A Week in Cornwall: Trenython Manor with the Family

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Last week in September, we packed up the car and headed to Cornwall for a week away at Trenaython Manor, with my husband, our three kids, and my mother-in-law in tow (a lovely getaway booked by her). Here’s how the week went, day by day, plus a few tips along the way, including how we managed with barely any halal options nearby.

Top tip: sort your food before you go. With no halal options nearby beyond a possible curry house and a kebab shop miles away, we did a big meal prep before leaving home. We marinated meat and cooked a few bases, bolognese, grilled chicken, and so on, then just cooked the rice, pasta or veg fresh once we were there. We transported everything in cooler bags with ice packs, and used flasks to carry hot food with us on days out. It made a huge difference and meant we weren’t scrambling to find something suitable every night. We also did an online grocery order (Asda) and they delivered to the lodge on the evening of arrival so we didn’t have to carry EVERYTHING with us. 

Friday: Travel Day

The drive down took about five hours. Once we arrived, we unpacked, had roast chicken and bulgur for dinner, and went for an evening walk around the grounds in the dark, just to get our bearings.

Saturday: The Eden Project

Only about ten minutes from the manor, so an easy first outing. We booked tickets online in advance.

Top tip: children with a Blue Peter badge get in free with a paying adult, worth checking if your kids have one, as it saved us some money. 

We took a flask of food for lunch and had a brilliant day exploring the biomes: the plants, the waterfall inside the rainforest biome, and the playground outside. The kids loved every bit of it.

Back at the lodge, my husband, mother-in-law and the kids went for a swim while I got dinner going: salmon, mash and veg, since my mother-in-law knew Leyla loves salmon and had made sure it was part of our grocery delivery. I skipped the swim to get everything prepped in time, but it was worth it. Everyone cleared their plates- Leyla asking for more of course!

Sunday: Trebah Garden

About an hour’s drive away, and paid for online in advance. Don’t let the word “garden” fool you, it’s a big site, packed with different plants, flowers and trees, and it leads all the way down to a small private pebble beach reserved for garden visitors.

Top tip: the toilets are only at the main entrance, and it’s a proper steep walk back up if you need them once you’re near the beach or amphitheatre. Worth taking the kids before you set off downhill.

We stopped to eat lunch near the amphitheatre (about ten minutes from the entrance) after a slightly comedic double toilet run with my son, then carried on down to the beach. The kids threw rocks into the water and played happily and we fitted in a bit of time at the play area before it closed, then headed back.

Monday: St Ives

The forecast was looking best on Monday, so we saved it for our beach outing. We drove about an hour to St Erth and used the park and ride into St Ives.

Top tip: use the park and ride. Parking in St Ives itself is horrendous, and the park and ride train drops you right by Porthminster Beach, much less stressful than trying to find a space in town. 

We set the kids up on the beach in their swim gear to save getting sand everywhere, and I settled onto the beach mat while my husband and mother-in-law were in the toilets. That’s when it happened.

I took out a cookie (I don’t eat breakfast, so I was starving by this point) and while I was mid-bite, something whacked me on the head so hard I thought I’d been hit by a ball. It was a seagull. It had taken my cookie clean out of my hand, and the hit was so forceful I genuinely worried about whiplash or concussion. My head ached for days afterwards.

My daughter’s reaction was priceless. She abandoned her sandcastle, grabbed her spade, and marched off to chase the seagulls, with her little brother joining in. From then on, any seagull that came near got chased off immediately.

Top tip for St Ives seagulls: they are relentless and will attack from behind when you’re not looking. I watched them target someone else too, though that person managed to hide their food under a book in time. My mother-in-law ended up standing guard with her sandal for the rest of lunch, fending off seagulls so we could eat in peace, genuinely one of the funniest and most useful things anyone did all week. (Funny thing is, I had told the kids how the last time we came that we saw a seagull take chips from someone sitting and eating at the beach bar and how we have to be careful!)

