Surprise Sunday #2 - Lanhydrock

Our second Surprise Sunday outing saw us visit the National Trust’s 17^th Century Lanhydrodrock Country House and Estate.

It is in Cornwall about 45 minutes west of our cottage.

This was the former home of the Robartes family, who bought the property from the Priory of St. Petroc of Bodmin. As an historical place, it goes back further in time than the 1600s. The current house at Lanhydrock was built in the 17^th Century, but it burned in 1881 and was then renovated to Victorian standards. This is Rebecca’s favorite National Trust house that we’ve visited. There were 51 rooms to explore, including her favorites: the kitchens (there were eight kitchen rooms that included the dry larder, fish larder, meat larder, dairy scullery, and bake house), the nurseries (day and night nurseries, Nanny's room, nursery bathroom), and the servants’ quarters. This is the view of the house from the front, including the gatehouse and the main portion of the house,

but this picture gives a better idea of the enormity of the house.

The nice thing about this property is the access (you are allowed to see nearly all of the rooms), and the furnishings – you are not looking at empty rooms but seeing actual furniture, etc., in every room. One room even has a Steinway piano that you can play. Not only can you tour the main house, but you can also access the gatehouse – here’s a view of the main house from the upstairs of the gatehouse –

the 15^th Century Church of St. Hydroc – there was a wedding going on the day that we were there and the bride and groom were posing for pictures outside –

a holy well,

and the wonderful grounds. There are many other outbuildings on the property. One of our favorites was a thatch-roofed cottage that was several hundred years old. Here is a window detail from that cottage.

One of the most distinctive features of the property is the well-manicured yew trees that line the front garden. Gwendolyn thought that these were extremely cool. Apparently, the National Trust does as well because a picture of the front of Lanhydrock adorns the cover of their 2011 directory.

They also have a beautiful formal garden called a parterre. It wasn’t planted with annuals yet, but pictures of it at Lanhydrock showed striking red, yellow, and white patterns of flowers in the summer.

There were also extensive flower gardens planted with perennials. Here are the girls posing with the flowers.

Christine always enjoys seeing the flowers and ferns growing out of the rock walls in England. This one made her smile.

Wilder gardens exist along the hillsides overlooking Lanhydrock, including one with a tunnel that we enjoyed walking through.

There are thousands of acres on the Lanhydrock Estate. We didn’t have time to explore all of the grounds, obviously, but we did feel as if we were able to see quite a bit of it. As a parting shot, here is a picture of Rebecca standing in front of a large-diameter tree with a huge burl.