Rainbow Journeyman’s diary

One of the places that keeps pulling us back for a revisit is Pencarrow house. I’ve probably mentioned it before for several reasons, some of them quite sad. But it is yet again nearly coming to that time of year to sling cameras and kit into bags, dogs into cars and drive the old drovers road down to Bodmin and to our pleasure and benefit do another Rainbow Journey round the estate. Oh, and for your diary the gardens are open on the 1st of March. The house a bit later.

Why do we visit on a fairly regular basis? For a beginning Lady Molesworth, is always a very pleasant person to meet. Her experience and cordiality abounds and although she must have several thousand visitors a year passing round the gardens and through the house, she always greets us as if it were only yesterday that we were last here. Which looking at our records of visits is not too far from the truth. But that does not answer the question of why so often. Hm, deep thinking here. It’s probably over ten years ago that we made our first visits. The gardens were then going through stages of metamorphosis. (Being turned from a sows ear to a silk purse. Does no one think of the poor sow in that very old saying……… How unkind.) Anyway to continue. The American Gardens were then a bit of a shambles and the lake was full of silt and mud. Even the tadpoles were using satellite navigational aids and maneuvering at periscope depth instead of doing what tadpoles do. In fact a close friend of ours, Sue from a very posh school in Cheltenham, commented at the time. ” If I wanted to plough fields I could have stayed in Cheltenham on the farm.” Poor girl, turned up dressed for a stroll in the park, not dressed for a roll in the mud for a lark! And it rained! To give Sue the benefit of being a traditionalist and blue knickered; or is that blue stockinged, into the bargain. She followed us down there over a year later and agreed that the Rhodi’s were magnificent and the cream teas from the Cafe yummy! Which they both are.

Driving from a main road, a euphemistic name for the road that runs past the entrance, you travel down nearly a mile of carriageway through a series of rhododendron and azalea bushes that flank you either side of the road. Forming a Cathedral of colour over you head. Usually, by April, they are in their prime. Great splashes of colour that take your breath away for the maturity and proliferation of flower heads. And this year my feelings are, owing to the very mild winter everything will have moved forward a month and will begin to see this incredible display towards the end of February and into the middle of March.

Now, if you have looked at some of our earlier Pencarrow pictures, you will notice one where the trees stand like grey sentinels and are quite ghostly in appearance. This is an area where they found Ancient, early Brits settlements. (we were originally told Iron Age, but if you look in all the later guidebooks, it just refers to an ancient settlement.) Looking carefully you will see a raised mound which was part of the fortified ring used to protect their homesteads. All quite clever really.

What really intrigues us as photographers is the massive collection of flora and fauna and arboreal specimens that have been grown on this estate, to bring these gardens to maturity.
When we were kids, (Good memory required here!) in what was the Garden of England, then known as Kent. (Now, I believe, a suburb of the big smoke, London.) We used to go to a Avery Hill Park. The park and was full of majestic Oak and Sycamore trees some of them, we were told, dating back 150 to 200 years. So it is little wonder that we apply the same fascination to these magnificent gardens. Their maturity and coming of age very apparent.

Just a short distance from Pencarrow house is Bodmin. It’s one of those places that, like Topsy, has grown over the years. Originally quite a small market town, with a picturesque main street. Nowadays it has become a merry-go-round for traffic. It seems to be used as a shortcut by every one. Sited as it is between several major roads. But the most notable feature in the town, is, I am told from those with more experience than I, the Gaol! Now it is a museum but was once a guest house for the unfortunate. A place of confinement that struck fear into the minds of many honest local citizens. In times past, it took little effort to end up as an inmate, incarcerated deep within this austere building. Here you could moulder in your cell for several months before the local judge came round on his circuit. If the Gaol records are correct it took little effort to offend the local gentry to be deported or hung. This year, in keeping with a request from my other reader. We hope to include Bodmin, Gaol and one or two of Henry VIII castles that are not too far distance from this area.

Where ever you walk. Be friendly…

Mike Tyrrell