Lost Heritage

Pentillie Castle

<< find out more about demolished English country houses


The old entrance front



"Pentillie Castle; J. T. Coryton, Esq. A splendid place by nature, and next in our opinion to Mount Edgecumbe. The house is particularly well situated, and entered in a proper manner, so as just to give an idea that a view of something grand and striking may be obtained from the drawingroom windows, but not to show it till there.

There are some extensive walks well laid out under the direction of the late Mrs. Coryton, who, the gardener informed us, was a lady of great taste and skill in landscape-gardening. The walks here are covered with debris from the lead and copper mines, and those which have been laid with this material twenty years ago never bear a weed, not even moss; but, on those which have been covered more recently, weeds grow the second year, because the miners are now more careful in separating the ore. At the lodge we observed a fine tree of Cratagus orientalis covered with fruit, and in the flower-garden a female Menispermum enriched with its round black berries. At the house are some fine, magnolias and large myrtles.

The head kitchen-gardener has been here fifty years, and is eighty years old. We walked to a mausoleum placed on what is called Mount Ararat, in which one of the proprietors of this place is said to be interred in full dress; but for this story we must refer to the History of Cornwall."

- 'Somersetshire, Devonshire and Cornwall in 1842' - gardening tours by J.C. Loudon 1831-1842