Lost Gardens in Cornwall

Saturday morning dawned and at 7.00 we hit the M5 along with most of the rest of Bristol it seemed. Heavy traffic consisted of cars towing caravans or trailers laden down with surf boards, bikes, roof racks and camper vans filling the three lanes heading south. We got the impression that many of the occupants were wishing they could sing ...
'We're all going on a summer holiday,
no more working for a week or two,
fun and laughter on our summer holiday
to make our dream come true.
We're going where the sun shines brightly'
(yeah right !! nothing like a bit of optimism).
but somehow the grim determination on their faces reflected the rain and mist outside.
We found the Lost Gardens of Heligan quite easily and spent a few hours wandering around the gardens after filling ourselves with sausage sandwiches and cups of tea and talking to the wet and cold parking attendant directing the few cars into the car park. The garden has been owned by the Tremayne family for more than 400 years and is described as 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”. During the First World War the gardeners gradually enlisted in the war and the garden was gradually attended to by nature. After decades of neglect, and a hurricane in 1990 the garden was bought back to its former glory around 2000 - but there is still work to be done. A motto etched into the limestone walls has to be searched for but you can still make out the words “Don’t come here to sleep or slumber” with the names of those who worked there and the date they enlisted. So, the history and the environment kept us intrigued for a few hours and added that extra dimension. There were pictures of what the buildings looked like before restoration, either run down or completely overgrown.



Other agricultural highlights included

• a manure fired pineapple pit (bit like a green house really)
• rhododendrons and other trees left to themselves for so long - so rather than growing tall, they are sprawly and looked like fun to climb
• bee boles (where the bees lived inside these little houses - a bit like modern apartments really - but with straw housing inside called skeps)
• a melon house used to grow cucumbers and melons (incidentally the cafe food was made with all the vegetables and fruit grown in the garden - and how we wished we hadn't had those sausage sandwiches)
• well landscaped gardens with sunflowers and hydrangeas (two of my favourites) and then cobble stoned ravines following paths down to a valley and pond
• a squirrel who had learnt to eat the nuts provided for the birds (grabbed one and then hung upside down to eat before returning for another one - we did wonder if he could eat them all but didn't have a couple of hours to sit and wait to find out)
• two mud statues - one of a gentle giant and one of a mud maid (featured in children's stories) they were coated in yoghurt to get the plants to grow on them
• the Thunderbox room (where the toilets were long drops - with graffitti on the walls)
• and a multi cultural theme where owners and gardens made visits to places such as Italy and Nepal and came back with designs for gardens. The Italian garden was complete with kiwi fruit plants planted alongside the wall (two male kiwifruits and so no fruit) restored using a photo from the 1920's

AND GUESS WHAT a New Zealand garden complete with a whare, wonderful totara tree, kowhai trees, silver fern, pongas and so on (boy did it look great). There were some well travelled owners and gardeners who sailed out to get the plants and then back again to design and plan a New Zealand nature reserve in England. There is even a photo of the head gardener in 1920 standing at Pukekura Park in New Plymouth. So, we spent quite a bit of time wandering around the garden (nostagically nibbling the pineapple chunks that Jill had sent us from NZ - we shared them down to the last one which we had half each). The garden had like the rest required some love and attention and about the time that they were working on it along came the successful New Zealand exhibition at the Chelsea Flower show. After the show the exhibitors looked around to see who they could gift the plants to and wallah found the Lost Gardens of Heligan (so if anyone asks us if we have been to the Chelsea Flower show we can say 'yes and no' or 'sort of').



