Visiting Cotehele's garden

Exterior view of grey stone building, seen across a green meadow. Trees with orange and brown leaves on right side of image. — Cotehele House in the autumn | © Mel Peters

The Cotehele estate is home to 5.5 hectares (14 acres) of garden and 5 hectares (12 acres) of orchards so there’s plenty to discover. The garden is unique and varied all year round. Each season offers something new and exciting for visitors, from cut flowers and herbaceous borders to grand orchards and a cider press.

Autumn highlights in the garden at Cotehele

A circuit around the Upper Garden shows off the ash and dogwoods in their finest autumnal hues. You won’t want to miss the American ash on the east side, dogwoods on the island in the pond, the yellow stemmed ash or the tulip tree which all look exceptionally beautiful in autumn.

In autumn the aster ‘Purple Dome’ will be in full flower in the terraced garden. The Valley Garden and Acer Grove will also be full of brilliant autumn colour, particularly the purple beech and acers.

Pick your own apples from Cotehele's Mother Orchard

Help collect the harvest from Cotehele’s Mother Orchard as we invite everyone to pick this years crop to take home and enjoy from Saturday 14 – Sunday 22 September.

Picking bags are available when you arrive within visitor reception and cost £3 each. You’re welcome to purchase as many as you like. You are welcome to bring your own bags, but we ask for a donation towards the upkeep of the orchards at Cotehele.

Top tips for picking apples at Cotehele

The orchards at Cotehele can be uneven in places, please mind how you go.
Watch out for biting and stinging insects, they like fruit too.
Do not climb on the delicate trees, they are old with weak branches.
Please pick fruit gently without tugging or pulling to hard as this can damage the tree. If the apple easily comes away then it’s ripe. If not, leave on the branch for a bit longer.
Watch out for the different types of apple. The orchard is spilt into sections which contain cider, dessert and cooking apples.
Give all the apples a wash with water when you get home, before consuming.

All proceeds from our apple picking events go straight back into looking after Cotehele. Many thanks for your continued support.

Cotehele's garden

East Terraces

You’ll find terraced herbaceous borders on the east side of the house, leading down to the fantastic view of the viaduct towards the village of Calstock.

Here there are seasonally mixed borders of hydrangeas, roses, geraniums, irises, salvia, Centaurea Montana and Centaurea Montana Alba and Veronicastrum.

Upper Garden

The Upper Garden has a central pond, which is filled with red and white water lilies in the summer. Their lily pads provide shelter for the frogs that spawn here in spring.

The pond is framed on all four sides by herbaceous borders planted in different colour schemes. These planting schemes follow a plan introduced by garden adviser Graham Stuart Thomas in the 1960s.

The Valley Garden

A tunnel from the formal terraces leads to the steep and wild Valley Garden with a path curving down to a thatched Victorian summerhouse, a medieval stewpond and dovecote. Relax by the serene pond and then follow one of the wildflower-lined paths down to the quay.

The Cut Flower Garden

The Cut Flower Garden is where our team grow a variety of flowers for display within the house and for our 60ft-long Christmas flower garland which can usually be seen within the Great Hall between November and December. Annually our team pick, strip and dry over 20,000 flowers for the garland - the number varies depending on the growing season.

View from the terrace over the Valley Garden at Cotehele, Cornwall — View of the Valley Garden at Cotehele | © National Trust Images/Andrew Butler

Cotehele’s orchards

Cotehele is home to a few different orchards which, as well as providing us with beautiful spaces to relax and delicious food and drink, are also home to many bees, butterflies and insects. There’s something to admire and enjoy in the orchards throughout the year, as every season makes it mark.

The Old Orchard

The Old Orchard was part of a wider deer park surrounding the garden at Cotehele in the 16th century. Today the orchard is filled with a variety of fruit trees, including apples, cherries, plums and medlars, with some dating back to 1960.

The Old Orchard is often filled with daffodils in the spring. Some of the oldest daffodils planted at Cotehele can be found around the banks of the former pond.

The Mother Orchard

The Mother Orchard at Cotehele was planted to provide a set of ‘mother trees’ that can be used for the selection of future varieties for both domestic and commercial use. The orchard includes more than 300 trees and 125 different heritage varieties of apple tree including Cornish Honeypinnick, Limberlimb, Pig’s Nose and Lemon Pippin. The varieties grown here have been bred to survive the south-west peninsula’s mild and damp climatic conditions.

What's that plant?

If you see a plant you’d like to identify you can simply email askthecotehelegardener@nationaltrust.org.uk. A member of the team will help identify it.

Try to include the location, attach some photographs, and describe any special features such as flower and leaf shape, colour, bark etc.