The Tractor Shed
Single-floor, indoor-outdoor luxe.
A 2024 barn conversion, single-floor throughout, with French doors onto a private patio.
From £80 / night More →
About Trewena
We live on three acres outside Mabe with three cottages, a wildflower meadow, a young orchard, and a small wood we've been planting back. Trewena is our home. This is the story, briefly.
How we got here
We moved on site in February 2021, mid-COVID. The buildings were pink, tired, and well past their best-before date. Little Avalon and The Pigsty had been let as holiday cottages by the previous owners, but only just. They needed everything redoing.
We lived in Little Avalon while I ripped our own house back to bare brick and put it back together. Once we were livable, Little Avalon got the same treatment: stripped out, new kitchen, new bathroom, new carpets. The Pigsty was redecorated and refurnished from top to bottom. The Tractor Shed was the only one we converted from scratch, taking a working shed and turning it into a cottage. We finished it in 2024.
Just after we moved in we were lucky enough to buy the field next door from a neighbouring farmer. That's where the orchard sits now. The meadow was overgrown when we got it and we've mostly left it that way. We've planted over a thousand trees on site since.
Who does what
Hellen has a full-time job outside of Trewena. She's the reason any of this works financially while we make it. Evenings and weekends she helps with whatever needs doing.
The day-to-day is mostly me. I clean the cottages between guests, fix what needs fixing, do the gardening, write the welcome emails, answer the messages. If you book with us you're booking with us, not a management company.
When I'm not at the cottages I write people's life stories at Biography Studio. Same instinct really, attention to the details that show what a place or a person is actually like.
What we're trying to do
Three things we decided on early and have not changed our mind about.
Three cottages, set apart on three acres. No groups, no events, no parties. Each cottage is for a couple. It's how we keep the site quiet for everyone.
Nature books in every cottage. Binoculars on the windowsill. The meadow and the woods are yours to walk in or sit in. Some guests use them, some don't. The slow hours are the point either way.
We live on site. If something needs fixing we fix it fast (a guest mentioned a broken shower at breakfast once, the new one was in by the time they got back from their day). The rest of the time we stay out of your way: chat if you want to, invisible if you don't.
Around the place
The cottages are the business. The land is a slower project. No livestock, no working farm. The garden patch around the house we keep properly. The meadow we mostly leave to itself. Since we moved in we've planted over a thousand trees on site, to give wildlife somewhere to come back to.
Where you'll be
Trewena sits in the parish of Mabe Burnthouse, between Falmouth and Penryn. Walking distance to the village pub and shop. Ten minutes to Falmouth harbour. Three minutes to Penryn Tremough Campus. Quick onto the A39 and A394 for everywhere else.
Quiet enough to hear birds in the morning. Close enough to be on the South West Coast Path or eating fish in Falmouth before lunch.
A returning guest
Richard and Helen were ideal hosts: available and helpful but not intrusive. We would recommend Richard's cottages without hesitation.
David, Tractor Shed
The cottages
Each one its own building, its own front door, its own personality. All one-bedroom, all built for two.
Single-floor, indoor-outdoor luxe.
A 2024 barn conversion, single-floor throughout, with French doors onto a private patio.
Wood burner, exposed beams, classic Cornish.
An 1850s labourer's cottage with a wood burner, exposed beams, and a private Cornish garden.
Upside-down layout, super-king bed, full of character.
A converted pig house. Bedroom downstairs, living and kitchen upstairs, reading nook over the orchard.
Come and stay
Direct prices, no booking fees, no third-party markup.