We arrived in St Austell after 4pm, and headed first to The Lost Gardens of Heligan. The gardens, at their zenith late in the 19th century, fell into disrepair after WW1, when 16 of the 22 gardeners died. They have been restored.
Below: Sculpture by Susan Hill 'The Mud Maid'
Below: View to nearby town of Mevagissey from The Lost Gardens
Mevagissey
Below: Mevagissey, on the south Cornish coast
Below: Mevagissey Harbour. We had a drink at a pub overlooking the harbour.
Below: Mevagissey
Charlestown Below: Charlestown, two miles from St Austell. The harbour and beach is owned by Square Sail, a company which owns and sails a small fleet of tall ships.
Below: Charlestown is a village of "Don't" signs!
The Eden Project
The Eden Project is a vast environmental development in a disused English China Clay pit, near St Austell in Cornwall. In 1991 when I was teaching Humanities in Wimborne, one of the first topics I had to teach was about this declining mining industry and its landscape. The students had to undertake a project making suggestions for uses for the pits; most came up with leisure centres. But what has taken place here is much more vast.
Two enormous biomes replicate growing conditions for tropical and Mediterranean plants. Outside, in the soft English rain (well, not always, but it was raining when we were there!), gardens more typical of the British Isles thrive.
Below: The rainforest biome (left) and the Mediterranean biome (right)
Below: A before and after sign at the complex, showing a biome of the project and the china clay pit as it was.
Below: The biomes and the educational centre.
Below: Many plants are for sale. It always amuses me to see oxalis on sale in England, where it is a garden plant. In Australia it is a noxious weed that many gardeners spend large amounts of their time trying to eradicate. This is oxalis triangularis, endemic to Brazil.
Below: A setting in the rainforest biome
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