Lost Gardens of Heligan

The Lost Gardens of Heligan lie near Mevagissey in Cornwall, high above the fishing village. They surround Heligan House, once the family home of the Tremaynes, and stretch across gentle slopes and steep valleys. The gardens mix formal 19th-century designs with wilder areas, all shaped by four generations of the Tremayne family. A century-old ram pump still feeds the lakes, and subtropical tree ferns fill a place called The Jungle. Two striking figures made of rocks and plants, the Mud Maid and the Giant’s Head, stand among the planting. The gardens were neglected after the First World War, when sixteen of the twenty-two gardeners were lost. By the 1920s the family had moved away, and the gardens faded from view. In the 1990s a group led by Tim Smit restored them, turning a forgotten landscape back into bloom. Their work was filmed for a popular television series and brought new life to the local area. Today the gardens remain in the care of the restorers, who continue to grow fruit, flowers and herbs. Visitors walk through orderly flower gardens, productive vegetable plots and a formal Italian garden. They pass the only remaining pineapple pit in Europe, heated by rotting manure to ripen fruit. The wild Lost Valley and The Jungle offer shaded paths among giant rhododendrons and camellias. From the higher ground the views stretch down to Mevagissey and out to sea, linking the ordered beauty of the gardens with the rugged Cornish coast.