Caerhays has been an estate which, until 1955, has very much kept itself to itself.

From 1370 - 1840 it had been owned by the Trevanion family. There would have been little in the way of a garden in their time but the main feature of Caerhays then would have been its deer park. This would have been useful as a source of food in the autumn/winter and would also have added to the beauty of the place during the rest of the year. The trouble with deer parks was that the deer had to be kept in an enclosed area by very substantial and expensive walls. The remnants of these can still be seen in some of the woods here today.

The last Trevanion retreated rather hastily to Paris and the Bailiffs took over the estate in 1840. Tradition always states that following their departure there was a great sale of their effects and one of my old friends used to boast that his forbear had purchased a Trevanion teapot but this, the author has yet to see.

The search for a purchaser took a long time (1840 - 1853). At last Michael Williams of Scorrier and Burncoose purchased the by now very derelict property. The house had not been watertight for decades so very extensive repairs had to be carried out and it is open to some doubt as to whether Michael Williams ever in fact lived in the Castle. Both he and his son John Michael, who succeeded him, spent very peripatetic lives since, as they were both active in mining, smelting and the banking sides of National and County life, frequent visits had to be made to Swansea and London.

J.M. Williams died in 1880 and the long period of J.C. Williams began. He was only 18 years old when he inherited Caerhays and was in fact still at Cambridge University when his father died.

FOR FURTHER READING
John Nash - Architect of Caerhays Castle 1807. Click here for details of John Nash A Complete Catalogue by Michael Mansbridge, introduced by John Summerson.

Essays In Cornish History by Charles Henderson. Oxford at the Clarendon Press 1935.

St. Michael Caerhayes - The History of a Cornish Parish. Redruth, Earle & Co., Station Hill 1953.

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