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Please check the website (www.nationaltrust.org.uk/cotehele) for House, Mill, Restaurant, Tea-room, Shop and Gallery opening times. The Garden is open daily; dawn to dusk.
Please email (cotehele@nationaltrust.org.uk) or phone 01579 351346 for information and booking.
Please check the website (www.nationaltrust.org.uk/cotehele) for House opening times.
From early spring flowers to herbaceous borders in high season, to the orchards in the autumn and snow drops in winter, you’ll find horticultural activity all year round.
Please check the website (www.nationaltrust.org.uk/cotehele) for admission prices.
Dogs allowed only on woodland walks.
Assistance dogs only in the House.
Tudor house with superb collections of textiles, armour and furniture, set in extensive grounds.
Riverside gardens with great seasonal variety;
Full year round program of events, see website for details.
Take a boat trip on the River Tamar from Cotehele Quay, booking essential, call 01579 351346.
There are eight different holiday cottages at Cotehele and each has its own character. Two are at the house, two are at the mill, one is on the quay and three others are scattered in the woods. Four of the cottages welcome dogs too.
The Edgcumbe tea-room on Cotehele Quay
After a brisk walk you can enjoy a light lunch, a glass of wine, a refreshing drink, or a cream tea in the Edgcumbe on the quay. Four legged friends more than welcome.
The Barn Restaurant at Cotehele
Pop into the fifteenth-century barn for lunches, light bites, hot drinks and great cakes. We're welcoming dogs on leads over the winter, so you can take a break with your four-legged friend.
A fourteen-acre garden with the house and outbuildings at the top of a combe which drops down to the river Tamar and Cotehele quay, mooring for Shamrock, the last of the Tamar barges.
The garden around the house is laid out in the formal manner although the area around the courtyards and barn displays hundreds of daffodils under the sycamores. From this, the Upper Garden with its sloping lawns, herbaceous borders and lily pool at its centre, can be reached. The two orchards can be found beyond the Upper garden.
Panoramic views of the Tamar valley can be obtained from the Prospect Tower.
The Valley Garden has a dovecote and stewpond from which a stream with pools and runnels dropping down to the river supports bog plants such as primulas, marsh marigolds and Gunnera. This woodland part of the garden is planted with native trees and more exotic species cleverly interspersed to give a natural look. The rhododendrons, especially 'Cornish Red', and azaleas, magnolia, camellias, enkianthus and kalmias provide a fine display in Spring.
Dating from mediaeval times, Cotehele was enlarged and re-built in the Tudor era by Richard Edgcumbe II and his son Sir Piers Edgcumbe II. The Edgcumbe family owned Cotehele for almost 600 years (from 1353 to 1947). However, between 1547 and 1553 Sir Piers built another house at Mount Edgcumbe and moved the family there; with the result that the Cotehele Estate remained relatively unaltered.
However, the East Wing facade of the house was re-built in 1862; this is when the terraces we see today were laid out. Shortly after ornamental tree and shrub planting commenced at the head of the valley and later, with the arrival of the railway viaduct in 1905, screening conifers were planted.