Northwood Farm Water Garden near St. Neot
This is a most surprising place. The last thing you expect to find at around 700 feet, on the windswept heights of Bodmin Moor, is a luxuriant water garden filled with exotic plants. But, if you can read a map, and don't mind risking your car on the tiny blind lanes to the north of St. Neot, you will be rewarded with a couple of hours of delight. Artist Mackenzie Bell and his partner Justin Stubbings acquired the house, a converted former china clay dry, in 2004. There was a garden with pools but it was then a wilderness. Now, after taking in a further 2 acres of boggy pasture, there are 8 pools, one with a colourful island, several with sculptures and glorious water lilies. Planting is eclectic. The expected marginal plants are mixed with exotics that you might not expect to grow on Bodmin Moor. The striking blend - and sometimes clash - of colours must owe much to Mack's artist's eye, as must the sculptures, some found pieces, dotted around. In the main water garden you will also find a great bank of hydrangeas, a bog garden and a wild area. And don't miss the garden behind the house. Above a grassy terrace, where we enjoyed a cream tea, are two former granite-walled clay settling tanks, now colourful walled gardens. In front of the house is Mack's studio where his land and seascapes are on sale. In the former stables is what must be the 'Loo of The Year'.
2 miles NE of St. Neot. Check NGS site for opening
Pool with sculptures and water lilies in lower garden
We visited on a well attended NGS Sunday opening in late July 2008. We shall definitely go again, perhaps in June for the rhodos, azaleas and camellias. Northwood Gardens web site seems to have disappeared (August 2012) so it is possible that the garden no longer opens.
Old Mill
More in Gardens
Old Mill Herbary at Helland Bridge
Herbary at Helland Bridge
Pencarrow Garden and Estate
We have been fans of Pencarrow - house, garden and estate - for so long that it surprises me that it is only after a visit in mid-May 2006 that I have got round to posting an item about it. Our visit was almost accidental. We had been to see the Old Mill Herbary garden at Helland Bridge, had been unable to get a cup of tea there and decided to get one at the Peacock Tearoom at Pencarrow. We were glad we did because the bluebells, beneath beeches near the house, were superb.
Penjerrick
In April 2008 we took advantage of a Western Morning News '2 for the price of 1' offer to visit a couple of spring gardens near Mawnan Smith in the general area between Falmouth and the Helford River. Neither Carwinion nor Penjerrick could be said to rate anywhere compared to nearby Glendurgan and Trebah. Carwinion is perhaps an acceptable 1� hour visit for its �4 entry charge. Penjerrick is appalling value even at its lower �2.50. And yet we had had quite high expectations. A visitor to my web site (I think his name is Tilo) was so taken by Penjerrick that his son Georg created a Penjerrick web site which raves about it and quotes expert Patrick Taylor and a Western Morning News reviewer doing the same. We don't. We suspect that the present owner, a descendant of the Robert Were Fox and Barclay Fox who created Penjerrick in the mid 18th century, is resentful that the National Trust refused to accept it in 1990 and wonder whether the present regime of 'benign neglect' stems from that. The result reflects her 'jungle' philosophy but means that ponds are clogged, paths are deep in mud and few shrubs bloom. Even by the house, which was the best-kept part of the garden - with bluebells, azaleas and tall firs - it was thick with dog mess. We fear that Penjerrick's underlying philosophy is less benign neglect, more contempt for the paying visitor.