The mausoleum is a triangular pyramid of granite, 50 feet high, containing within its base a cavity sufficient for a single interment, and rising in courses of hewn stone, diminishing to a point, which is capped with metal and provided with a lightning conductor.

An arch constructed in the base gave admission to the cavity, but has always been, from its erection, walled up. A low guard wall of granite was added in 1829 to prevent injury to the foundations by removal of the surrounding stones.

Worvas Hill, on which it stands, is some hundreds of feet above the sea, and this makes the pyramid a prominent object to vessels off the coast, which use it as a landmark. On one face of the pyramid the word ‘Resurgam’ is carved high up, in bold relief, upon the granite blocks of which it was built; on a second face, ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’; and on the third, the arms and motto of the Knill family, viz: gules, a lion rampant, surrounded by eleven crossed crosslets fitchy, and motto, ‘Nil desperandum’.

John Knill procured the design in 1779 from Mr John Wood, architect, of Batheston, who furnished him with the most minutely detailed drawings, which enabled him without difficulty to complete it by the hands of John Dennis, ‘a joiner of Penzance’. The total cost of the monument, including the purchase of the land from Henry, Lord Arundell, for five guineas, was £226. 1s. 6d. An acknowledgement of sixpence is paid annually to the freeholders of Tregenna Estate for a right-of-way to the mausoleum.

From: ‘John Knill: 1734-1911 – a Biographical Sketch’ by J.J.R., published by W & J Jacobs, Fore Street, St Ives, c.1932