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The Lost Gardens of Heligan
Heligan, seat of the Tremayne family for more
than 400 years, is one of the most mysterious
estates in England. At the end of the nineteenth
century its thousand acres were at their zenith, but
only a few years later bramble and ivy were already
drawing a green veil over this "Sleeping Beauty".
After decades of neglect, the devastating hurricane
of 1990 should have consigned the Lost Gardens of
Heligan to a footnote in history.
The discovery of a tiny room, buried under fallen
masonry in the corner of one of the
walled gardens, was to unlock the secret of their
demise. A motto etched into the limestone walls in
barely legible pencil still reads "Don’t come here
to sleep or slumber" with the names of those who
worked there signed under the date - August 1914.
Tim Smidt and his team were fired by a magnificent
obsession to bring these once glorious gardens back
to life in every sense and to tell, for the first
time, not tales of lords and ladies but of those
"ordinary" people who had made these gardens great,
before departing for the Great War.
The award-winning garden restoration is already
internationally acclaimed; It now extends into well
over 100 acres of the wider estate, leaving the
project far from complete. It is intended that
Heligan is to remain a living and working example of
the best of past practice, offering public access
into the heart of what we do.
The contemporary focus is to work with nature,
accepting and respecting it and protecting and
enhancing the variety of habitats with which the
project is endowed. An impressive range of wild
flora and fauna has been identified within the
gardens and estate, and visitors are welcome to
explore the Heligan landscape to try and observe
both common and rare species for themselves.
Visit Horsemoor Hide, the pioneering Wildlife
Interpretation Centre, where
'Live' images of Heligan wildlife are displayed on
indoor plasma screens, drawing you into the dramas
of life in the natural world in an intimate and
unedited manner, as they occur, right here on our
site. These privileged, close-up views of the life
cycles of some of the creatures with whom we share
this beautiful countryside can offer valuable
insights into the factors accounting for success or
failure in the wild, thereby informing our future
land management practices.
The Lost Gardens of Heligan News:
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