She was the owner of the Trebah Estate and leisure garden, near Falmouth in Cornwall from 1907 to her death in 1939,[3] and generously supported the development of sports and social activities in the parishes of Constantine and Mawnan.
[7] Charles and Alice Hext are shown in the 1901 census as resident at Polgwin in the civil parish of Bodmin, Cornwall.
In particular, she gave the playing field and sports pavilion to the village of Constantine in 1921, in memory of her husband, Charles Hawkins Hext.
[17][18] Her obituary in The West Briton says: "A Justice of the Peace for the East Kerrier District, Mrs. Hext regularly attended the monthly meetings of the court at Penryn and she took a particular interest in the welfare of young people unfortunate enough to come before the magistrates.
lodge for the Truro Diocese, enabling girls to be trained there for domestic service and affording hundreds of young women from other parts of the country and from abroad to enjoy holidays under the auspices of the movement at Falmouth.
When village or secondary schools were in need of some improvements, Mrs. Hext not infrequently made herself responsible for them, and she often provided prizes as an inducement to scholars in some particularly commendable direction.
She gave to Constantine its present recreation ground and pavilion, and in both villages she supported sporting and social organisations, almost without exception".
The Constantine Sports and Social Club, that she endowed, still functions and the land she protected from development by covenant is still green.
Their stewardship, which lasted until the outbreak of the Second World War, was truly a golden era in Trebah's history and the time when the garden reached its peak... Ponds in the middle of the garden were constructed and stocked with rainbow trout and golden orfe ... Then in 1924, on a marshy area at the bottom of the valley, the subsoil was puddled to create what has subsequently been known as Mallard Pond...