time. Mr Brown clearly worked fast, as in May 1935 two of the plots had houses on, and were sold to Katherine Isabella Laetitia Coxhead and Mr MRJ Scott respectively. The first of these houses is called The Close, somewhat confusingly, as that remains the name of the settlement of now four houses and the lane which connects them to the road.
The Close was then purchased in January 1937 by Florence Mary Augusta Shaw of Penbrea Cottage, Trebetherick for £108 – only £8 more than the price of the house some eighteen months earlier. The conveyance was witnessed by Grace Burt of Trevean, next door to The Close. But it rose in value considerably over the next two years, as in 1939 The Close was bought by Maud Mary Muriel Scott of Greenaway for £210. Mrs Scott had moved to Bournemouth by the time she died in 1968, but she lived at The Close for most of the years she owned it.
Mr and Mrs Parfett bought the house in 1968, extending it shortly afterwards by the addition of a sunroom/bedroom and bathroom. Mr Parfett died in 1988 but his widow continued to live there until 1991, when The Close was bought by Mrs Julia Bailey as a holiday bolthole, especially for golf.
