Trenarth is home not only to a four-acre garden set around a 17th-century farmhouse in a charming pastoral setting with not a road in sight but also to a colony of bats who have in the past achieved television fame.

So what could be more appropriate than for this garden at High Cross, near Constantine, to open as part of Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s Open Gardens scheme. A regular with the Trust each year it is amazingly popular.

Visitors are welcomed on Sunday 4^th August from 2.00pm to 5.00pm. Entry is £5 per adult with under 16s free. Dogs on leads are allowed. Cream teas and beverages will be provided by Roddas, Berrymans and Cornish Coffee, and as with all gardens opening for the Trust this year, there will be a plant stall. The garden is not suitable for wheelchairs.

As well as providing a maternity roost of lesser horseshoe bats, Trenarth is gardened to encourage abundant wildlife with water and bog features and plants to attract birds, butterflies, and insects all the year-round. A quirky and child-friendly garden, there is a children’s garden trail. An ancient green lane walk leads to an old animal pond, through woods, which are a mass of bluebells in the spring, to Trenarth Bridge, then back up through another woodland footpath.

The courtyard dates back to the 16^th century, and there are listed garden walls, and a gravel and palm area, unusual plants, yew rooms, vegetable garden orchard and woodland area, and an original red telephone box which now houses a toilet. There are more conventional toilets available as well!

The emphasis at Trenarth is very much on unusual plants, structure, and form and with the exception of a few magnolias, camellias, hydrangeas and the orchard, all of the planting has been done in the last sixteen years.

The walled garden contains a refurbished traditional potting shed, prize-winning vegetable garden, rockery, and herbaceous beds, and a series of yew ‘rooms’. Below the walled garden is the main lawn with terracing, and a water feature sited on the gravel and palm garden. Further on, the garden becomes less formal, with a beautiful holm oak avenue.

Isabella Hawkes, Community Fundraising Officer says,

“The aims of the garden are to provide year-round interest in terms of scent, colour, and form - a true “garden for all seasons” and to encourage wildlife. This is one of the Trust’s regulars and if you have never before then believe me it is so worth the journey. The owner Lucie Nottingham is an ardent supporter of the Trust and she featured in our My Wild Life poster campaign.”

There is still one more garden opening for the Trust this year, on September 1^st South Bosent, at Dobwalls, near Liskeard.

More details can be found at www.cornwallwildlifetrust.org.uk/opengardens