Cornwall 2022 – 1. The Lost Gardens of Heligan

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Burma Rope Bridge, chicken tractor, Cornwall, Eden Project, honey dipper, house sparrow, insect hotel, John Nelson, Lost Gardens of Heligan, rhododendron, sunflowers, swallow, Tim Smit

I’d so enjoyed my holiday in Cornwall in June 2021, and found there was so much more I wanted to see and do there, that I decided to book for this year, though in more comfortable accommodation, (the subject of my next post). I drove south-west on Monday 27th June, and, having now reviewed the more than 1000 photos I returned with, can see that I have about 11 blog posts to prepare, for a week’s holiday.

Last year I had extraordinary thoughts of returning to the Eden Project on my way, specifically to have a go on the zip wire there. But in the event I replaced that idea, for a variety of reasons, only one of them not being sure whether I really dared, with a visit to The Lost Gardens of Heligan. So, having dropped Bella off at her cattery (unvaccinated Tilly remaining at home) I arrived at the venue in good time for a light lunch during which I perused the guide.

(What’s the opposite of foreshortening? This picture makes the guide look longer than it is.)

Heligan has a history going back to the thirteenth century, but was ‘lost’ and increasingly overgrown between 1914 and 1990. Its timeline is here.

This view greets you as you step into the gardens.

I then took Beacon Path. As I often do in discovering a new place, I started by staking out the perimeter, clockwise. During my week in Cornwall, I saw many such tangles of rhododendron trunks.

After a while I found myself in an area called ‘New Zealand’.

The guide explains that the so called ‘Flower Garden’ is also about fruit and vegetables.

This is possibly my favourite photo of the visit,

or perhaps this.

The Sundial Garden

I started to explore more widely than just the main gardens, and came across this wood turner, who was making honey dippers, near Home Farm.

The East Lawn was a large play area for children.

But I was headed much further on, down, down, down, through The Jungle to the Burma Rope Bridge.

This was great fun. I held back to get a clearer picture of what was before me (fortunately no-one was queuing behind me) and to avoid the stupidity of the not-so-young man two in front of me who insisted on bouncing around and disturbing others on the bridge.

At the other end, and after a few yards right, I followed none of these following directions, becoming conscious of the time, and took the Diagonal Path behind me. It was quite steep.

So I was glad of the several opportunities it gave to rest.

Approaching Home Farm again, I saw the very recently installed Bugginghum Palace, which hopes to make it into The Guinness Book of Records as the largest insect hotel in the world.

On Home Farm, a ‘chicken tractor’. It is moved frequently to give the residents fresh grass.

Bee boles dating from about 1820. Bees continue to play an important part in Heligan’s work.

This is the “Thunderbox Room, a lighthearted title for the gardeners’ lavatory. … It was in the first of the two cubicles in 1990 that Tim Smit and John Nelson first noticed the names on the wall. …. numerous barely legible signatures… August 1914… shortly to depart to fight in the First World War. Of the total of thirteen Heligan men who were to serve… only four survived.”

I was disinclined to enter just to see an old-fashioned loo, especially given the low headroom, but then I noticed a swallow flying in, and suspected that it was visiting a nest.

I was right. Just inside the doorway, behind me …

I hung around, my camera at the ready, to be rewarded with this, for no more than two seconds.

I was doubly pleased to have entered the Thunderbox Room, as it led into the Italian Garden.

Minutes later I was in The Ravine,

then came across this curious tree. It is a Douglas Fir, with a Witch’s Broom ‘necklace’ round it, highly prized by bonsai specialists apparently.

Flora’s Green, near to Beacon Path and the exit

It was time for me to leave – licking an ice-cream. I had not seen the entire estate, far from it, and this is only a tiny selection of the photos I took. But Marks and Spencer called…

Minterne Gardens, Dorset

Tags

Azalea, blackbird, blue tit, bluebells, butterbur, campion, candelabra flower, Churchill, Digby family, handkerchief tree, Himalayan plants, John Churchill, Minterne Gardens, Minterne Magna, ransoms, rhododendron, wollemi pine

A friend told me about the Minterne Himalayan Gardens on Monday, and I visited the next day. This is an ideal time of year to go, because of the rhododendrons and the azaleas and other spring wild flowers, but the great collection of wonderful trees would justify a visit at any time of year. I took so many pictures that I cannot make a choice, so here for the record are lots and lots of them, with occasional commentary.

I had to stop a few miles before arriving at Minterne Magna, to take this view.

Minterne Church, opposite the car park.

The entrance to the gardens, no cars allowed

I was not yet ‘Here’, but where the ticket booth is indicated, and that wasn’t there but at the main house.

The house, home to the early Churchills and afterwards the Digbys, is not open to the general public. It was the first Digby owner who made the magnificent gardens in the early 19th century.

The lawn was not available to he public either, for perhaps understandable reasons.

The gardens were a wonderful mixture of Himalayan planting and British wild flowers

Eyes right

A handkerchief tree from a distance,

then in ever increasing…

detail. What photos cannot show is that every ‘handkerchief’ is waving in time with its neighbour.

