An eye to the future

Embarking on a new chapter in the history of an ancestral home requires patience, persistence and the right guidance, finds Kitty Galsworthy

- Kitty Galsworthy

MY husband, Sam, and his siblings grew up at Trewithen, the 18th-century house where we live in Cornwall. Their father, Michael, inherited it from his great-aunt, Elizabeth Johnstone, a formidable woman who had left a legacy of service to both the estate and to the county. From a young age, Sam knew it was his father’s hope that he would one day make Trewithen his home and run the estate. In 2015, the family celebrated 300 years of life at Trewithen and we became the 10th generation to live here. Moving to the house was as exciting as it was daunting; it has long been prominent in Cornwall and its garden is open to the public from March to September. Arriving here in 2016, we began to learn how the stewardship of a historic house works and were extremely fortunate to be guided by Sam’s father and stepmother, whose years of experience provided us with all we needed to know.

In our first year, the long views from the sash windows allowed us to absorb our new surroundings as they evolved through the seasons. We started the process of creating an estate masterplan with the brilliant landscape architect Matthew Tickner and considered what changes we might make to the interior. Our instinct has always been to rely on the past to inform our decisions, as well as preparing the house and estate for the future. With this in mind, we enlisted the help of Timothy Mowl, my favourite lecturer at Bristol University, who has written prolifically about British houses and gardens, including Trewithen. He seemed the obvious person to research and write a Heritage Statement, which we were hopeful would support any argument for proposed changes.