Lanhydrock House Cornwall
Lanhydrock House near Bodmin in Cornwall is the finest and most completely realised Victorian country house in Cornwall, a house rebuilt after a disastrous fire in 1881 in the high Victorian style that preserves in extraordinary completeness the full range of rooms necessary for the operation of a Victorian household from the great kitchen and its adjacent service rooms to the state apartments and the family bedrooms. The National Trust manages the house and the combination of the completeness of the service rooms and the quality of the state rooms provides one of the most comprehensive pictures of Victorian domestic life available at any National Trust property.
The kitchen and service wing of Lanhydrock is the most completely preserved example of a Victorian country house service department in England, the larder, dairy, bakehouse, scullery and kitchen all equipped with the original Victorian fittings, equipment and utensils in a condition that allows the visitor to understand exactly how the immense Victorian household operated. The contrast between the elaborately decorated state rooms and the functional simplicity of the service areas demonstrates the social stratification of the Victorian household with unusual clarity.
The grounds of Lanhydrock, with their formal parterres below the house, the nineteenth-century plantings of the parkland and the wooded valley of the Fowey providing the background walking, complete an estate of considerable variety and natural beauty. The combination of the house, the service rooms and the landscape creates one of the most complete and most informative Victorian country house visits available in the southwest.