Carclew House

Carclew House & Gardens

Perranarworthal, Truro, TR3 7PB
Tel: (01872) 864070

Ancient Cornish estate

A large ornamental garden with waterfall and terraces and fountains surrounded by flowers and shrubs, rhododendron species in abundance.

Carclew's garden first opened to the public in 1927 and has continued to do so for charity every year since then. It was once the greatest rhododendron garden in the South-West: some of the oldest rhododendrons were grown from Sir Joseph Hooker's Himalayan collections nearly 150 years ago. The many fine trees include a large ginkgo. The Chopes have been busy replanting and restoring the garden: the waterfall has recently been repaired.

Carclew House was a large Palladian county house near Mylor. Rebuilt in the 18th century and again in the early 19th century, it was destroyed by fire in 1934.

The original house and estate were purchased by a wealthy merchant William Lemon (1696-1760) in 1739. Lemon's town house in Truro had been designed by the architect Thomas Edwards, and it was again to Edwards that Lemon turned to substantially increase and modernise his new country house Carclew.

Work began in 1739, the enhancement to the mansion included flanking the main block with colonnades terminated by small pavilions in the fashionable Palladian manner, the design was similar in appearance to drawings of Palladio's planned Villa Ragona.

At the beginning of the 19th century William Lemon's grandson Sir William Lemon (1748-1824) had the house expanded further. He employed the architect William Wood (1746-1818) to create new wings in the place of the pavilions designed by Edwards. Work began in 1799 with the east wing being built in 1800 and the west wing in 1802. The wings were linked to the corps de logis by raised colonnaded connecting wings on the site of Edwards' original colonnades.

In 1934 Carclew was completely destroyed by fire and today just a few ruins are visible of what was once one of Cornwall's great houses. The terraced gardens complete with their water fountains and cascades remain and are privately owned and not open to the public.

Location

Just south of Devoran off the A39 between Falmouth and Penryn.

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