Caerhays Castle and garden; home to the national Magnolia Collection
Caerhays Castle is an English Heritage Grade 1 Listed Building which was built by the famous architect John Nash for the Trevanion family Building work started in 1807 and was completed by 1810 The Trevanions must have been stretched by the construction cost of Caerhays since by 1825 they had taken out a mortgage encumbrance with The Bank of England for £20,000. Further mortgages accumulated along with their gambling debts and by 1842 the Trevanion family fled to Bruges and their estates were acquired by their creditors By 1855 the roof had fallen in and the Castle was derelict with geese said to be nesting in the Drawing Room At the second auction Michael Williams of Burncoose and Scorrier acquired the Castle and some of the estate It was to take a further 4 years to refurbish and make the building habitable again. Most people know of Caerhays because of the Castle and Gardens but few realise just how big the estate is or how many diverse areas There are the Gardens and grounds with the magnificent camellias and rhododendrons for which the estate is world famous and the National Magnolia Collection which has a home here Caerhays has been an estate which until 1955 has very much kept itself to itself From 1370 1840 it had been owned by the Trevanion family There would have been little in the way of a garden in their time but the main feature of Caerhays then would have been its deer park This would have been useful as a source of food in the autumn winter and would also have added to the beauty of the place during the rest of the year The trouble with deer parks was that the deer had to be kept in an enclosed area by very substantial and expensive walls The remnants of these can still be seen in some of the woods here today The last Trevanion retreated rather hastily to Paris and the Bailiffs took over the estate in 1840 The search for a purchaser took a long time 1840 1853 At last Michael Williams of Scorrier and Burncoose
Size: 5120px × 3413px
Location: Caerhays, Cornwall
Photo credit: © Roger Hollingsworth / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: 1, building, burncoose, caerhays, camellias, castle, collection, cornwall, english, garden, grade, heritage, ional, john, listed, magnolia, michael, nash, national, rhododendrons, trevanion, williams
