Pine Lodge Garden and Pinetum Park
My original 2003 review of Pine Lodge
A varied garden, much admired by those of my American visitors (when I was still working) though otherwise surprisingly under-rated. Within Pine Lodge's thirty acres are formal gardens, herbaceous borders, ferns, shrubs, spring woodland and an attractive new pinetum. Statuary is dotted around; one piece gives its name to the colourful 'Slave' Garden, another is of a prancing horse, another of a tiny engine house. You will also find several water features - a koi pond with cascades, a water garden, a frog pond, a newt pond, a lake with black swans and a bog garden. A new Japanese garden feels surprisingly mature. Plants are comprehensively labelled but the labels may not always be readable. The gardener is Shirly Clemo; husband Ray Clemo is a granite fanatic so watch out for unexpected granite features including massive millstones in the courtyard and a bell turret at one edge of the field. Ray is also a gentleman: when I visited with four Americans in May 2004, he gave them a free personal tour. This is a fine garden with year-long interest but under-visited.
Much has happened to Pine Lodge since our original visit in 2003 and we have returned several times at different times of year. Below is an update which includes news from visits in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2014.
Pine Lodge Revisited
A view of the Koi Pool
Pine
More in Gardens
Pine Lodge Revisited 2008 to 2014
Lodge Revisited 2008 to 2014
Pinsla Garden
Compared with Cornwall's many major gardens, this one, Pinsla near Bodmin, is decidedly minor. When we went in mid October 2003 we were their only visitors. We rather enjoyed having the place to ourselves, though Pinsla's claims to be a combination of Utopia, Post Modernism and ideal English gardening struck us as a little pretentious. We found it to be a very pleasant, casual acre and a half of mixed planting around a charming lodge cottage - but no more. The 'sculpture' is largely best ignored. There is a good value nursery; good teas served in the garden.
Prideaux Place Garden
We had greatly enjoyed a house tour of Prideaux Place a few years ago. Later we learned that the gardens, which had disappointed us then, were under restoration under the aegis of Tom Petherick of Heligan fame. So in July 2008 we combined a walk from Harlyn Bay to Padstow with a visit to Prideaux Place Garden. We were delighted that so much that had been closed to us before was now open. A sign led us across the bridge over the road to the quarry garden (still to be restored) and to the deer park (a small herd grazing and views over the Camel Estuary to Roughtor and Brown Willy on Bodmin Moor). Not far from the deer park entrance is the newly discovered well that may be St. Petroc's original holy well while, at the edge of the lawn is an ancient Cornish Cross. A woodland walk then leads round to the formal garden. Sensibly no attempt has been made to recreate the original; instead a fountain pool with water lilies is surrounded by simple box-edged beds set in lawned areas. A massive amount of clearing has been done in the woodland areas, an avenue of limes has been planted as have spring shrubs and bulbs. The restoration still has some way to go to reach maturity but is well worth seeing, most particularly in conjunction with the house tour. We enjoyed our usual cream tea on the front terrace.