National Trust - Glendurgan Garden Reviews Summary

Gardens

Pros:

• "Stunning gardens meandering down to the river and views out to sea."
• "Glendurgan is a wonderful garden with great vistas and some fascinating trees, it is full of inspiration and well worth visiting."
• "Beautiful gardens, looks and feels like you're on the continent."
• "The gardens were terrific, even colour in October."
• "A wonderful garden with flora from all over the world, set in a fabulous location overlooking the sea."
• "One of the best formal gardens I've visited."
• "Absolutely gorgeous gardens, so much to see."

Cons:

• "Really beautiful garden, totally unmanageable if you have mobility difficulties, as just a huge hill."
• "Also it was massively overgrown and was hard to navigate."
• "Sadly a bit battered today with heavy rain and high winds but that's England."
• "Some areas are looking a little too wild and grass, weeds etc spilling over onto the paths."
• "Gardens not accessible to all in my opinion."
• "The only thing we had issues with was the self run cafe which was not very helpful with specific dietary requirements and was not easy to move around with a buggy or wheelchair."
• "Although there is a step free route through most of the gardens it is quite hilly and steep in places."

Maze

Pros:

• "A fun maze for the all the family to enjoy."
• "The maze was good fun, although very waspy!"
• "Brilliant helpful staff and the children loved the maze as much as the beach."
• "The maze is great fun."
• "The maze centered in the middle of the gardens is a real gem with complete but lower hedges so no cheating but also no claustrophobia!"
• "The maze is fun and expertly done with viewing possible from above on either side."
• "The maze is a great attraction providing lots of laughter as people get lost inside."

Cons:

• "I truly feel if the maze was such a driving point to publicise the gardens, we should have been informed at the top of the bank/steep hill that it was closed."
• "Garden maze is the forefront image on posters, leaflets and the Internet... it was closed for maintenance."
• "No access to the beach and maze due to Covid."
• "The maze is currently closed but provides a lovely focal point when viewed from the upper slopes."
• "The Maze was closed which was a shame."
• "Such a shame I couldn't enter the maize!"
• "The maze was closed when I last visited due to the pandemic and I'm not sure if it's open now."

Staff and Service

Pros:

• "Friendly staff 💕"
• "The staff are very friendly and helpful."
• "The staff were very friendly too 👍"
• "Smiling charming, informative staff."
• "Really helpful and informative staff, giving us information on the best route down for someone using walking sticks and the facilities in Durgan village at the bottom of the gardens."
• "The staff were very welcoming."
• "Very friendly and helpful staff."

Cons:

• "The cafe was overwhelmed when we visited with a quoted 1 hour wait!"
• "Cafe service very slow but tasty sandwiches."
• "The tea room however needs to be quicker, we waited for 20 minutes in the queue today."
• "Grumpy woman serving at the café, didn't smile once nor even say thank you."
• "Would be slightly better if there were more cafe staff front of house as the wait was quite a while."
• "We went to grab an ice cream from the fish cellar, but it did take quite a while as they were experiencing a technical hitch with their POS."
• "Made a specific effort to go here for the wonderful cream tea that we used to get, but this time the scones were small and looked like biscuits."

Accessibility

Pros:

• "There is a wheelchair/pushchair friendly path though."
• "There’s a mobility scooter to hire but restricted hiring."
• "It's a pleasant walk around the gardens and there are different routes available (one being step free)."
• "Paths are hilly but accessible."
• "There are wheelchair and disabled friendly paths."
• "There is pathways for prams and wheelchair users."
• "A mobility scooter was available for my wife which was great."

Cons:

• "Only criticism was one of our party was unable to traverse the wheelchair path by stick as the ground cover was loose stones and the route was very up and down hill."
• "The walk back up the hill is tough for small kids and those with restricted mobility."
• "Some of the paths are looser than others."
• "Also the maze is made out of a plant that attracts bees and wasps."
• "Great care is needed on extremely steep slopes as there is much gravel that acts like ball bearings under the wheels!"
• "The wheelchair/pushchair route was still very challenging to push my son's chair around."
• "It's not practical to take a pushchair in despite what the website says."

Facilities

Pros:

• "Plentiful parking, cafeteria and toilets."
• "Also they have a responsibility sized car park which national trust members can park in for free."
• "Plenty of parking, cafe, toilets etc."
• "Good parking and NT tea room at the entrance."
• "Good cafe and toilet facilities."
• "Excellent tea room and clean toilets."
• "Plenty of parking and clean baby changing facilities."

Cons:

• "Unusually, the toilets are outside the area, in the car park, so make sure to use them before entering the garden!"
• "Shame to see that there was no NT shop on site, or plants for sale. 🙂"
• "Ice cream shop near beach did not accept cards so disappointed."
• "Flower shop expensive and imagine cafe very cold in winter as only a part wooded shed with heavy plastic on one side."
• "Also although not NT, the cafe was cash only which excluded us from getting lunch."
• "Not at all happy as when we got there a blackboard tells us dogs not allowed in the gardens."
• "The Maze was closed which was a shame."