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St Michael's mount, Cornwall © BEN ELLIOTT

Caerhays Castle, Cornwall © Paul Nash via shutterstock.com

A coastal scene in Cornwall, 1814 ©Yale Center for British Art

Cornish Houses and Gardens - Landscapes, flowers, buildings and art

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Overview Itinerary Practicalities Map Testimonials

Section:

Tour highlights

A highly distinctive county of beautiful scenery, rugged coastline and picturesque towns.
Country houses spanning a range of periods and styles, and several exceptional gardens, seen in their springtime glory.
A significant centre in the history of British art, as viewed in the museums and galleries.
Several special arrangements including owner-led visits and a private lunch in a stately home.

Cornwall is a land beyond England, in Simon Jenkins’s happily ambiguous phrase. First, it protrudes: with a coastal path of 300 miles and with no village more than 16 miles from the sea, the Cornish peninsula extends mainland England far to the south and west. Second, in some less definable way, it feels palpably distinct. Much of the landscape and streetscape is unmistakably English yet is suffused in a pervasive all-enveloping Cornishness.

Its individuality is reflected in the sturdy stone mansions which span the centuries and the families that created them – a surprising number of whom owed at least part of their prosperity to the mining that made the county a harbinger of the Industrial Revolution. The oldest house is Cotehele, begun in 1485, its low granite ranges set around three courtyards overlooking the Tamar Estuary. Trerice is the perfect Elizabethan manor house, and the Palladian style is elegantly represented by Pencarrow. A highpoint of Victorian organisational sophistication can be witnessed at Lanhydrock.

A warming Gulf Stream and the temperate climate has allowed the owners of Cornish great estates to create lush and magnificent gardens, using some of the rarest plants and trees in the British Isles. Magnolias, camellias, azaleas and rhododendrons thrive here – spring is said to have arrived when all six of the Champion Magnolia campbellii trees have at least 50 blooms; we visit four of them.

Cornwall has a special place in the history of British art. Drawn by scenic beauty, rural simplicity, the drama of the sea and the special quality of light, artists have come to live and work here from the 1880s to the present day. The fishing villages of Newlyn and Falmouth were at first the most important colonies, but in the 20th century St Ives became a significant outpost of the avant-garde. Bernard Leach, Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Patrick Heron and Terry Frost are among the artists who settled here. The legacy is a collection of art galleries whose works are tied to the county in a unique way.

This tour is particularly strenuous. Please read the advice under 'Practicalities'.

Itinerary

Practicalities

Two sharing: £3,820. Single occupancy: £4,630. Please contact us to request a quote for a sea view room.

Hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts; 2 lunches and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; travel by private coach; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager.

Padstow Harbour Hotel, Padstow: Recently renovated Victorian hotel with contemporary décor and excellent views of the estuary. The Greenbank Hotel, Falmouth: a comfortable family-run 4-star hotel overlooking Falmouth harbour. St Ives Harbour Hotel. A historic hotel with views across the seafront. Single rooms are doubles for sole use.

Unavoidably there is quite a lot of walking on this tour and it would not be suitable for anyone with difficulties with everyday walking and stair-climbing. Coaches can rarely park near the houses; many of the gardens are extensive with uneven ground or steps to reach different levels. Several of the towns visited are very hilly with somewhat challenging terrain. Average distance by coach per day: 44 miles.

Are you fit enough to join the tour?

Between 10 and 22 participants.

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