On the food front, we’d researched gluten-free chip shops beforehand (which would have a strict fryer for fries/chips to avoid cross contamination), but St Ives beachfront only had two options: a bar that didn’t fry separately, and a restaurant whose separate fryer was for fries only, not fish (and their fish was beer-battered anyway, so no good for us). In the end we went with fries, and I was very glad I’d packed some of our pre-cooked chicken in a flask, so we ended up with a makeshift chicken and fries combo instead of fish and chips. Worth knowing: five small boxes of fries came to £25, which felt fairly steep for what it was.

Top tip: if halal or dietary requirements are a factor, ring ahead or check reviews for fryer separation before you go. Options on the seafront were more limited than we expected.

After lunch, the kids played and went shell hunting with their grandma, and we had a wander towards the harbour and boats before heading back. We didn’t have time for the boat trip out to Seal Island, but it was still a lovely day. Long drives both ways were catching up with my husband by this point.

Tuesday: A Quieter Day, Restormel Castle

After a run of long days, we decided to stay local. My husband had fancied St Michael’s Mount, but with tired kids and their constant snack and attention needs, we agreed a shorter trip made more sense.

We went instead to Restormel Castle, an English Heritage site booked online, a lovely little ruin with a moat, outdoor toilets, benches, and a small shop selling souvenirs and snacks.

It was a quick visit, so afterwards we explored the grounds of Trenaython Manor itself, which has a woodland walk and a little hut housing (we think) two tortoises, though we only spotted one. We finished with a swim; the pool building has a jacuzzi, steam room and sauna. Nothing huge, but perfectly good for what it is, and being September, it was never busy.

Wednesday: National Trust and a Nappy Emergency

Still feeling the pace of the week, we swapped my mother-in-law’s original suggestion (Pinetum, which we’d already visited on a previous trip) for a National Trust property about fifteen minutes away, handy, since we already have National Trust membership.

Top tip: always keep the nappy bag with you, not back at the lodge. We learned this the hard way when my toddler chose the middle of the manor house tour to do the inevitable. Cue a dash back to the café, a very impatient toddler eating lunch standing up, and my husband and me legging it back to the lodge for supplies while grandma held the fort with the other two at the playground.

We’d planned to visit Fowey afterwards, but the cold and general tiredness won out, so we called it a day.

Thursday: Fowey Harbour

Our last full day, so we kept things relaxed: a swim, lunch, then off to Fowey in the afternoon. By the time we arrived it was nearly 5pm and most shops had shut, but we found a bakery with reduced pastries, which we enjoyed by the water watching the boats.

For a bit of fun, we took the little taxi boat across the harbour (roughly £3.50 per adult, £1.50 for kids aged 3+, and yes, even dogs are charged). The other side turned out to be fairly unremarkable and not worth the steep walk up, so we had a quick look, and got the boat straight back.

Dinner was pizza, a marinara base with vegan cheese for the kids, followed by an evening of packing.

Top tip: pack everything except tomorrow’s outfits, breakfast items and toothbrushes the night before you leave. It made checkout the next morning completely stress free.

Friday: Heading Home

A smooth morning: breakfast, last few bits packed, and on the road. We stopped at the farm shop in Gloucestershire, one of our favourite service station pitstops, “just for lunch.” Somehow that turned into nearly three hours, largely thanks to a small indoor play area where you can eat while keeping an eye on the kids.

We dropped my mother-in-law home, went inside to see my father in law. Fed the kids and got them ready for bed and then carried on. The whole return leg came to over six hours, so by the time we got the kids fed and into bed, we were more than ready to collapse ourselves.

Would We Go Back?

Honestly, probably not to Cornwall again for a while, despite a genuinely lovely week. We’d last visited about four years ago, and the drive is the deciding factor. It’s beautiful, but between the length of the journey, a toddler who has mastered escaping his car seat straps (new territory for us, our other two never managed it), constant snack requests, and my own motion sickness being worse than it’s ever been, we think we’ll stick to flights and new destinations for a while. The motion sickness alone lingered for days after we got back.

Cornwall gave us a wonderful, if exhausting, week. Seagulls, nappy emergencies, and all.