History of Trengwainton Garden

Expert curated

Gravel path through colourful rhododendrons at Trengwainton Garden Cornwall — Rhododendrons at Trengwainton | © National Trust/Marina Rule

Set on high ground overlooking Mount’s Bay and the Lizard Peninsula in the far west of Cornwall, Trengwainton Garden is now an archetypal Cornish valley garden of rhododendrons, magnolias, half-hardy trees and shrubs from the first half of the twentieth century. In the 19th century, the site was the kitchen garden of Sir Rose Price, whose wealth came from inherited sugar plantations in Jamaica.

Homestead of Spring

A settlement at Trengwainton was first recorded in 1302. In the Cornish language its name comes from ‘tre’ (meaning hamlet, homestead or farmstead) and ‘guainton’ (meaning springtime) – appropriate for a valley which is known for its mild, gulfstream protected micro-climate.

Francis Arundell (c.1620-97) purchased Trengwainton from the Cowling family in 1668. The Arundells promptly rebuilt the house and then later sold the estate to the Praed family of Trevethoe, who let it as a farm.

Sir Rose Price

The present garden’s origins began with the purchase of Trengwainton in 1814 by Sir Rose Price (1768 – 1834), the son of John Price of Penzance the Younger (1738-97). The wealth Sir Rose used to buy Trengwainton came from the Price family’s multiple plantation estates in Jamaica, where sugar and rum were produced using the enslaved labour of over 700 people. You can read more about the connections between Price, Jamaica, enslaved labour and Trengwainton here.

In 1815, after being knighted, Rose made significant enhancements to the garden based on advice from garden designer George Brown. These improvements included the creation of walled kitchen gardens, an orchard, a ‘Ladies Well’ with flower garden, a terrace with views over Mount’s Bay, and extensive tree planting of beech, ash, and sycamore to provide shelter.

19th-century climate change

Rose was responsible for building the Head Gardener’s Cottage (now the bookshop) which looks out over the walled kitchen garden, and its purposeful sloped beds. Then unknown as a technique in England, sloped beds were used in Europe. The west-facing beds catch and hold more heat from the sun, making for a longer growing season. They also improve drainage, and when combined with heat stored by their surrounding brick walls, they lower the risk of frost.

They may have been created at Trengwainton in response to the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. The eruption of 1815 threw so much volcanic ash into the atmosphere that it drastically affected the following year’s weather patterns across the globe. 1816 became known as the ‘Year without a Summer’ with unseasonable frosts, snow and torrential rain causing massive crop failures in northern Europe, the USA and Canada. The increased productivity of Trengwainton’s sloping beds, could have been a defence against this climate change.

A sloping bed of lavender to the right with a bed of mixed flowers to the left and a brick cottage and brick walls in the centre. — A sloping bed of lavender in the walled garden at Trengwainton. | © National Trust/Marina Rule

Moving into new ownership

After Rose Price’s death in 1834, debts across his Jamaican and Cornish estates forced the sale of Trengwainton by his mortgage holders. The estate was sold to Henry Lewis Stevens (1810-67) of Tregenna Castle, who found the house ‘much too large for anyone to inhabit’ and eventually demolished one wing of it. Stevens leased the walled garden, orchard and nursery areas to the Fox family as a market garden.

The Bolitho family

Thomas Simon Bolitho (1808–87), a banker from an ancient Cornish mining family, bought Trengwainton from Henry Lewis Stevens in 1867. The Bolitho family still live in the (private) house today.

Thomas Simon and his son, Thomas Robins Bolitho (1840–1925) extended the house and straightened the carriage drive to better connect the house and the entrance lodge. Trengwainton developed from a natural landscape, market garden and farm, into a more highly maintained garden with a larger range of plants. The walled garden was used for ornamental plants in addition to fruit and vegetables.

In 1925, former army colonel and politician Sir Edward Hoblyn Warren Bolitho (1882-1969) inherited the estate from his uncle Thomas. During his time the planting for which Trengwainton is now renowned began.

Yellow and pink candelabra primula flowers planted by a stream with grass and trees in the background. — The stream garden at Trengwainton | © National Trust/Marina Rule

A living collection

Encouraged by family in Cornwall who were themselves enthusiastic plant collectors, Sir Edward assembled a significant living collection of shrubs and trees at Trengwainton. He bought a share in the syndicate which funded Francis ‘Frank’ Kingdon Ward’s 1927-28 expedition to Myanmar and Northeast India. Such expeditions were characterised as triumphs of British exploration and botany but depended heavily on local expertise and labour for their success.

Seeds collected on Ward’s venture were sent to Trengwainton and raised by Alfred Creek, the Head Gardener. The Rhododendron macabeanum specimen collected for Trengwainton on this expedition is thought to have been the first to flower in the UK.

Creek retired in 1934, but his work continued in the skilled hands of his successor G. W. Thomas. Together Creek, Thomas and Sir Edward bred many new rhododendrons, for which Trengwainton earned a national reputation. Hybrids that are unique to Trengwainton include the rhododendrons R. ‘Morvah’, R. ‘Fusilier’, R. ‘Golden Horn’ and R. 'Miss Pink'. Sir Edward developed the walled garden into an ornamental garden and planted Magnolia x veitchii there in the 1920s.

The walled gardens also include several ‘champion trees’ - the most important specimens of their kind. They include Craibiodendron yunnanense, Dodecadenia grandiflora and Hoheria populnea.

Following the fashion of his time, Sir Edward often placed plants of the same species together where conditions best suited them. The Azalea Garden was planted in 1931, and the Camellia Walk just before the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.

A gifted garden

In 1961, Sir Edward was awarded the Royal Horticultural Society’s Victoria Medal of Honour in recognition of his creation of the garden. Later that same year he gave Trengwainton to the National Trust, and part of the garden opened to visitors in 1962. The historic house and remainder of its garden continue to be the Bolitho family’s private residence.

A plant-focused future

With the support of external academics, we now have a fuller understanding of Cornwall’s role in plant collecting and propagation, and its links to wealth from Caribbean plantations worked by enslaved people. In 2023, some of this research was shared on-site through performances by the socially engaged arts group Small Acts - with audience feedback helping to guide the next stages of sharing Trengwainton’s complex histories.

Plants growing at Trengwainton that were the first of their species to flourish in Britain, now present a new challenge. The threat of disease and climate change test the strength of this special collection. The opportunity to continue Trengwainton’s legacy of plant introduction into the future and expand this unique collection is one that the gardeners of today accept and embrace.