We did take our tent and sleeping bags but as their was still a very large hole in the black clouds (I wonder how many other ways I will be able to describe rain before we finish living here?) we envisaged a wet and sleepless night so we settled for a hotel room in a little town called Fowey (pronounced Foy). It is described as 'A seaport redolent of its long history of trade, piracy and smuggling. Fowey is a maze of tiny streets and quaint cottages. A pretty harbour looks across the mouth of the River Fowey to the village of Polruan on the opposite bank'. We were told smuggling is still common today around the bays and it is not uncommon for drugs to be washed ashore. We enjoyed a wander through the narrow streets (had to put our umbrellas down when cars came - Harry got the right idea and folded his down over his head while I stood in a doorway and as the first car came along the window wipers swished the water off the window and on to me. I soon learnt and stood looking as silly as Harry did - its a bit like wearing a tepee on your head). Fowey is a pretty little village - with a harbour full of boats, a little church and Georgian castle (private so you can only admire it from the steep wall surrounding it). The next day, we woke to a ray of sunshine on our pillow and jumped up ready for breakfast (but by 9.00 the breakfast makers had not yet surfaced so we took some cereal from the counter and left to eat fruit and muffins in another car park). Spurred on by the sunshine we took a walk along a Cornwall cliff. The walk took us from Polkerris (another little fishing village with nothing really except a cafe, pub, boats and little beach - real sand and the same colour as the Kapiti Coast - where you can learn to windsurf, sail, stand-up paddle surf or sit-on kayak) through the country side (to the moo of cows being milked and the squawk of crows), through an area called Menabilly Barton (just love that name) and along to a house that became the home of Daphne du Maurier in 1943. We walked beside an artificial lake that was built to light at night during the Second World War to act as a decoy for Fowey. We then climbed a very steep hill to Daymark Tower - I stopped on the way to look at the view. We couldn't resist climbing the 100 or so steps to the top. The tower was built in 1832 to help mariners to distinguish the rocks at Gribbin from the similar looking ones a few miles further round the coast at Falmouth Bay (we'll go visit there in September I hope). Besides the red and white stripes, and its steep steps to the top (they overlapped so the steps weren't even as wide as my feet are long) it is unique because it was built in a rectangular shape rather than the traditional round lighthouse shape - maybe that's because it isn't really a light house - just a day mark. Fabulous view from the top - there is nothing more invigorating than standing somewhere high above the cliffs and white water with wind whistling through your hair (I can hear some of you saying 'yeah right' but I am very serious). We could see the chimneys of the china-clay works (there is a museum we were keen to see - but since it had stopped raining we decided to make the most of some dry skies) and Fowey in the distance one way and Carlyon Bay the other (where we went on our first camping trip). From the Daymark tower the fun started - mud, puddles and prickly vegetation. Imagine Harry and I straddled across puddles with nothing to hang onto but blackberry, stinging nettle and thistles. We did laugh at ourselves especially when in muddy shoes we tried to explain to others who were heading in the other direction how muddy it was - we didn't need to really - our shoes, dirty legs and shorts, and muddy bottoms said it all (yes we each took our turn at falling over). Incidentally it took Harry 45 minutes to clean our shoes the next day (I was late home from work - convenient that was but definitely not planned!!). Anyway after that adventure we deserved a lunch at the local pub the 'Rashleigh' named after the earlier owner of the farm land and formerly known as a 'pilchard palace' where the fish were cured but were not on the menu that day. It began to rain and so everyone crowded in from the outside 'would walkers please leave their muddy shoes outside' was the notice on the door - so everyone ate their lunch in barefeet and holey socks and as it was rather crowded we shared a table with a couple of Englishman and whiled away an hour or so while eating cottage pie and drinking lattes.

We were told by these two that there wasn't much to Plymouth so to prove them wrong we drove there next to have a look around. What a pity it was the end of the day, as we could easily have spent a couple of days catching boats around the harbour, out to the break water or even to Mevagissey not far from the Gardens of Heligan, exploring the war time buildings and the lovely old hotels along the foreshore. I am sure that there were areas that had significantly suffered from the decline of the naval shipyards but there has been a real attempt to make the place interesting and well kept (I guess in a way a tribute to all those Pilgrims). At what used to be huge storage sheds and factories there are now apartments - some occupied others derelict buildings awaiting their turn for renovation. We went up to the Hoe (hill overlooking the harbour) and ate some comforting hot chips in the rain while listening to the music of a showground before heading home.

The blog has been a bit late in being written this week. I have spent too much time watching the Great Brits at the Olympics - trying to pick and choose the sports that just might have a few kiwis participating - a bit hard with just the highlights being shown - but have managed to see some rowing - and for other highlights we have looked on the web.

Did you know that when Eastenders finishes every night there is a huge power surge (lots of jugs put on to boil for that cuppa) and for those few moments England has to purchase power from France so I am told - and I thought that Coronation Street would be the guilty soap!!