Trereife Garden offers an extensive collection of Camelias, Azaleas and rhododendrons in spring and early summer. The Trereife Garden consists of an elaborate parterre, a pond and woodland walk. The 18th century formal and walled gardens have been restored with parterres and fountains.
Trereife (pronounced Treave) is a beautiful classical house set in a sweep of parkland at the head of the Newlyn Valley, a mile west of Penzance.
A magnificent collection of rhododendrons and camellias surround the pond, the woodland walk gives wonderful views of Mounts Bay, and there are tea rooms for lunches, teas and picnics.
Trereife House is a fine example of a Queen Anne Manor House and is currently home to the Le Grice family.
William-John-Godolphin Nicholls, Esq., who died a bachelor, in 1815, and bequeathed his estates to his mother, who had re-married in 1798 with the Rev. Charles Valentine Le Grice, who was the eldest son of the Rev. Charles Le Grice, Lecturer of S. James’s Church, Bury S. Edmonds, and rector of Thwaite, in the county of Suffolk.
Charles Valentine Le Grice (1773–1858),arrived at Trereife in 1796 and became tutor to William John Godolphin Nicholls of Trereife. He was apparently a friend of various 'Romantic' figures such as Charles Lamb, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
An 1868 record says "Trereife House, the commodious residence of Day Perry Le Grice, Esq., is pleasantly situated in a vale, and nearly surrounded with tall elms, in which there is an ancient rookery. The house, which was built in the seventeenth Century, has a yew tree trained over its front; the luxuriant shrubberies, walks, and woodland scenery of the adjacent grounds are very interesting. At a short distance from the mansion is an ancient granite wayside cross, called Trereife cross."