The Lost Gardens of Heligan lie above Mevagissey, mostly in the parish of St Ewe, on the Heligan estate. In Kernewek it is Lowarth Helygen, the willow tree garden. The Tremayne family made the gardens from the mid-eighteenth century to the early twentieth, and then history took them away.
The war and the silence
Before the First World War, 22 gardeners kept the place in order. Sixteen died in the war, and by 1916 only eight men remained; the gardens were let go, and for most of the century they slept under brambles. It is one of the quietest war memorials in Cornwall.
The rediscovery
Restoration in the 1990s, filmed for a Channel 4 series in 1996, brought the gardens back: the Jungle of subtropical tree ferns, the Italian garden, a ram pump over a century old feeding the lakes, and Europe's only remaining pineapple pit, warmed by rotting manure. The Mud Maid and the Giant's Head keep their places in the grounds, and the gardens are Grade II listed in the national register of parks and gardens.
Sources
Last checked: 2026-10-11