Save your money and go elsewhere (Lanhydrock)

Member Name: mykp

Product:	Lanhydrock
Date:	04/11/03 (49 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: nice gardens

Disadvantages: Grumpy Staff

Situated close to the town of Bodmin in Cornwall, Lanhydrock is just one of the many National Trust properties in the Devon and Cornwall area.

So, whats so special about this one, I here to you ask?

Well not a lot really if we?re brutally honest, I have been to many of the NT country houses over the years and there is nothing at Lanhydrock which grabs your attention from others, well maybe, apart from one room!

Okay, let me explain this, the house has many interesting rooms which are filled with a variety of period items as well as a large variety of stuffed dead animals. However there are a number of properties with are better. The gardens are nice at Lanhydrock, there nice in a quiet sort of way as oppose to nice in a Wow! kind of way. The trees at the main entrance are nice though standing to attention, in line on the entrance to the house.

Also on the grounds is a small chapel where the owners of the house would have worshipped at one time. This chapel contains some interesting stained glass windows, if your into stained glass windows. There are also a few out buildings with the olde transport inside as well as a snack shop, restaurant and toilets

The snack shop in my opinion was a complete rip off and I would strongly recommend taking your own drinks. They were charging 90p for a small plastic cup full of pop which was duely poured from a My Mums, type brand container which probably cost less than 90p to buy two bottles! Oh and coffee thats been brewing for hours doesnt taste so good, so dont try charging £1.20 for stewed coffee.

Lets get back to the house as thats what the majority of you will go to see. Before you enter the house youd better put your camera away, as with most NT properties being anally retentive about cameras and this place was the worst. I had not even walked through the door before one of the women volunteers starts the cameras are not allowed routine. Get a life!

Listen if you

?d have looked at the camera, you half wit! its in its holder and the lens cap is on. How do you take pictures with the lens cap on? Perhaps your camera works when its got its lens cap on but mine doesnt!

Kinda spoilt my visit, before it even began!

Built in the late 19th-century it houses a magnificent 32yd-long gallery with plaster ceiling which survives from the 17th century, the rest of the house was rebuilt following a disastrous fire in 1881. The garden features a stunning collection of magnolias, rhododendrons and camellias, and offers fine colours right through into autumn. All this is set in a glorious estate of 364ha (900 acres) of woods and parkland running down to the River Fowey. Well thats roughly what it says on the NT site anyway.

The best room in my opinion was the great hall, which is a long room with some superb carving and plaster work, especially the ceiling and loads of period furniture and is the last main room in the house, barring the obligatory NT gift shop, that is.

I?ve often wondered if the NT work everything around the gift shop?

Anyway I am not singing the praises of Lanhydrock as the beauty of the house and gardens was spoilt by the expensive drinks and the extremely rude and curt manor of certain members of the staff, plus I think the admission price is way too high for this property.

Lanhydrock
Bodmin,
Cornwall,
PL30 5AD

Telephone
01208 265950
01208 265952 (Shop)
01208 265951 (Restaurant)


© Mike Porter, Copyright 1999 ? 2003

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