Description:Large formal garden laid out 1857. Good summer colour with herbaceous borders, shrub garden with fine specimens of rhododendrons and magnolias and lovely views
Mainly Victorian country house, though some parts date back to the 17th century, with over 50 rooms open to the public. Garden tours on some days

Disability information:Wheelchair access route around formal garden. Gravel paths and slopes to higher woodland garden

Further details:A double beech avenue climbs up the valley from the river Fowey through the parkland to the grey granite Lanhydrock House, tucked into the wooded ridge behind. There has been a garden here since the 17th Century, but the present framework was established only in the Victorian period and few of the plants are more than 70 years old. Today, formal parterres of dazzlingly bright bedding plants spread out under the east front. On the slopes above, paths wander through a woodland landscape planted in semi-formal Cornish fashion with stands of rhododendrons and Himalayan magnolias that have grown to their full size clean Cornish air. From here, you can take in superb views down over the garden and the valley landscape. Because Lanhydrock lies eight miles inland and the grounds rise to 130 metres above sea level, plants have to cope with a harsher climate than south Cornwall's famous coastal gardens. But it can still put on an equally dazzling spring show, when a snow of cream and white magnolia flowers fills the air, and wild blooms carpet the woodland. Key Dates 1690's A modest formal garden created beside the house, including a bowling green and a flower garden surrounded by a tree-lined walk. 1780's The east range demolished and the formal garden probably swept away, allowing open parkland to sweep right up to the house. 1857 The architect George Gilbert Scott designs an elaborate new formal garden to the west and north of the house and surrounds it with low castellated parapets and obelisks. c. 1860 The Higher Garden above the house laid out as a shrub garden. c. 1933 7th Viscount Clifden simplifies Victorian bedding and begins planting magnolias. 1953 7th Viscount gives Lanhydrock to the National Trust 1990 January storm devastates the woodland. The garden shelter belt and other parts of the woodland has been replanted since 1991 with a selection of broadleaved trees which have already been thinned twice since planting.