This book relates Godolphin's fascinating history ~ past, present and future. It is dedicated to the artisans who created this place. 12 chapters weave historical fact with fantasy.

Godolphin's stories are told in a dual narrative, by the authoritative voice of the guide, counterpointed by the author's softer reflections.

An eclectic mix of reality and fiction blurs together quotations, the Sleeping Beauty myth and a metaphorical chess-game. Stories of Godolphin's Medieval Garden and Castle, of wrecking, a horse race, a Royal visit, mining and archaeology, are told.

The book contains over 60 drawings of representational and imaginary tableaux, and sketchbook pages. It features an unrepeatable visual record of the restoration of the saloon during the artist's residency 2009-2010
Godolphin National Trust.


Godolphin - A Review
This place attracts the people it needs and Godolphin needed an artist - Hilary came along, by chance on a visit. The sense of ancient Cornish and English history is overpowering when first encountered but it reveals itself to you over time. She has captured its sense of power, vulnerability, strength and structural weakness.

By the time you read this, the physical weaknesses will have been mended and made neat again. Strong 21st Century steel will be supporting beetle-chewed, 17th Century timber beams. Curled, newly unfurled, 19th Century wallpaper will be taken away and stored for posterity so that a new bathroom can fit into an old space. This book and Hilary's sketches are the journal of the end of a very long era. She has caught the disappearing traces of man's occupation of this house and this land so beautifully in words, stories and pictures, without hint of sentimentality nor by dramatising what is lost by labelling it a mystery.

For nearly a 1000 years, this House was a home to many families, mine being the last to live here. It has known birth, death, wars, battles, noise, opulence, poverty, drudgery, treachery and then silence during which time, nature knitted over it a tapestry of lichen, ivy, flowers and trees and shrubs gone mad. She filled it with birds' nests and bat colonies, butterflies and wild flowers that only flourish in unimproved soil. The colours and textures, the wooliness and the brilliance, the power of Nature and the folly of Man have been traced through Hilary's work here. Very few people 'get' Godolphin, it is something that only spending a lot of time here can achieve. Hilary gets it and has told her story of that acquisition with understanding, clarity, and sensitivity and by capturing not just the ordinary and the extraordinary but by allowing the spaces and the missing pieces a voice.

As Hilary once said to me, if you stand in a room long enough, you become part of the room. Her work and illustration of Godolphin at its most vulnerable is a fine testament to her skill as an artist and a wonderful, unrepeatable record of the spirit of this place.

Jan Clarke - Godolphin House, June 2010
'Godolphin' can also be purchased through the following:

Godolphin National Trust
Godolphin House 
42 Godolphin Rd
Helston, Cornwall, TR13 8QF
Tel: 01736 763194 

The National Trust
Trelissick Gallery 
Trelissick Gardens
Feock, Truro,  TR3 6QL
Tel: 01872 864514

The Harbour Bookshop
2, Tregenna Place, St. Ives,
Cornwall TR26 1SB
Tel: 01736 794973
harbourbookshop@btconnect.com

Cornwall Crafts Association CCA
Trelowarren Gallery,
Mawgan~in~Meneage, Helston,
Cornwall,TR15 6AF.
Tel: 01326 221567