The small port town of Portreath, lying about a mile to the north, was once also known as Basset's Cove. Basset was the family who lived at Tehidy--about 2 miles inland. The family had a bathing machine installed at Portreath in the nineteenth century. Following the development of Portreath into a busy port, Spratting Cove was renamed Basset Cove that we see today.

The Bassets were one of the four most powerful families in Cornwall with extensive lands and mineral rights in this western part of the county. Inland at Carn Brea, near Redruth, you can see the Basset memorial high on the hill on a clear day.

With the general decline in mining fortunes in the county in the early years of the twentieth century, the influence of the family also waned. Tehidy house was destroyed by fire and never rebuilt, though in 1918 some of the buildings were turned into a hospital. Today the estate is a country park and open to the public.