Knightshayes

The fortune behind Knighthayes, a 19th century curiosity, came from one John Heathcoate, who in the early 1800s invented the first lace-making machine. A Luddite mob destroyed his Midlands factory--interestingly, Paul Krugman just wrote a NYT column called "Sympathy for the Luddites"--so he moved production to Tiverton, in Devon, and grew to become the world's largest lace manufacturer. (Are you with me, Tawana?) And a man of some means. He was an inventor and businessman, however, and lived in the village with his family, in relative modesty. The grandson, John Heathcoate-Amory, was not content to be a business magnate. So, in order to flaunt his great wealth and status, he purchased the Knightshayes property and had built on it a neo-Gothic great house and adjoining gardens and grounds. For interiors, his opium-eating architects produced some stunning arts and crafts things, the sort one sees at the V&A, but these were too adventurous for Sir Grandson, and he later covered them up with more typical Victorian colors and designs. As it renovates the house, the Trust is restoring the original bold decors, which are decidedly more interesting than what's presently there. The outside is definitely domestic/neo-Gothic, with Gothic arches, tracery, even a few gargoyles. And much stained glass. Alas, this is a "no fotos!" property, inside, so I have little to show. But the gardens are fairly spectacular. We spent several hours walking all of them.

Knightshayes, full frontal

Gargoyle

In the lady's bedroom; we had expected to see lots of lace
at Knightshayes, but, alas, just about all of it was on the
wedding dress in the corner

Another of the restored bedrooms

Gorgeous embroidery of the county and its various properties

View from the house down to the valley and the original
factory buildings, no longer owned by the family, but still
in the textile business

Grounds view

In the terraced formal gardens

My camera loves poppies

Still in the formal gardens, a topiary "chase"

And a lily pond

And it also loves water lilies

And dragon flies on water lily pads

All in a row 

The meadows are covered in wildflowers, daisies, forget-me-nots,
buttercups; but no dandelions! How do they do this? 

The rhodos are still doing quite well here

And the camellias

The grounds and gardens are covered by scores of huge
old trees like this one; oaks, mainly, but all manner of others
too 

Lanhydrock Gardens

On our 2013 visit, we did go on a Lanhydrock garden tour, conducted by one of the very able and knowledgeable volunteers. The National Trust is, reputedly, the world's largest non-profit organization. Every property you visit has a regular staff but also dozens or scores of volunteers, all of them knowledgeable about the property, or at least their bit of it. Our garden guide that day was super, imparting information about the house and grounds, about the forests, the gardens, National Trust gardening practices and policies, and not a little information of use to the home gardeners.

A bit of the formal gardens

Parterre

Despite what you see here, our tour consisted of about
twenty people, and Vicki is looking off to whatever the
guide was talking about; I personally was intrigued by
the guide's green hair...

Looking back to the house

Tiny water feature

Poppies

Closer-up

Why gardens are so daunting (to me, anyway): this is page
one of the map of the particular garden we are standing in...

Rhodos, azaleas, etc., still going strong here

A "handkerchief tree"

Field of wildflowers (not dandelions!)

Lanhydrock 2013

We visited Lanhydrock in 2009--the last day of the National Trust's season that year, November 1st--and immediately decided it was our favorite Great House. As I wrote then, it's hardly the largest nor most famous, nor does it have the most art or other treasure, nor even very much national history. More of this house is open, however, and authentic, than any other we've seen, upstairs and downstairs, and, unlike some of the other houses, its families are people you come to care for, especially as they confront their final tragedies. I posted about Lanhydrock in 2009, http://roadeveron.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/lanhydrock.html, and don't think I can improve much presently, although I may post some further pix here later on. It's still our favorite house.

Eden Valley Caravan Park

Having pushed about as far west in Cornwall as we wanted, near Lanhydrock, we decided to take an administrative day, mostly doing the wash, but other tasks as well. I post the following two pix just to show the nice pitches at this large and popular campground.

Our pitch; note the rhododendron hedge behind us

Behind the hedge was a beautiful little stream,
a soothing water feature

Antony House

After the garden/sculpture tour, we visited the house...

Thus; again

In the entry...many portraits...this the most famous, the last
portrait of Charles I, done while he was on trial; note the
graying beard, the haggard eyes; interestingly (to me), the
lord of Antony at the time served on the jury that judged
and condemned the king--and he was later beheaded for it,
in the Restoration; earlier, his younger brother, a Royalist,
had been beheaded by the Parliamentarians; nasty times

Dining room; note the silver boat on the table

Joshua Reynold's Piping Shepherd Boy

Commissioned by Richard Carew Pole, Richard Le Brun's
Oh! Death Will Find Me, inspired by Rupert Brooke's sonnet;
there were few British families, of any station, that were not
deeply affected by WWI

Larger part of a large library

Glass collection

Bed room

Staircase lighting features

Antony Gardens

Our next home and garden was Antony, an 18th century estate that stands on a neck of Cornwall stretching between the Tamar and Lynher rivers as they empty into the Channel. (We took the Tamar bridge after Plymouth; the long way). The land has been owned since the 15th century by the Carew family, and their descendents, the Pole-Carews and the Carew Poles. (Obviously I am not making that up). At Antony, anyhow, we had the opportunity to go on a tour of the estate's mostly contemporary sculpture. The tour was led by one of the gardeners, and we have since vowed not to miss any more garden tours. It was superb. And mostly about the gardens and forest, trees and shrubs and flowers, since they outnumber the sculptures by a wide margin.

Antony, main house

Part of the formal gardens; the cone-shaped thing on the
ground is sculpture; it mimics the large shrubs; note the
tea-cup shaped topiary on the left; it was so done for the
Disney Alice in Wonderland movie that was in part filmed
at Antony

Huge cone with park bench within; the lady
of the house in olden days (either a Carew-Pole
or a Pole-Carew) would sit there and watch
the matches going on at the tennis court
opposite the garden (no longer there; I guess
the National Trust doesn't do tennis courts)

Wonderful giant cork oak tree

Thus; may 6-8 feet in diameter; many wine
bottles' worth

Wisteria arbor

Not sculpture; a chess piece from Alice in
Wonderland

Down by the shore of the Lynher River (estuary), looking
at another great house across the way

Green Man sculpture; nice placement

Looking past a Sequoia to some giant rhubarbs

Back at the estate, a Magnolia Grandiflora that
obviously has been there a few centuries

Nearby, a beautiful little parish church