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Caerhays Castle: the great estate with a blooming future

Magnolias in bloom at Caerhays - Alamy
Magnolias in bloom at Caerhays - Alamy

Late March is Charles Williams’s favourite time of year at Caerhays Castle, when the Asiatic tree magnolias are in full bloom. “On a sunny day, you feel as if you are sitting halfway up a mountain in the Himalayas,” he says. 

The estate where his family have lived for five generations certainly enjoys a spectacular setting; nestled into the hillside overlooking Porthluney Cove, near St Austell. Daphne du Maurier cited the Cornish estate as the inspiration for Manderley – indeed the 1979 BBC series Rebecca was filmed here. Most recently it was  the location for Tim Burton’s film Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

Charles’s second wife Lizzie recalls the first time she saw Caerhays Castle, her home now for the past 22 years, surrounded by the estate’s famous rhododendrons and magnolias. “It was nothing short of impressive,” she says. “It’s a magical place to live and a labour of love looking after the place. I adore describing myself as a housewife. It’s quite a house.” 

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Today the pair live in the Grade I-listed castle, with Charles continuing the horticultural work of his great-grandfather and Lizzie devoting herself to the house and dogs. 

While, as with any great estate, the upkeep of the bricks and mortar is a Herculean task, Caerhays is peculiar in that it has a weight of history in its blooms. 

caerhays castle - Credit: Jay Williams
Charles and Lizzy Williams with their dogs outside Caerhays Credit: Jay Williams

The 120 acres of gardens were the passionate project of John Charles Williams, known as JC, who took over in the 1880s from his father. JC had been at Cambridge with the future Lord Aberconway, and both knew they were likely to become the owners of large estates. They discussed a desire to move away from the landscapes of Capability Brown, traditionally associated with country residences. An initial passion for breeding daffodils led to investing in the exotic trips of plant pioneers. 

“JC was a man who had boundless energy,” says Charles. “And the opportunity to do something different came about because of the vast wealth of new plants, which were unknown in western Europe, coming from Nepal, Tibet and Yunnan.”

In 1902 JC began supporting the expeditions of the celebrated plant-hunters George Forrest and Ernest Wilson.

“George Forrest made several expeditions to China with financial backing from JC Williams,” says Charles. The cost of one such trip, in 1911, was the equivalent of £110,000 today. “It wasn’t an idle passion.”

People talk about the wonderful life you live in a castle. They must have visions of you lying in bed all day flipping the pages of Country Life

Charles Williams

As a result Caerhays enjoyed a wealth of seed from newly discovered species, including Chinese rhododendrons, magnolias, camellias, azaleas, acers and evergreen oaks, many of which can still be seen in the castle grounds. With magnolias living around 100 years, it has been the responsibility of successive generations to ensure the work of JC has been continued.

Charles has certainly seized the baton with vigour. As a boy he spent long hours with the estate’s head gardener. His gap year before university was spent as a gardener in Windsor Great Park. Thirty-three years ago he founded Burncoose Nurseries, which is now one of the biggest plant mail-order businesses in Britain. Charles is a veteran of 45 Chelsea Flower Shows and exhibited at 35 of them, and Caerhays was named the 2016 Historic House Association Garden of the Year. “It really has been a passion,” he says. 

There has certainly been no question of him resting on the garden’s laurels – or indeed any other variety of plant. “I’ve been involved in a fairly furious annual programme of clearing and replanting, in the wake of things that have died,” he says. “And we have expanded the area of the main garden, and brought another 10 hectares in to the garden,” says Charles.

“We registered seven new magnolia varieties with the International Magnolia Society this year alone.” 

The house itself, in the midst of all this fabulous vegetation, has its own remarkable story. It was expanded from a medieval manor house in the early 19th century by John Nash, the architect responsible for the Regency remodelling of much of central London. In the Early Middle Ages, the estate had belonged to the Arundell family and the earliest recorded mention of the name occurs in 1259 when it was referred to as Karihaes. Michael Williams II purchased Caerhays in 1854.

Up until the early 1980s the estate pretty much “washed its face” financially, says Charles. But agricultural rents came to cover less of the upkeep of the estate – then an entire new roof was needed, and the family opened their doors to the public in 1992.

camellia - Credit: Jay Williams
A camellia at Caerhays Credit: Jay Williams

Eleven redundant farm buildings were also converted into holiday-let accommodation and along with the nursery, the estate’s staff has grown from 30 or so to 90-plus today.

Visitors should not expect a National Trust-style set-up. “It’s made clear that people live here,” Charles says. “So you may see a dog and you may see a dirty pair of gumboots, and you may see photographs of a family, like you would see in a normal private house.”

The furniture that belonged to his great-grandfather still serves the house. “I have no desire to change anything really. I mean, if you look at a very old photograph of the front hall, barring a few ornaments it doesn’t look much different now.”

However both Charles and Lizzie are emphatically not sitting pretty in their castle. “People talk about the wonderful life you live in a castle,” Charles says. “They must have visions of you lying in bed all day flipping the pages of Country Life. Actually I find I work harder to improve this place than I ever did in the City working for a merchant bank. Really we feel that we’re curators, simply here to make sure what we hand on is in the same condition as we found it.”

The intention is for Charles to hand over to his grown-up son, John, who will support the garden and the house. “To achieve continuity you need a head gardener who’s going to hang around for a long time and an owner who can plan with them. The lifetime of most garden plants is about the same as a human being. So one generation needs to plant for the next.”

Caerhays’ gardens are open until mid- June. A Century of Rhododendrons lecture will take place Friday 7th April 2017  For more information visit, caerhays.co.uk

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