Peregrine Nicholas Eliot was the son of Nicholas Eliot, 9th Earl of St Germans and his wife Helen Mary (17 April 1915 – 6 December 1951), daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Walter Villiers, DSO, CBE, of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, and Lady Kathleen Mary, daughter of Lowry Cole, 4th Earl of Enniskillen.

In 1980 a small festival which had outgrown its site at Polgooth in mid-Cornwall approached the Port Eliot estate and asked if it could be held in the idyllic grounds.

The festival ran from 1981 to 1986, beginning with some 1,500 visitors over four days, and featured a mix of music, theatre and visual arts.

The burning down of the oldest tree in the park, looting of the village surgery and the robbing of stall-holders in 1985 prompted Lord Eliot and fellow organisers to make the 1986 festival the last.

Peregrine Eliot, 10th Earl St. Germans died after a short illness (following surgery for cancer) on 15 July 2016.