Bed & Breakfast News Sept-Oct 2016 (#42) | Page 10

10 | Bed & Breakfast News | Sept-Oct 2016

Cabilla Manor is the home of Louella and
Robin Hanbury-Tenison (above, members
since August 2008) - a spacious Georgian
farmhouse on the edge of Bodmin Moor,
right in the heart of Poldark country.
A working farm surrounded by acres of
woods and moorland, horses from the
Camargue in Southern France, sheep and
cattle are farmed. Built on the site of a
Domesday manor the present house is a
listed building built in 1780 and 1820. Walks
through the woods, across Bodmin Moor
and along many footpaths are all close by.
Cabilla Manor is full of interesting artefacts
brought back from their travels. Newlyn
school pictures, stencilled quilts and
decoupage are in every room. Half an hour’s
drive away are both north and south coasts,
the spectacular Cornish beaches and fishing
villages, plus the many famous gardens of
Cornwall, including the Lost Gardens of
Heligan and the astonishing Eden Project.

Longstanding B&B Association
member Louella Hanbury-Tenison
explains how it all started:
When I decided to do bed and breakfast my
husband said ‘Over my dead body’. So I got
a brochure done and then stared at the box
of 1000 of them and wondered what to do
next. You can’t send them to friends!
I showed one to my mother, who lived
nearby and was sadly dying of pancreatic
cancer. ‘What fun, darling. I hope you
get a booking soon’.

B&B in the spotlight .
I rang the tourist office to ask for advice on
how to spread the word and they were very
unhelpful and almost rude. So that was no
good. Every day I would go and see Mummy
and every day she would say ‘Have you had
a booking yet?’ and I would say ‘No. I don’t
know how to tell the world I am doing bed and
breakfast’. So frustrating and very annoying
that she asked me every day and the chances
of a booking were zero.
Mummy died, and three days later a man
called and said he would like to stay for a
night on the following Monday. My brain
raced. Oh how pleased Mummy would
be! How annoying I couldn’t tell her I had a
booking. I heard myself stutter ‘Um, yes, of
course. Um, it is my mother’s funeral that day
but of course we can have you’.
There was a pause while I waited for him to
say, ‘Oh, for goodness sake, I wouldn’t