I recently visited Cornwall in the southwest of England for a couple of days. One of the days was spent in the Lost Gardens of Heligan, a few miles to the southwest of St Austell, and just about a mile from the sea. It's a popular place for visitors - more than three million people have been through the gates since they opened to the public in 1992.

So if that number of people know where the gardens are, why are they "lost"?

Heligan House was a big house in the country, the home of the Tremayne family, who owned the house and the land around it for over 400 years. The estate produced food for the people living in the house, and there was a whole community of gardeners and farmers to look after the land. By the end of the 19th Century, there was 1,000 acres of land (405 hectares), with walled gardens producing vegetables, both everyday and exotic, and other walled gardens producing flowers for floral displays in the house. There were also a number of gardens laid out for the Tremaynes and their friends to wander through, some with exotic plants from as far away as India, Japan and New Zealand.

In 1914, war descended on Europe like a blight. Everybody was at war with everyone else. The men of Heligan went off to fight. There weren't enough people left to manage the gardens so the owners closed the gates on the gardens and abandoned them; normal service would resume after the war. But everything changed with the war. The house was used as a convalescent home for officers. Only half the workers came back from the battlefields; the other half had been killed. The whole economy of Europe was shattered and the Tremaynes could no longer afford to live like lords. The house was rented out and the walled gardens remained shut - they were just left to go back to nature. Most of the rest of the 20th Century was a wash-out as far as Heligan was concerned, with another world war and a depressed economy for decades after that. In the 1970s, Heligan House was finally sold off, although the family retained most of the land around it. By 1990, nobody had even seen the walled gardens in 75 years. They were well and truly lost.

Then in 1990, one remaining member of the Tremayne family, John Willis, decided he would see what was behind those walls. Together with Tim Smit, a local entrepreneur, they ventured into the gardens to find what 75 years of nature running its course had done. Literally hacking their way through plants with a machete, they explored this lost world. They were so impressed with what they saw that they decided to restore the entire estate, and to open it to the public as a showcase of what life was like before the war.

Two years and a lot of hard work later, at Easter 1992, the gardens opened to the public. The restoration is ongoing, and even now 18 years later there is still a lot of work to be done.

It'll take four or five hours to see the whole of Heligan, so allow yourself a full day. There's a restaurant which does nice home-cooked food and very good coffee, so you can go there for a break or a full lunch. There's also an indoor picnic area so you can bring your own food. The rest of the gardens are divided up naturally into two sections, the Inner Gardens which are just to the north of the house, and the outer estate which lies to the south and east of the house. The house itself is out of bounds, being privately owned. It is screened off from the gardens so you won't even notice it is there - there is only one place where it is visible in the distance.

If you want to visit the Outer Estate, it is best to start at the ticket booth and head south along the 'Woodland Walk'. This pleasant path through the forest has three interesting sculptures, all made by local artists, Sue and Pete Hill. There's a giant moss-covered head peeping out of the ground, with hair made from Montbretia flowers; a sleeping moss-covered giantess; and a wispy grey woman made from wire mesh. The path leads you down a hill to the Jungle - in Victorian times, this valley was a Japanese Garden, but now it's a mass of plants and lives up to its name. There are boardwalks bringing you through the jungle and it is well worth a visit. The rest of the Outer Estate is large fields with wooded walks between them - nothing too exciting but a good way of getting a bit of exercise. Before returning to the Inner Gardens, be sure to see the Wildlife Project, where there are web cameras showing bird nesting boxes, footage of foxes and badgers taken on the estate, and a live wild bird viewing hide.

The Inner Gardens are divided between pleasure gardens and working areas. The pleasure gardens include: Flora's Green - a large open green area surrounded by shrubs, trees and flowers; the Ravine - a rockery set in an artificial gorge; the Sundial Garden; the Italian Garden; 'New Zealand' - an area planted with shrubs from that distant land; and 'Sikkim' - an area planted with all sorts of life from Northern India.

These are interesting, but it is probably in the working gardens that the most interesting parts of Heligan can be found. There are three main areas: the Vegetable Garden is a huge walled area planted with all the sorts of vegetables a Victorian household would have used. The Flower Garden was used to provide cut flowers to brighten up the house. Flowers are still cut here daily and placed in vases around the restaurant, offices and gift shop. Most interesting of all is the Melon Yard, which is the smallest of the walled yards. It has three straight sides and one curved one which appears to be parabolic rather than circular. They've worked out that this optimises the sunshine in the yard. Here are the Pineapple Pits, a bizarre construction which allowed pineapples to be grown using heat provided by rotting horse manure. The manure containers are around the pits, and hollow brick constructions channel warm air onto the pineapple plants. It is reckoned that a single pineapple cost the equivalent in modern money of £5,000 to produce, so they really were a rare delicacy. The very first pineapple produced in the pits since they were restored was presented as a gift to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.

Heligan stands as a monument to what could be achieved through a combination of traditional practices and Victorian ingenuity. But Heligan also looks to the future, experimenting with new methods of gardening and trying to bring people more in tune with the ways of nature.

Photos can be found here.

Gnomon

17.07.08 Front Page

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