Lost Gardens of Heligan

Overlooking Mevagissey lie the expansive estates of the Tremayne family, centered at one time on Heligan House and its vast acres of gardens and woodlands. There used to be 20 staff in the house and 22 in the garden but all this ended in the 1914–18 war when two-thirds of the gardeners died fighting in Flanders. After that the garden went into decline and when the Tremaynes sold the house, in 1970, for conversion to apartments, it simply went to sleep—a sleep from which it emerged in the 1990s when two professional gardeners hacked their way through the undergrowth and were inspired to begin the largest garden restoration project in Europe. Evoking images of The Secret Garden, the Lost Gardens of Heligan have emerged from their slumber. A magnificent complex of walled gardens, vegetable gardens, and melon yards shows how pineapples and melons were grown in Victorian times. To the south of the main garden are vast acres of palms and tree ferns know as The Jungle, which leads to the Lost Valley with its woodland walks.