At times the bird song was deafening, not all the responsibility of this blue tit.

Another handkerchief tree,

and this time I’m right underneath it, on a small bridge.

This bridge is foreshortened by the zoom.

I’m in fact nearer to it now.

And there was a convenient bench.

Blackbird in the butterbur

Ransoms and reflections

Wollemi ‘pine’. Until September 1994, this species was only know in the fossil record, then some specimens were found in Wollemi National Park, (the tree is named for the park, not vice versa) 150 km to the northwest of Sydney, Australia. The original site is kept undisclosed to the general public, but propagation makes samples available to botanical gardens.

Entertainment in the lake as I had coffee and cake.

I decided to call in on the little church instead of returning straight home.

15th century font, on a somewhat more recent base

The very first Sir Winston Churchill, his wife, and his daughter are buried here. On the left is the grave of John Churchill, the first Winston’s father.

I felt particularly for this woman, ‘languishing under a tediouse sickness for halfe a year’ before she died.

And there were a few other commemorative plaques which caught my eye, some of which told interesting stories.

A lovely afternoon under lovely weather.

An orgy of exhibitions 1

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Becket Casket, Clare Chasuble, Hyde Park Corner, Ismaili Centre, Jesse Cope, Joseph Nash, Knightsbridge, Lockwood Kipling, Mayo School of Art, No 14 bus, Opus Anglicanum, Piccadilly, Piccadilly Circus, Prosper Lafaye, PSPO, rhododendron, Rudolf Swoboda, Rudyard Kipling, Shaftesbury Avenue, Steeple Aston Cope, Suzuki Masaya, Syon Cope, Transport for London, V and A, Victoria and Albert Museum

Mediaeval embroidery and John Lockwood Kipling. Earlier this week I spent a couple of days in London, staying with my friend Mary, to catch three exhibitions before they closed, this Sunday.  But the first astonishing exhibit was in Mary’s garden:  a rhododendron bush in full bloom!

My father’s favourite bus route when my parents lived in London was the number 14, because it passed so many places of interest. Over all the years since, it has remained the same, as far as I know.  Certainly the small part we did, on the way to the Victoria and Albert Museum, gave me plenty of photo opps from the upstairs front seat, through the tinted window.

Shaftesbury Avenue

Piccadilly Circus

Piccadilly

Hyde Park Corner

Knightsbridge.  Better hoarding or the naked building works?

 

As for this, seen several times along Knightsbridge, we wondered if it was OK to drive anti-socially elsewhere.We considered this building  virtually opposite the V and A, not particularly beautiful in the context of South Kensington, though when I went over later to see what it was – the Ismaili Centre – I could see that close up it had merit in many smaller architectural details.

The desire for coffee obliged us to walk across the central square of the museum.

Our principal target of the day was the exhibition, ‘Opus Anglicanum’, a style of English mediaeval embroidery which spread far into continental Europe.  We were astounded by the intricacy of the work, and although we were able to discover who these embroiderers were, we could gain no insight as to just how long it took to create these masterpieces, especially as those commissioned e.g. for visits of foreign rulers, and for funerals will have had tight deadlines.  The stitching was tiny in the extreme, and will have needed excellent light to execute. It was interesting to catch snatches of conversations of other visitors, some of whom clearly  had specialist knowledge.

Photos were not allowed, so the following are scanned from postcards. Sadly it is not possible to see the individual stitching in them.

The Clare Chasuble

The Syon Cope

Detail from The Jesse Cope

Detail from The Steeple Aston Cope

 

Exhibits were not only of embroidery:

The Becket Casket

 

Having spent a good long time at this wonderful exhibition, we crossed the central square once more,

and over lunch decided to visit another special exhibition in the Museum, (not in our original plan), that of work by, or inspired by, John Lockwood Kipling, father of Rudyard (whom his parents named after the village in Staffordshire where they had met.) Lockwood was a designer, illustrator (including of his son’s books) teacher, journalist and curator.  Among other things he was an architectural sculptor to the South Kensington Museum, (now the V and A). He moved with his wife to become Director of the Mayo School of Art in Lahore. ‘His contribution to the impact of the British Empire on India’s artistic heritage is still recognised and debated today’.

These photos are mine.

Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and three of their children at the Indian Pavilion of the Great Exhibition, by Prosper Lafaye

The Great Exhibition: India No 4, by Joseph Nash

Pearlware jug, decorated by Lockwood Kipling

These nineteenth century saddle cloths had embroidery every bit as rich and intricate as we had seen in the morning

Student at the Mayo School, by Rudolf Swoboda

Rudyard Kipling illustrating his own stories

Lockwood Kipling for his grandchildren

 

This next picture was I think my favourite exhibit.  I just loved how the reflected harsh Indian light had enabled the colourful details on the near, shaded, side to be picked out.

A Peep at the Train by Rudolf Swoboda

Then as we returned again to the tearoom for final refreshment before making the journey back to Mary’s place, I couldn’t resist taking a photo of this in the Japanese section as we went through it.

 

Sprouting Box, by Suzuki Masaya, 1978, in acrylic

Teatime

Two concluding exhibitions the next day…