Nancarrow sits in a fold of countryside at Marazanvose, a few miles outside Truro, and it has been in the same family for nine generations. What began as a working farm is still very much one — 100 acres of organic pasture, wildflower meadows, orchards and kitchen gardens — but over the past fifteen years the cluster of Grade II listed barns at its heart has been restored into one of the loveliest places in Cornwall to get married. There are five of them altogether, gathered around a courtyard, with a historic millpond just beyond and the valley falling away behind.
Food is the thing everyone talks about afterwards, and with good reason. The kitchen here is genuinely farm-to-fork: beef and lamb raised on the land, vegetables from the gardens and greenhouse, and menus written around whatever the season is doing rather than around a fixed list. Much of it comes out of a wood-fired kitchen that opens onto the south-facing courtyard, where rambling roses and vines climb the walls and drinks get handed round while the afternoon warms up. It feels like a very good long lunch that happens to be your wedding.
You have the whole place to yourselves, and that includes somewhere to sleep: 11 en-suite bedrooms plus three handcrafted shepherd’s huts tucked into the orchard, enough for around 30 people, with the Old Mill as a communal room for everyone to drift back to. Ceremonies can happen indoors in one of the barns or outside in half a dozen different spots, the apple orchard and the millpond among them, and the site is licensed throughout, so nobody has to go anywhere.
Where the band plays
The Oak Barn is the room that matters for music. It seats 130 for dinner, looks out over the millpond and spills straight into the courtyard, and once the tables are cleared it becomes the dancefloor, with a large wood burner throwing out heat at one end. It’s a proper barn — exposed beams, hard surfaces, generous height — so a live band sounds big in it without having to push, and the room flatters a brass section and a stripped-back acoustic set about equally. Because dinner and dancing happen in the same space, a turnaround is built into the evening, and most bands will set up earlier in the day and simply wait.
How the evening runs
Evenings at Nancarrow run to around midnight, which gives you a long, unhurried second half: first dance, two sets, and still time for the fire and the courtyard in between. The farm is genuinely rural, so the finish is more about winding down than about neighbours, though it is always worth confirming the exact music curfew when you book, since it can sit a little earlier than the bar. Load-in is straightforward — vehicles come right into the courtyard beside the barn and there is parking on site, with narrow but manageable lanes on the way in. Live music and DJs are both welcome, and with the doors open onto the courtyard on a warm night the sound carries out into the dark rather beautifully.
Bands available in Cornwall and perfectly at home in a venue like this.
More live music in Cornwall.
- Wedding Bands in Cornwall
- Events Bands in Cornwall
- Cornwall Tribute Acts
- Cornwall Wedding DJs
- Cornwall Corporate Entertainment
Worth reading before you book: Sound Limiters Explained. More questions answered on our England & Wales FAQs.