Inside the stunning Cornish lodge with after-hours access to one of the most beautiful gardens in England – and a secret beach

Trebah Garden is a work of art. I feel as though I’ve stepped inside Claude Monet’s painting ‘The Water Lily Pond’.

Thousands of flowers – two acres worth – in blue, magenta, cream and iridescent violet surround a sky-blue bridge over a lily pad-strewn pond in a scene that mirrors the artist’s famous work.

Hydrangea macrophylla. Gunnera manicata. Nymphaea. The Latin plant names detailed on tiny plaques by the flowers sound like whispered spells – and I am enchanted by this subtropical paradise on Cornwall’s southwest coast.

Great British Gardens was spellbound, too – ranking the 26-acre haven as one of the best gardens in England.

And like any self-respecting magical garden, it harbours secrets. One is newly opened Trebah Lodge at the head of the valley that the garden smothers. I stay there with my similarly mesmerised husband, arriving via the GWR Night Riviera sleeper train from London Paddington.

We disembark, bleary-eyed, at 7am at Truro, from where it’s a 40-minute taxi ride to the lodge, lurking in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to the south of Falmouth.

We stumble out of the car in early morning sunshine and enter our home for the weekend – a cosy, comforting abode furnished with elegant Edwardian antiques, but sprinkled with enough modern amenities to stop us fully believing we’d stepped back in time.

But the most joyous aspect of staying at the lodge isn’t what’s inside, but having out-of-hours access to what’s outside – four miles of footpaths through a garden with almost 200 years of planting history.

Easily enough foliage to keep us awestruck for the weekend.

Each morning, we wander into the valley past the Trebah Kitchen restaurant and into the lush garden basin that’s organised by a series of paths named after the plants, animals or landmarks nearby, or notable contributors to the estate.

The amusingly named Bamboozle is hemmed in by soaring bamboo stems.

Strolling through Gunnera Passage – a walkway of giant rhubarb plants or ‘gunnera’ – feels like walking through Jurassic Park, with the enormous leaves stretching into a canopy and giant pink fur-like buds surrounding us up to the knees.

Thankfully, the only dinosaurs we find are ancient trees, some of which are the oldest living specimens of their kind in the United Kingdom.

We admire berries, seedpods and blooming flowers as we walk past the koi pond, the Stumpery with its felled trees and the water garden, where a manmade brook babbles.

The ‘Monet bridge’ is reached by ambling through the resplendent Hydrangea Valley. And just beyond is the garden’s second secret.

A private beach.

Pebbly Polgwidden Cove, also known as Trebah Beach, sits on the Helford River, a beautiful coastal inlet tucked between the western edge of Falmouth Bay and the eastern side of the Lizard Peninsula.

The water is sparklingly clear, but bracingly cold. Despite this, people wade in with their trousers rolled up around their knees.

Out of the water, they buy ice cream (try the tart cherry sorbet), beer, local cider and snacks from a small shop and gather around signs to learn about the cove’s role in the Second World War and its nickname, ‘Yankee Beach’.

The shore was covered in concrete and transformed into a D-Day embarkation point by the 29th U.S Infantry Division from which they launched an assault on Omaha Beach in Normandy in 1944.

What remains of the concrete at the back of the beach is now a handy picnic spot with wooden tables on which we perch to eat sandwiches for lunch.

By day, we leave the waders and the ice-cream eaters to their own devices and head back to the lodge, knowing that we can return to the secret cove after the visitors have left.

Each night, as the light fades and the sky turns into a smear of pink and orange, we find ourselves alone on the beach and go swimming. It feels lazily decadent.

One evening, while we float in the water, a double-masted, galley-like ship emerges from Helford River.

‘Smugglers?’ I ask. ‘Or pirates?’

‘You’ve not gone back in time, you know,’ replies my bemused spouse. Spoilsport.

I am transported, for a moment, into one of Thomas Buttersworth’s naval paintings.

Post-dip, chilly limbs are soothed by immersion in the lodge’s roll-top bath, and we snuggle in luxurious blankets dotted around the property as the night air turns crisp.

The kitchen has everything you need for rustling up dinner, but a 15-minute stroll to sample the food at The Ferry Boat Inn is a must.

This waterside gem, a bit further up the Helford River in the village of Helford Passage, has outside tables with views of bobbing sailboats and the nifty Helford ferry – and it does superb prawn tacos.

Stepping onto our train home at Truro station, I feel like I’ve emerged from a lost kingdom.

Here’s to the next 200 years of heavenly landscaping.