Pentillie Castle near St. Mellion

We learned about Pentillie Castle when we watched the Channel 4 TV series Country House Rescue. The Coryton family were advised about using their house and estate for a wedding and corporate entertainment business, something that they have now got under way. What little we saw of the estate on the programme made it look interesting so in mid March we attended their second garden open day. Pentillie was built by James Tillie in 1698 and was remodelled for the Corytons by William Wilkins in 1810 (it was again remodelled in the 1960s), at which time Humphrey Repton had a hand in landscaping the grounds. This is definitely not a garden in the conventional sense of the word. It is rather a scenic landscape with eyecatchers and an awful lot of scenery to enjoy. As at March 2009 a lot of clearance work has been done but there is a long way to go. There are four major features. The American Garden has too much laurel, ample rhodos but little sign of camellias, azaleas or magnolias. The Walled Kitchen Garden was badly overgrown and hardly worth seeing. The riverside is a delight with its cottage and bathing hut. And the walk to the mausoleum offers some of the finest views over the River Tamar. Despite the run down aspect of so much, we spent several most enjoyable hours wandering around free of restriction. As long as you are not expecting to see much in bloom, and enjoy walking, this is well worth a visit on one of their rare opening days.

Bathing hut on bank of River Tamar

Signed from A388, 1 mile south of St. Mellion

If Pentillie's wedding and corporate entertainment business organisation is half as good as their garden opening organisation, they must be assured of success. They had 2000 visitors in 2 days and managed everything superbly. Parking around 400 cars a day could have been chaotic but worked like a charm. After Pentillie we also visited Ince Castle garden

UPDATE: APRIL 2009 Apparently Pentillie's second open weekend in April was an even greater success. 3000 visitors came during the two days and this time everything was in bloom, the late Spring having caught up at last. Bed & Breakfast: Restoration of bedrooms was completed in May 2009 and they are now doing B&B from July to September. The rooms look good on Pentillie's web site.