The History of The Lost Gardens of Heligan

Heligan is the great garden restoration story of the late 20th century and, had it not been for the tenacity of one man, Tim Smit, it may have lain hidden for another hundred years. It had once been a remarkable Victorian garden boasting 800 acres of rare and exotic plants, rhododendrons, magnolias, tree ferns, palms, ginkgos and Chilean monkey puzzle trees, set in deep ravines, valleys, lakes and streams.

A forgotten garden
The story begins on February 16th 1990, when music producer Tim Smit was looking for a place to start a rare breeds farm and stumbled upon the estate of Heligan near Mevagissey. What he discovered was a garden so overgrown, so forgotten by time, that even the locals had begun to believe it was nothing but a fairytale.

The wonder of Cornwall
In fact, Heligan had been one of the great and glorious gardens of Cornwall. It reached its heyday in the Victorian era when wealthy families filled their gardens with the latest inventions and the most sought-after plants from faraway climes. Cornwall's mild climate provided the perfect environment for these exotic species to thrive.

The paper trail
The estate was bought by Sampson Tremayne in 1569 and maps discovered by the team show that John Tremayne laid out elaborate formal gardens in 1735. In 1825, when John Hearle Tremayne received a seed of the tender Himalayan dogwood (Cornus capitata) from Nepal, he began to plan an even more fantastic garden. The work he started was carried on by his son and grandson and featured a Jungle Garden filled with bananas and giant gunneras, a spectacular ravine, lakes and streams, state-of-the-art glasshouses and even a heated pineapple pit to produce the latest and most sought-after fruit.

Decline and fall
At its heyday, Heligan had teams of gardeners who worked shifts to keep the boilers stoked all night long to keep the exotic plants alive, but it was not to last. In a quiet corner of the walled gardens, writing on the privy wall gives a clue. It reads "Don't come here to sleep or slumber" dated and signed by the young gardeners, August 1914. Soon after, most of the 22 estate workers were summoned to the trenches of Ypres and The Somme - most never to return.

The gardens would never really recover. Labour was no longer plentiful and after the Second World War, the gardens literally 'went to sleep' - disappearing under layers of leaves, self-seeded plants and earth.

The reawakening
The Lost Gardens of Heligan are no longer 'lost', but they still retain their charm and offer visitors the chance to see how a big Victorian garden really worked. Melon houses, rows of carefully-tended vegetables, hydraulic water and heating systems all testify to Victorian ingenuity. And Heligan has a new cast of gardeners and new generations to admire it. And what became of its discoverer? Tim Smit went to on create the Eden Project!

Feature supplied by Heritage magazine. About Heritage Magazine.

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