One of the things I love about having National Trust membership is how it gives you so many options of places to visit around the country without the pressure of feeling like you need to pay a proper visit to get your full money’s worth. It’s been great for stop-offs on long journeys or when you just want to find somewhere to go for a nice walk. Lanhydrock, a late Victorian country house with a garden and wooded estate, is only a few miles away from Coombe Mill, where we spent Christmas. We had a couple of hours to spare between the various activities planned for Christmas Eve, so decided to have a brief visit to Lanhydrock for a walk around the estate.
It was raining heavily when we arrived close to lunchtime. We decided to stop at the café, hoping that the rain would ease off while we had lunch. By the time we’d finished eating, the rain had stopped.
Grandma and Grandad both struggle to walk any kind of distance these days. The walk down to the house is just over half a kilometre, which is too far for them to manage. There is a buggy stop in the car park; however, we missed this on our way to the café though and only noticed it on the way back to the car. As we were only planning a walk down to the house and back though, they decided to stay at the café and wait for us there.
Sophie took charge of the map, leading the way towards the house. She was keen to get to the shop so she could get her National Trust passport stamped!
The gatehouse was decorated with huge Christmas wreaths, which were even bigger than Sophie! There were also lots of colourful baubles on sticks in the garden and Christmas trees outside the house itself. Sophie loved all the festive colours and decorations.
She couldn’t resist climbing in the carriage outside the house for a quick photo with Daddy before getting her passport stamped in the shop.
It’s a shame we were tight on time as I would have loved to have explored more of the grounds. From the map that Sophie had, it certainly looked like there was plenty to see. But we were keen to get back to Coombe Mill for activity hour and aware that Grandma and Grandad were waiting for us too.
We did have time to stop off at the adventure playground on the way back for a few minutes though. Sophie loved playing with the sand and scooping it up into the buckets. She also had fun drawing her own treasure map in the sand, with an X to mark the spot. Who knows what treasure was hiding there though. We didn’t stop long enough to dig and find out!
It might have been a brief visit, but it was lovely just to get out for an hour or so and explore somewhere new. Hopefully we’ll have another opportunity to visit Lanhydrock in the future. Next time, we’ll try and spend a bit longer there!
Visiting Lanhydrock – what you need to know:
Address:
Lanhydrock
Bodmin
Cornwall
PL30 4AB
Opening times:
Opening times vary throughout the year. For more information click here.
