In 1967 and 1968 the Coryton family pulled down much of Pentillie Castle. The Gothic additions that William Wilkins had made from about 1810 were demolished, leaving the wing Sir James Tillie built above the River Tamar in 1698, with a new pavilion at each end. That house, listed Grade II*, is the one couples take for their wedding today. Pentillie is hired by one wedding party at a time, on a private estate of 55 acres of gardens and woodland on the Cornish bank of the Tamar near Saltash, and the wedding breakfast can be served in the panelled Dining Room of Tillie’s original range.
Sir James Tillie’s house above the Tamar
Tillie came from a poor background and rose to become agent to Sir John Coryton of Newton Ferrers. When Sir John died at 42, Tillie married his widow, Elizabeth, and with the fortune that followed he built a manor house high above the river on the site of an old fortified turret house, working its turrets into the new design. He gave the house his own name. Knighted by James II, he also took the coat of arms of the German Count Tilly, to which he had no claim, and bore it until the king heard of it and he was ceremoniously stripped of it. Granite doorways in the vaulted cellars carry initials and the years 1698 and 1699, one set of initials probably his.
The slope to the Tamar is steep, so the ground was cut into terraces, and the approach was laid out to impress. A plan of 1692 shows both, and traces of the terraces and the drive survive. Tillie’s life size lead statue, in wig and coat and holding a scroll, stands beside the castle and is listed Grade II* in its own right.
His plans reached beyond his lifetime. Tillie left instructions that he was not to be buried, but fastened in the chair in which he died and set in a vault with a view over Plymouth Sound, wearing his hat and wig. His mausoleum, an early eighteenth century tower of slatestone and brick with an embattled parapet, stands on Mount Ararat and is also listed Grade II*. Around 1770 the body was removed and a plaster figure of Tillie put in its place; in 2013 human remains were found in a vault beneath the mausoleum. The mausoleum is one of the places on the estate where couples go for their photographs.
Repton, Wilkins and a castle cut back
Tillie had no children, and a later marriage brought Pentillie back to the Corytons. Under John Tillie Coryton, the family asked Humphry Repton to review the landscape, and Repton’s Red Book of Pentillie is still kept at the castle. On his advice the architect William Wilkins enlarged the house and gave it a Gothic character, Repton’s landscape was laid out, and the garden designer Lewis Kennedy influenced the American Gardens. The work ran from 1809 to 1830 at a cost of some £50,000. Wilkins’s son completed the building after 1815, and the garden front was refaced with the embattled parapet it keeps today.
The twentieth century was harder on the house. Edward VII visited on 6 April 1902, a day the Coryton children wrote up in their home-made magazines. In the Second World War the castle was requisitioned as a maternity unit, and hundreds of babies were born there between 1941 and 1945. By the 1960s it was in poor repair, and the demolition of the Wilkins additions returned Pentillie to a footprint close to Tillie’s manor. Ted Coryton inherited in 2007 with a £5 million inheritance tax bill. The family took part in Channel 4’s Country House Rescue, opened the castle for weddings, events and stays in 2009, and Sammie Coryton has run it since 2017.
Vows by the river, under the limes or in the stones
Pentillie is licensed for ceremonies in a long list of places, indoors and out, and choosing one is a large part of planning a wedding here. The Victorian Bathing Hut stands on the bank of the Tamar and seats up to 60. The Castle Loggia, with views across the river, seats 120. At the Wisteria Pavilion guests sit on the Old Tennis Lawn facing the couple under the wisteria, or up to 60 can gather under the pavilion itself. Lime Avenue is a long walk of linden trees. The American Gardens have rhododendrons and bluebells, though steps make them harder to reach. The Walled Gardens keep their Victorian greenhouses, and the orchards around them carry daffodils in spring. Indoors, the Drawing Room seats 18 for the smallest weddings, and the Dining Room can also be used.
The Stone Circle is the highest point on the estate, with views across the Tamar Valley to Dartmoor. Couples of every faith and tradition marry at Pentillie, and the settings work for a celebrant led ceremony, a chuppah, a Nikah or a hand tying as well as a civil wedding. A civil ceremony is booked with Cornwall Registration Service once the date is held with the castle. A registrar led ceremony in Cornwall needs an official wet weather option, so an outdoor ceremony needs an indoor room, or a canopy or marquee, as its back-up; the Bathing Hut can serve as a wet weather plan by the river. For a religious ceremony elsewhere first, there are churches throughout the Tamar Valley, and Plymouth has a synagogue and the Piety Mosque.
Dinner in the oldest rooms
A wedding has the castle and its gardens from noon until midnight, with no other event on the estate. The standard day takes up to 60 guests, who sit down to the wedding breakfast in the historic reception rooms without a marquee, and up to 60 more can join for the evening. The Dining Room lies in the late seventeenth century range, above the cellars. It keeps its fielded panelling, panelled shutters and modillion cornice, and the doorway from the passage, with a lion mask above it, may mark the original entrance to Tillie’s wing. When dinner is served here, the team allows time to clear the room for dancing.
Larger weddings move into a marquee, which can join the castle at the Loggia or stand on the Old Tennis Lawn, for up to 120 seated or 200 standing. Menus come from caterers who know the house, from a formal seated dinner to sharing platters built on Cornish and Tamar Valley produce; other professional caterers can be considered by prior arrangement, subject to approval. The castle runs its own stocked and staffed bar, with House, Superior and Fine drinks packages that include unlimited reception drinks.
A weekend in the castle
Most couples take the castle and its 11 bedrooms for at least two nights, so the closest guests stay for the whole weekend. The bedrooms sleep 22 adults, with room for four children in cots or pull out beds, and the castle is theirs from 4pm on arrival to 10am on departure. Dewhurst, the most spacious room, has a four-poster and a separate dressing room; Warren, on the ground floor, is fully accessible; three bedrooms take dogs. Guests also have a farmhouse kitchen, a games room in the cellars, a sauna in the walled pool garden and a solar heated outdoor pool, open from mid April to the end of September. A welcome supper the night before and breakfast the morning after can be added.
Down by the river, Quay Cottage dates from 1854 and sleeps four in two bedrooms. It can be added to a wedding, and viewers of BBC One’s Beyond Paradise will know it as the riverside home of Anne, Martha and Humphrey. The castle also played the Penrose Hotel in Sky One’s Delicious. The estate’s vintage Land Rover can carry the couple between the castle and the Bathing Hut for photographs.
Plymouth, the Tamar and the size of the day
Pentillie lies in the Tamar Valley National Landscape on the Cornwall and Devon border, about 20 minutes from Plymouth and its railway station; Exeter Airport is about an hour by road. Parking is free at the castle and at the riverside quay, and the front lawn can take a helicopter. The 2026 tariff starts at £5,715 for a one day wedding for up to 60 guests, with food and drink charged separately. NHS cardholders and serving and retired members of the armed forces receive a venue hire discount, which the castle offers in recognition of its military connections and its years as a wartime maternity hospital.
The decision that shapes the rest is the size of the guest list: a wedding for up to 60 at dinner in the house, with Tillie’s Dining Room at its centre, or a marquee on the lawns for a larger party. Read the Pentillie Castle profile, see Cornwall wedding venues, and when the numbers are settled, check your date.
