The Lost Gardens of Heligan

[purplecat]

The Mud Maiden of Heligan is apparently the first of a sequence of Green Lady sculptures in Cornwall. We met another at the Eden Project.


I've always wanted to go to the Lost Gardens of Heligan. This is 90% marketing - I would have been a lot less interested to go to Heligan Gardens. However, it still sounded like an interesting garden to go to. We didn't go last time we were in Cornwall since it wasn't necessarily terribly friendly for a 5 year old, but it was the one thing I was determined to get to this year.

Despite the fact the 5 year old is just about to go to university, she sulked round the first part of the garden then revealed she hadn't had breakfast (a trick we had foolishly forgotten from Snowdonia) and then looked disappointed at the, frankly disappointing, food options available. However fortunately the gardens had a infinite re-entry the same day policy and the cottage was only 25 minutes away, so we took the offspring back the cottage and then returned.




An old tree root converted into a Giant. Apparently there was a picture book available in the shop recounting its adventures.


Charcoal Scuplture


There are pineapples growing in a traditional pineapple pit in there.

Apparently the well wasn't that deep.


Our favourite bit was the Jungle Valley. Despite the fact the Gardens were "lost" for 20 to 70 years, much of the "jungle" planting clearly pre-dated that.











I'm glad we went, as posh gardens go (and frankly the UK has a lot of such things), its a good'un with several imaginative bits, including a wildlife only area with a hide overlooking it (I'm not a big bird watcher but in the 5 or so minutes we were there I saw blue tits at a feeder, dragonflies and a pheasant).