Lanhydrock

A beautiful house & garden in Cornwall

It's our last day in Cornwall and we're very sad to be leaving this beautiful place. The holiday could not have been better and although it's been showery the past couple of days, it hasn't stopped us getting out and about.

After packing up the car we said goodby to our hosts Alan and Mike (Sue was at work) and called into Bodmin to a highly recommended bakery to get some cornish pasties to take back to Geoffrey. Then we drove on to call in for a look at Lanhydrock house and garden before leaving Cornwall.

Barb at Lanhydrock House

"Call in" probably doesn't quite describe the five hours we ended up spending there. It was magnificent and worthy of a detailed inspection of both the house and the lovely gardens. In fact there was only time to see the nearby formal gardens....there is much much more. In fact they hire out bicycles so you can cycle through the bike paths around the gardens because they are so extensive.

and that's just the gate house

Sisan chats to the butler

It is quite some way from the carparking area to the house. so we waited for the motorised buggy to take us down. Even the gatehouse is impressive and the house!....well it is just gorgeous too! Fifty rooms are open to tourists but there is still much more than that.It was a bit like Audley End in Essex in that we got to see the old kitchens and servants quarters as well as the main reception rooms and bedrooms of the masters of the house.

anyone for a roast?

The scullery

the lumber room....the family travelled a lot (with just a few cases!)

Everything was beautifully maintained and it looked as if the family had just stepped out for a moment and left it just the way it was, frozen in a bygone time.
Once a busy household with nine children, it ended up being handed to the National Trust as there were no heirs to inherit the property and title.What a shame!

now that's a dining room

table set for dinner

the heir's sitting room

the nursery

victorian dolls house

the little girl's room

the schoolroom

The National Trust and English Heritage who keep these beautiful old properties open to the public and maintained in their former glory are to be congratulated. It would be a crime to see these places fall into disrepair and crumble into ruins. All that history would be lost. The volunteers, some of whom even dress in period costume to lend authenticity, really know their stuff and are only too willing to share their knowledge about the estate and the family who lived there and the staff who worked there.

the mistress' bedroom

her private sitting room

the reception room

the other end of the reception room

looking out on the gardens from the library

the huge library

We ended up have lunch in the converted old stables. It was a simple meal (there is also a restaurant inside the main house), but we know there's pasties for tea so we didn't want a big meal anyway. It was lovely looking out over a wonderful open vista of the vast estate gardens.

The formal gardens are set out with precision around the main house, but beyond them are other gardens with flowers, herbs and  the kitchen gardens supplying produce for the house.
In the flower garden, they have  helpfully provided maps of the plants so you identify what the flowers and shrubs are. I have developed such an enthusiasm for the gardens here. The climate lends itself so well to beautiful flowers and I just love all the cottage gardens and hanging baskets of flowers to be seen when we're just driving around the villages.

formal gardens

the chapel behind the house

the avenue of trees to the carpark

Susan caught the buggy up to the carpark, but I decided to walk up as there was quite a queue. By the time I'd reached the top of the long avenue of trees I was hot ,sweaty and puffing. The buggy option was a good one. We soon cooled off and got underway for the journey home. Luckily we didn't leave a day earlier and get caught in the traffic heading to the Glastonbury Festival which is on this weekend just a few miles from where Geoffrey lives. We had a good clear run through and were home in time for tea.

Eden Project

A garden like no other......

I was really excited to be going to visit the Eden Project. These gardens were created in the late 1990s and finally opened in 2001. The brainchild of Tim Smit who also masterminded the reclamation of the Lost Gardens of Heligan. What is remarkable about them is their unlikely location' They sit in the volcano like hole made by a disused china clay mining pit and the three main exhibition areas are housed in futuristic domes such as one might expect to see if you'd landed on the moon sometime in the future.

the biomes of the Eden project

driftwood sculptures

The first view of the gardens is breathtaking! You walk out onto a platform looking down on the pit and it's really a WOW! moment. They have made a clay pit impossibly beautiful.
Because it's a long way down there are buses from the carparks, which are helpfully labelled with fruit names to help you to remember which one to get off at, and then a tractor-pulled land train to take you from the visitor centre at the top down to the lower gardens where the domes are.

the land train

sculpture of a bee

The whole thing has been immaculately planned and executed. No wonder millions of people visit here each year. It's a "must do" if you're ever in this part of the world. It's one of those experiences that you feel might change your life....or at least the way you see things. I was incredibly impressed and moved by it all.

And yes.....there's LOTS of photos! I'm not even going to apologise. I just couldn't help myself.

Here's the recipe for Eden:
* Take an exhausted, steep sided clay pit 60 m deep, the area of 35 football pitches with no soil, 15 metres below the water table
* Carve the pit into a flat-bottomed bowl and landscape the sides.
* Mix and add 83,000 tonnes of soil made from re-cycled waste.
* Add superb architecture that draws inspiration from nature to remind us of human potential
* Colonise with a huge diversity of plants, many that we use every day (but don't often get to see)
* Harvest the water draining into the pit and use it to irrigate the plants (and flush the loos!)
* Season with people from all walks of life.

There you have it! You just have to admire the vision, the passion and the absolute pig-headedness and the "nothing is impossible" attitude that got this project done.

We went into the Mediterranean Biome.Here they have recreated landscapes of the Meditterranean, South Africa and California. Amongst all the plants are scultures included the great bronze statue of Dionysus the bull, standing on his hind legs straddled between the wild and cultivated lands and amazing drifwood sculptures of creatures byHeather Jansch.

Next we walked through to the rainforest biome and immediately noticed the change in climate!
This felt like home to me...and indedd it should. The climate is controlled to mimic the Tropics of Capricorn (where I grew up) and Cancer and the humidity of 90% was doing in some of the visitors who had to resort to the haven of the "cold room", thoughtfully provided for heat affected visitors.
It is the largest rainforest in captivity! It even has quite a big waterfall and a tree canopy walk so you can look down on the forest below.
The whole thing is wonderfully educational and encourages young people to engage with the idea of the importance of conservation and rainforest preservation.

After all that heat and humidity it was time to find a drink! We'd noticed a nice restaurant in the Mediterranean biome, so we headed back there to sit in the shade and drink cooling cider. There's a wonderful big refectory style caffeteria in the link between the biomes. With all it'scoloured bunting it resembles a massive street party. Indeed the Big Lunch is a concept that Eden supports. Communities and neighbourhoods are encouraged to hold big outdoor lunches together so they can get to know each other.
Our neighbourhood back in Maleny does this at Christmas each year....but a lunch mid year might be nice...........

There's a big concert area, which we didn't go in. It's there to try to attract the youger people to the Eden project and it does this very successfully. The newest building is called "the Core". The roof of this building resembles a hedgehog!
Inside it's all about education. The installations are interactive and engaging for all ages.

I was sad to leave this beautiful place! We walked for some time around the open air gardens which are also dotted with sculptures, mostly made from recycled rubbish. It was a truly inspiring day.

Afterwards , because it was so close, we went in to St Austell for a cuppa and to try and find some haberdashery we required for our craft projects. St Astell is a large town and had a very lovely stone cathedral, but the shopping area seemed a bit run down.

On the drive back I spotted a pyramid shaped hill that looked like Mt Fuji with a snow capped peak. It was in fact a china clay slag heap! They don't use this type of slag heap now after one collapsed and killed people below in the landslide.

Mt Fuji?