Prideaux Place Gardens

Having survived the Elizabethan, Georgian and Victorian eras, today's exciting restoration programme aims to return these beautiful gardens to their former glory. Now with the help and advice of Tom Petherick, who was integral with the restoration of the gardens at Heligan, much clearing and planting has been undertaken.

The first extant records of the gardens are drawings made by Edmund Prideaux in the 1730s. He landscaped the gardens with hedged walks leading down from the entrance. Following his Grand Tour and interest in Renaissance art he erected several buildings to provide points of interest: a classical temple, an obelisk, a grotto and an exedra, a small stone arbour housing Roman funerary urns whose inscriptions date them back to 50 AD.

This historic garden has a unique supporter in the shape of a small teddy bear who belongs to the owner, Peter Prideaux-Brune. 'Me Too', with the help of our Administrator, Carmen Hocking, has written an enchanting tale of the adventures he and all the other bears and rabbits get up to at night at Prideaux Place. All the proceeds from this beautifully illustrated book go towards the restoration of the garden and Me Too has already helped to plant 3000 bulbs last Autumn and has plans for planting up the Woodland Walks this Spring.

See the Shop for further details.


	From the house one looks across the park with its herd of fallow deer. It is thought to be the oldest in the country and has been dated back to its enclosure by the Romans in 435 AD. Legend has it that if the deer die out, so does the Prideaux family. Not wishing to test this alarming prediction King George V sent a virile young buck from his herd at Windsor in 1927 when our blood line was dwindling. The following morning the gamekeeper set out to cull the old lead buck and shot the King's buck instead!

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