Cornish Houses and Gardens - Landscapes, flowers, buildings and art

The tour leaves Plymouth railway station at 1.30pm. Both the house and the park at Port Eliot are listed Grade I, a rare distinction. Created from a 12th-century priory, the house was remodelled in the 17th and 18th centuries, most notably by Sir John Soane. The adjacent church, site of a Saxon Cathedral, is one of the finest in Cornwall, Norman and Perpendicular with Burne-Jones windows. First of two nights in Padstow.

Within a Jacobean shell, Lanhydrock provides an insight into the late Victorian technical advances in country-house design and operation. The house is approached though one of Britain’s most enchanting gatehouses, and the magnolia trees are magnificent. Secluded in a wooded valley, Pencarrow is a beautiful Palladian building, the interiors embellished with ornate panelling and ceilings. It has been the Molesworth family home for 500 years. Arthur Sullivan wrote the music for Iolanthe here.

Begin with time in Padstow, a highly picturesque little fishing port sheltered in the Camel Estuary. Prideaux Place, a charming mix of Elizabethan, Strawberry Hill Gothic and Georgian. Trerice is a modest Elizabethan mansion with Dutch gables and rich plasterwork. The garden at Trewithen is internationally known for rhododendrons and magnolias and rare flowering shrubs. First of three nights in Falmouth.

The head of the River Fal estuary provides a spectacular setting for Trelissick and its famous garden, renowned for flowering cherries and exotics such as gingko and palms as well as azaleas and rhododendrons. Falmouth was important for long-distance trade, the packet mail service and the Royal Navy. Its architecturally fascinating main axis cranks along the irregular line of the waterfront to the Art Gallery whose collections encompass Pre-Raphaelites and British Impressionists to contemporary.

Caerhays Castle is an outstanding example of a picturesque, castle-style Regency house, designed by John Nash, master of the style. The park has the largest collection of magnolias in the UK as well as azaleas and camellias among its 600 plant varieties. Private lunch in the castle dining room. The 200-acre Lost Gardens of Heligan are the result of an extraordinary horticultural resurrection, from utter dereliction to National Collection status for its pre-1920 camellias and rhododendrons.

Kestle Barton, an ancient farmstead, has an elegant gallery and charming garden. Walk through the lovely estuary scenery of Helford village and take the ferry across Helford River. After a pub lunch, walk the coastal path to Glendurgan Garden, described by its Quaker creators as a ‘small peace [sic] of heaven on earth’. Its three valleys are ablaze in spring with camellias, magnolias, primroses, bluebells and rhododendrons. First of three nights in St Ives.

A granite knot of narrow streets, the fishing village of St Ives was an important outpost of 20th-century British art. Barbara Hepworth’s home and garden, packed with her sculptures, is superb. The excellent Tate St Ives has changing exhibitions and a permanent display of 20th-century British and international art. Free afternoon: there is plenty to enjoy including the Leach Pottery (essential for lovers of ceramics), the Society of Artists and many commercial galleries.

From the 1880s, painters were attracted to Newlyn by the distinctive light and the ancient rhythms of life of the fishing community. Works of the Newlyn School are in the Penlee Gallery in Penzance, a harbour town full of architectural interest. Reached by a causeway, St Michael’s Mount, daughter house of the monastery at Mont St Michel in Normandy, was converted to a home – one with a 14th-century granite church and Chippendale furniture.

Perched high above the River Tamar, Cotehele is a Tudor house with arms and armour, old oak furniture and one of the National Trust’s largest collections of tapestries; unmodernised, it remains unlit by electricity. The gardens include formally planted terraces, the Valley Garden, and orchards with local apples and cherries. The tour ends at Plymouth station by 3.00pm.