Spain 2022: A Week in Cornwall

I've discovered that I love Cornish pasties! ...and that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of all the things we're enjoying here in England's southwest. After getting our bearings on arrival in the UK the last week in March, we've spent this week exploring Cornwall, visiting several remarkable gardens in old country estates, as well as taken some fantastic walks along the coastal cliffs and coves traced by the National Trust's South West Coastal Path.

We started our week with a visit to Trebah, one of the most noted gardens in Cornwall due to it's location in a deep, protected valley along the South coast. Because of its remarkable microclimate, subtropical plants like palms and tree ferns thrive here, and the tender camellias and rhododendrons grow like weeds. While I can't say the design of the place was much to my liking, the shear abundance of spectacular plants, many in full bloom, was well worth the visit-- truly a "plantsman's" garden!

The next day we drove over to Marazion, near Penzance, and visited Saint Michael's Mount, a 12th century fortified Abby turned to a private "castle" home of a local aristocrat after Henry VIII's confiscation of the Catholic church's properties (following his excommunication by the pope over his propensity for discarding wives via divorce!). Originally developed by monks from the same order (Benedictine) as those who built Mont St. Michel across the English Channel in Normandy, the place clearly borrowed many of the same ideas in design, taking advantage of the local topography of a small, rocky island, separated from the mainland at high tide by only about 300 yards.

At high tide, one needs a ferry to access the island, so we waited until low tide to walk across the causeway that connects to the mainland for 3-4 hours each tidal cycle. With tides along this part of the coast fluctuating by more than 10', and local currents being treacherous, it's pretty obvious why the site makes such a great place for a defensive stronghold!

The more recent history of the castle is not so much defensive as it is a retreat for the still resident aristocratic family and their staff, most of whom have inhabitanted the small village on the island for generations. The whole place is now managed in partnership with the National Trust, and includes some really interesting gardens terraced into the cliffs below the castle.

On the way back to our cottage, we also stopped at another local landmark of the Cornish industrial aristocracy of the 16th-18th century, Godolphin house. The family who built the house we're among the wealthiest in all of Cornwall during this period, based on a collection of mines and industrial processing facilities producing tin, copper, lead, silver, and other metals, as well as founderies and factories making use of the raw material for use and sale across the rapidly expanding British empire. Sadly, at the beginning of the 19th century, the last male heir passed on his estate and holdings to a family in the Midlands, who wanted nothing to do with a huge old house out in the hinterlands of Cornwall. On the intervening years of neglect, almost 75% of the house was dismantled and used to build barns and other outbuildings for tennant farmers renting the surrounding lands. The remains of the house and a remarkable set of gardens dating more than 500 years were all but abandoned until acquired by the National Trust about 20 years ago!

Next up, we took a fairly long drive to another visit another National Trust property a bit to the east in central Cornwall, Lanhydrock House & Garden. We originally picked this place out to visit because of its late Victorian interior, due to the house's reconstruction following a fire in 1881, and rebuilt with interiors of high English Arts and Crafts designs. With the weather continuing to be typically English (periods of rain, wind, etc., with 5-10 minutes of bright sunshine every couple of hours just to tease you!!), spending some time wandering around a big old house sounded like a good idea. Our house at home in Cazenovia is all designed in American Arts and Crafts styles, so we thought we might enjoy seeing something of that style's European inspiration...

Oddly enough, other than some really gorgeous William Morris wall paper, the most impressive aspect of the interior design was the huge kitchen that clearly was designed to feed and entertain vast numbers of visiting guests, with all of the latest in technologies and gadgets of the time-- almost "steam-punk" in their range of mechanical cleverness!

In addition to the interior, the garden proved to be pretty interesting too, and even the weather gave us enough patches of sun between rain squalls to enjoy it!

Another rainy day led us to then visit the local museum in Penzance and a tour of the collection of paintings by artists of the Newlyn School (a late 19th century group of painters very much working in a style reminiscent of Winslow Homer in the USA). We really enjoyed our visit, and the artwork, particularly of Cornish villages and waterfronts was very inspiring! Lots of ideas for new sketches... :-)

After visiting the museum, we took advantage of a clearing on the weather to visit one last local garden just outside of Penzance, Trengwainton Garden, featuring the very nice pond and bridge below, as well as an exceptional naturally planted small stream course...

On our last day in Cornwall, we decided to spend the day wandering along the South West Coastal Path again, taking in the segment between Lizard Point and Kynance Cove. It's very reminiscent of my bike tour down the north west coast of Oregon and California last summer- each time you round a headland, the view is more spectacular than the last!