Kestle Mill

Found hidden in the lanes two 2 miles west of Kestle Mill, is the exceptionally attractive small Elizabethan manor house, Trerice. Built by Sir John Arundell in 1571, and now in the care of the National Trust, this charming house with a Dutch-style gabled faŤade retains many of its fine original features, and highlights include fine oak and walnut furniture, collections of clocks and drinking glasses, English and Oriental porcelain, portraits by the celebrated Cornish painter John Opie and a magnificent window in the great hall, made up of 576 small panes of 16th century glass. The grounds in which the house stands are equally charming and, as well as the unusual summer flowering garden, there is an orchard planted with old and, in many cases, forgotten fruit trees. The Parade Ground was used as a training ground by the Home Guard in the 1940s, and here you can play the Cornish game of ‘kayles’, an early form of skittles. All parts of the garden may be used for picnicking. The hayloft is also worth a once-over for its engagingly eccentric Lawnmower Museum, which traces the history of the lawnmower and contains more than 100 machines, the earliest dating from 1873. Tearooms, a gift shop and plant sales can also be found in the house’s various outbuildings. Trerice was the ‘Trenwith’ of Winston Graham’s Poldark novels.

To the southeast of Kestle Mill is another place well worth visiting that is rather different from Trerice – Dairyland Farm World. This is a real working dairy farm and, amongst the other attractions here, visitors can see the cows being milked to music