Two historic houses in one day

The weather was not promising to be as warm or as dry with a deep low resulting from storm Henri passing just to the south of Cornwall. Just to keep a pattern going rather than a walk we decided a National Trust property was the order of the day. Llanhydroch was the closest so that was to be our first destination. We have visited before but if I am honest I can’t remember it. (ed: worth reading something about the Victorian family who lived here before you go. I read up after and wished I had known the details prior to the visit. It explains the warm, friendly atmosphere in the house).

There seemed to be a lot of roadworks on the way there perhaps they avoid the peak season and fit them in before the winter. They only delayed us by 5 minutes compared to the sat nav estimate. The family who owned Llanhydroch seemed to own a fair chunk of Cornwall with farms and pockets of land scattered all over the most south west county of the united kingdom.

I would recommend a visit the house is extensive and there are lots of rooms to see, and it has a lived in feel about it, very homely. There is a good Cafe where the food and sandwiches looked appetising, and the coffee was well made. I noticed that the barrista knew what they were doing by having up to 3 brews on the go, they need to send her down to Castle Drogo to train the barrista up there. It was almost 13:00 when we had finished the house, so rather than have lunch at the house we thought we would take a look at another house called Pencarrow which was not far away.

Pencarrow is a private historic house so not covered by our National Trust membership, but we did find a voucher online to get a £1 discount, which although they state you have print out they accepted the one I showed them on Helen mobile. There was confusion over whether we could get on the 14:15 tour as the lunch time relief person had not tallied the numbers correctly. Eventually after a phone call to the central administration to office we were allowed on the be the tour!

We had time for some lunch before the tour and the cafe, not National Trust quality, had sweet potatoes and butternut squash soup on offer. We both had a healthy and tasty lunch. We had a ten minutes to spare before the tour so Helen had a fag and I did a couple of photospheres.

The tour was quite interesting with the guide pointing out the expensive antiques and the more interesting facts about the stuff on display. China by various famous manufacturers featured prominently, as did quite a few artists that I had heard of. Photography was not allowed in the house so you won’t see any photos here.

We stopped at Wadebridge for some provisions then I dropped Helen off at the shops in Polzeath then I headed down to the beach for a look.  I set up the time lapse camera on a rock and had to wait longer that usual because a couple went and sat below where I had placed it. We had a pint at the Waterfront, chance for another time lapse, before wandering back to the hut for pasta.