Gardens to visit in spring and summer – The Lost Gardens of Heligan

Have been found again! Okay, that didn’t come as any surprise, but this eighty acre site is a true amazement. It consists of pleasure grounds plus a labyrinthine interlinked group of walled gardens and a immense vegetable garden. The house, built by William Tremayne in 1603, was the seat of the Tremayne family who designed their estate to be totally self sufficient, The gardens, created mainly in the nineteenth century, of were one of the finest gardens in England of their period, with over fifty acres of planted gardens, a hundred acres of ornamental woodlands, and three hundred acres of rides which were much appreciated by the local hunt.

When World War I began, the male staff signed up with the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, in what was, during that first year of the war, called a Pal’s Battalion – in other words men from the same village, mine, factory or stately home would all sign up together. Of course this meant that when the regiment was blown to pieces by the Hun, whole villages, mines, factories and stately homes were deprived of their entire complement of young men. So it happened with Heligan. The House was taken over by the War Office and became a convalescent home for officers for the duration of the war, but it never recovered from the loss of all its gardeners, servants and other male staff in the war.

In 1990, a chance meeting between the Tremayne family member who had inherited the gardens and Tim Smit, now of Eden, led to a rediscovery of the estate – Smit and John Nelson, an architect, took a lease on the gardens, researched their history, and raised money to restore the area. Visitors will not believe the beauty they have discovered and uncovered.

Notable features include:

1. Flora's Green, a lawn used by the ladies for dancing
2. The Vegetable Garden, two and a half acres of kitchen garden to supply the house
3. The Melon Garden, an oval walled garden
4. The Sundial Garden which was described in 1896 Gardener's Chronicle as the finest herbaceous border in England
5. The Bee-boles is an immense wall with 15 vaulted chambers to house bees
6. The Northern Summer House with its panoramic view over St. Austell Bay and The St Michael's Mount. Nobody knows when it was built, but there is a reference to it in 1623 when mentioned as the old beacon.

Heligan photograph by Fimb, used under a creative commons attribution licence

 

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