Tehidy Country Park

Tehidy Country Park is a great place for a weekend walk, if you can cope with the high noise level!  This is the result of its being the nearest area of open space to Camborne and a very popular place with families, especially those with small children as it is buggy friendly and ideal for learning to ride a bike.  We went there on Saturday and went for a short walk round the lakes.

The reflections in the lake were lovely.

There are miles of paths and it is possible to walk right down to the the north coast but there are some  paths that are easier than others and that is what we use these days.  Even so, it can be difficult to find places we have visited before and on Saturday we never found this interesting area with a terraced stream.

Another attraction for families is the wildlife. There are swans and ducks on the lakes and a lot of other species although they are not easy to see when the park is busy.   Within minutes of starting our walk we saw two grey squirrels and then a water rat emerged from the lake.  As you can imagine the wildlife is very tame due to all the visitors.

Tehidy has an interesting history.  It was the home of the Basset family who owned a number of mines (tin and copper) in the area of Pool and Redruth and were extremely rich as a result.  The park itself is in Illogan which lies between the A30 and the North Cornish coast.  The Basset family Basset family can be traced back to the Norman Conquest.  There have been various houses on the site, including one that was built between 1861 and 1863 when Cornish mining was at its height.  As is well known, tin mining began to decline around the 1870s and this effected the family badly.  The result was that during the First World War the family sold the house and it became a TB hospital.  The hospital was completely destroyed by fire in 1919 but then rebuilt and remained as a hospital until 1988. In 1983 the whole property was taken over by Cornwall County Council and turned into a country park.  The original house is now very upmarket apartments and there is a small estate of upmarket housing around the house.  There is also a golf course adjoining the park.  A trip here is a nice contrast to coastal outings.