Port Eliot EstateEST. 1950

The House at Port Eliot has been lived in for over 1000 years and believed to be the oldest continually inhabited dwelling in the UK. The earliest written reference to Port Eliot is from the 5th century AD, Augustinian monks were there from the year 937, while the earliest remaining evidence of a dwelling on the site is a 1500-year-old glazed tiled floor, dating from the late Iron Age. In the 18th century, Sir John Soane remodeled the Grade I-listed priory and house and landscape gardener Humphrey Repton created the gardens and park. Port Eliot is full of the accumulated treasures of its long history, from works by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Van Dyck to a mural by South West England’s most celebrated 20th century artist, Robert Lenkiewicz.

With over 100 rooms, including attics, basements, cellars, Butlers Pantry’s, Game Larders, Tunnels, Regency kitchens, Salons, Dressing Rooms, Studies, a Library, Ball Room and Servants Quarters, Port Eliot is a curious, individual and virtually unique location. The rooms have an atmosphere and the patina of age which is rarely found today.

The home of Lord and Lady St Germans, readily welcome film and photographic crews to come and express themselves in this lovely place.

The most significant thing about Port Eliot is its age. The earliest physical remains are a tiled floor, estimated to be more than 1500 years old, dating from the 3rd and 4th century during the late Iron Age. A place that could boast a glazed tiled floor in the 4th century must have been a settled and prosperous community for a considerable time before that. A little way away from the House in the village at the very head of this branch of the estuary, there exist traces of much earlier times dating from the later Bronze Age (± 1200 - 700 BC). Cornwall was a major source of arsenic and tin, both vital in the making of bronze.

The House is called Port Eliot because it was formally known as Port Priory. In the Middle Ages it was a flourishing monastic port. For many centuries the house was approached by water across what is now the park. Until the 1890s my grandfather remembers an old oak tree in the park in which a large iron ring - to which boats were once tied up - was still seen. The building in which we stand is of a
multitude of different ages. The foundations in places are 9th century, there are 10th-century walls set with 13th-century lancet windows.

The House received a major refit in the 18th century by Sir John Soane. Please see the essay in Part III by Ptolemy Dean on Soane’s work at Port Eliot.

By the beginning of the 18th century, the Eliots had become rich and felt it appropriate to aggrandise their surroundings. Being dependent on the state of the tide as to when it was possible to reach the House was much too much of an inconvenience. So they diverted the course of the estuary by building a dam and creating the park. They constructed a new drive starting two miles north of the House at Tideford that wound its way along the estuary. This was, and still is, a very picturesque and extremely impressive route by which to arrive at the House. The drive wends its way along the estuary and finally, as you enter the park, a majestic view unfurls in front of you, with the House displayed right in the centre of your gaze.

In the 19th century a major makeover was undertaken once again. At which time the entrance hall was redesigned.