There are many fabulous gardens to see in Cornwall. We chose Trebah on the Helford. A few miles from the very characterful Mawnan Smith, its about 20 minutes drive from Falmouth. 
With a children's adventure playgrounds, a beach, lake, rare fish, and a Monet's bridge its a great day out for the whole family.
Did I mention the giant 12 ft rhubarb?Trebah (pronounced Tree-bâ) is Celtic for ‘The House on the Bay’. The land was not originally the gardens they are today. Its recorded history starts with an entry the Domesday Book of 1086 stating it to be the property of the Bishop of Exeter. Over the next 745 years after passing through the hands of various farmers and families, in 1831 it was acquired by a Falmouth family called Fox .
Charles Fox laid out 26 acres and being a perfectionist exactly positioned every tree, requiring the Head Gardener to build a tower to represent the eventual height of each tree.
In 1944 the beach was concreted over and the rocks dynamited. This was because on June 1st 7500 men of the US 29th Infantry Division with their tanks and vehicles, embarked in ten 150 foot flat-bottomed landing craft for the D-Day landings. The garden was used as an ammunition dump, slit trenches were dug and Messerschmitts attacked, without success.
During the D-Day assault on Omaha Beach in Normandy, they suffered enormous casualties. There's a memorial at the bottom of the garden which commemorates them.
The old road used is still there, on the western side of the gardens.
After the war the gardens fell into significant neglect, only being rescued by new owners who bought the gardens in 1981. After being opened to the public in 1987, in 2000 visited numbers increased to over 100,000.
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