The Head Gardeners' Cottages

The Head Gardeners' Cottages is a terrace of three gardeners' cottages, now functioning as one house, dating from the early to mid 19th century. The building is constructed of brick laid in Flemish bond and features a dry slate roof with brick chimneys at the gable ends and along the party wall. The layout consists of three similar shallow double-depth cottages, each with one room at the front and rear entrances, facing into a walled garden.

The exterior is two storeys high, with a regular three-window south garden front that likely retains original 12-pane, 2-light casements. There is a late 19th-century six-pane horned sash window on the first floor to the left. The interior has not been inspected.

These cottages are adjacent to kitchen garden walls that were built in 1814 when Sir Rose Price, a West Indian sugar planter, enlarged Trengwainton House. In 1867, the property was purchased by T S Bolitho, a banker with family ties to Cornish mining. The property underwent remodelling and extensions in 1897 by his son T R Bolitho, although the architect is unknown. T R Bolitho and the head gardener, A Creek, received advice and assistance from J C Williams of Caerhays and P D Williams of Lanarth to create a new garden featuring shrubs from New Zealand, Australia, Chile, and the Himalayas. In 1929, G Johnstone of Trewtihen and Lawrence Johnston of Hidcote invited Bolitho to join Kingdon Ward's 1927-8 plant hunting expedition to Assam and Burma, from which seeds were collected that contributed to the notable rhododendron collection at Trengwainton.