estateCountry House Rescue · Season 3, Episode 4 · Aired March 27, 2011
Trereife House
Penzance, Cornwall
This one survived. It remains in business.
What happened after
Queen Anne manor operating as a wedding/private-function venue (marquee capacity to 50, house capacity ~14) and via two self-catering apartments (Arkle, Corbiere) let through Travel Chapter; main-house B&B rooms were paused starting 2022 due to a family-circumstances change, not necessarily still in force.
What happened on the show
Trereife House is a Grade II listed Queen Anne manor near Penzance in Cornwall that Tim Le Grice inherited in 1986 and had struggled ever since to keep from falling apart. The real obstacle at Trereife was not the building but the handover. His children, Peter and Georgina, were eager to take on the running of the place, while Tim was reluctant to pass down what he saw as a burden he could not fairly hand to them. Ruth Watson saw clear potential in the house near Penzance, a bed-and-breakfast business and a venue for literary and poetry events that would suit its character and history. But the plan only worked if Tim let go, and much of Ruth's effort went into persuading a protective father to loosen his grip and give the next generation the chance to make the manor a success. It is a succession story as much as a rescue, the question being whether the older owner could step back before the house forced the issue.
After the cameras left
Trereife House is still trading, though we hold it at medium confidence. As of our latest verification pass the manor near Penzance works as a weddings and private-function venue, with marquee capacity to around fifty and the house itself sleeping roughly fourteen, and it lets two self-catering apartments, Arkle and Corbiere, through a holiday agency. The one soft spot is the main-house bed-and-breakfast, which the family paused in 2022 for a change in circumstances; the notice about that on the official site is undated and static, so the page may not be actively maintained even though the weddings and self-catering are still promoted. We found no 2024 to 2026 booking confirmation. So the venture Ruth backed persists, with the next generation seemingly at the helm, just short of the full confirmation we would want.
Sources
Confidence: medium. Last checked 2026-07-19.