Cotehele

We found the National Trust house that we couldn't find on the way down to Cornwall!  To be fair, I realised later that my SatNav was set to avoid toll roads so it was trying to take me odd ways to avoid the Tamar toll bridge but having said that, the property is tucked away along tiny roads so difficult to find anyway.  Cotehele was superb; the ancestral home of the Edgcombe family from 1353 until 1947 when it was passed to the National Trust.  The house was preserved as a historical relic so was never modernised and never had electricity installed, and what we saw of the gardens were lovely.  I was impressed by the volunteer room guides in the house; without exception they were the friendliest and most knowledgeable that I have ever come across in a NT property; one of them in particular, an elderly lady called Pat, was so full of information I would have liked her to accompany us around the house!

We then set off for our overnight stop in Marlborough.  Remind me never again to drive from Cornwall on a Friday afternoon at the end of the half term holidays!  The drive took about two hours longer than it should have done with some awful traffic jams, so we didn't get to the hotel until around 7.30pm.  We're now having a drink and bite to eat in the room watching the rugby before an early night; we've booked breakfast for 7.00am so we can get an early start for the 180 mile drive home.