Caerhays Castle

Caerhays Castle or Carhayes Castle (Cornish: Kastel Karyhes) is a semi-castellated country house built in 1808, 0.5 mi (0.80 km) south of the village centre, St Michael Caerhays, Cornwall, England. It overlooks Porthluney Cove on the English Channel. The garden has a large collection of magnolias.

In the Early Middle Ages, the manor belonged to the Arundell family. The earliest record of the name is Karihaes in 1259, and is recorded as Carihays in 1379, but its original meaning is obscure. In about 1379, it passed by marriage to the Trevanion family after the marriage of Robert Trevanion to Johanna Arundell, daughter and heiress of Rudolph Arundell of Caerhays. John Trevanion inherited the estate in 1703 after which he improved the manor house existing on the site and developed gardens.

With the death of William Trevanion in 1767, the estate passed to his sister's son, John Bettesworth. John's son, John Bettesworth-Trevanion, built the present castle on a site close to the former manor house between 1807 and 1810; his architect was the Anglo-Welsh John Nash. The castle was built close to the site of the original ancient home that had itself undergone expansion during the reign of King Henry VIII.

After Bettesworth-Trevanion left for Paris, unable to pay his bills, Michael Williams II purchased Caerhays from his creditors in 1854. As the house had been unoccupied for over a decade and had not been watertight for some of that time, his younger brother Sir William Williams, 1st Baronet, of Tregullow (1791–1870), with his son John Michael Williams (1813–1880), JP, DL, initiated an extensive repair programme. Michael Williams II died in 1858 and left Caerhays to his eldest son John Michael Williams (1813–1880), whilst he left Scorrier House to his sixth son George Williams (1827–1891), DL, JP, High Sheriff of Cornwall in 1875.

After the death of John Michael Williams in 1880 his second son, John Charles Williams (1861–1939), then aged 18, inherited the Caerhays estate. (His elder brother was Michael Williams (1857–1899) of Gnaton Hall, who died without progeny). John Charles Williams married in 1884, at which time the house again went through restoration and alteration. He became a plantsman, sponsoring plant-hunting expeditions in order to fill the castle garden with new acquisitions.

Text adapted from “Caerhays Castle” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Caerhays Castle ranks #5,492 of 8,764 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #331 of the 356 mapped in England. Founded 1808, it is older than 12% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 655 atlas entries founded in the 19th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 1,165 times in the last 60 days, more than 53% of the atlas. 4 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. See how England compares in the castle statistics.

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