Victorian walled gardens are relatively common in the grounds of historic country estates, but few of them are still used as they were intended: to provide food and cut flowers to the house. Yet at Tresillian House in Cornwall, a few miles inland from Newquay, the walled garden is brimming with produce all year round.
Although parts of it date back to the 13th century, most of the property is Victorian. It is currently owned by George Robinson, whose maternal grandfather, T. A. V. Wood, leased it in the 1930s and ’40s to breed narcissi, notably ‘Summercourt’. George’s mother was raised here, and when Tresillian came up for sale in 2000, George bought it.
Until recently the walled garden’s traditional quadripartite design, its beds crammed with rows of vegetables and its walls clothed with trained fruit trees, was the passion of
