Lost Gardens of Heligan Trip
Sat 06 May 2023 09:00 - Sun 07 May 2023 20:00
Trip Itinerary
Meet at Francis Close Hall north car park on morning of saturday 6th May.
File everyone into the two 9-seater minivans and drive 2hr 50min to first destination, The Garden House in Devon http://www.thegardenhouse.org.uk/
This is a 10 acre series of garden rooms and winding paths set amongst 16th century ruins, opening up to meadow areas and forest glades. Often described as a real Plantsman's garden due to the wide range of species throughout and the rich herbaceous borders. There is a main house and tea room here where people can buy a light lunch, scones etc. People can bring a packed lunch if they prefer or we can stop at a supermarket on the way to buy lunch for later.
After we've had lunch and spent a few hours exploring the gardens we'll hop back in the minivans and drive 1hr 20min to Newquay, where we've booked to stay at a hostel. For the late afternoon and evening we'll have a look around Newquay at the beaches, get some food and go for some drinks. Specific plans for this and group reservations will be made lcoser to the time.
We will sleep in bunk beds at the Hostel, with at least one female only room. At the moment we have two 10 bed rooms booked but we may be able to alter this if need be.
The next morning we'll have breakfast at the hostel before driving 40mins to The Lost Gardens of Heligan. It is an historic 200 acre garden, rejuvinated in 1990 after it was abandoned since WW1, the size of which made the project the largest garden restoration in Europe (spawning several TV programmes and books). The garden design is typical of 19th centrury gardenesque style with many different areas such as: an Italian garden; a wild area full of subtropical tree ferns; a rope bridge leading through dense forest; walled kitchen garden and many other little bits and areas. It is one of the most popular gardens in the UK, possibly in part due to its unique circumstance of having been totally overun by nature for almost a hundred years and then claimed back, leading to the kind of growth and natural development of the area that you wouldnt normally achieve from a consistently maintained garden estate. The below video link gives an introduction to the garden.
https://youtu.be/x_jswXk7cl8
We will spend the day here before gathering everyone up and leaving around 4-5pm. We'll drive 3hr 20min back to Cheltenham where we'll drop everyone off at Francis Close Hall car park around 7-8pm.
The cost to come is a first payment of £30 deposit, which will secure your place. This will be followed up in April by a second payment of roughly £30. This will cover transport, night at a hostel, breakfast sunday morning and entry to the two gardens.