We decided on balance, we’d rather be warm and wet than cold and wet, so we didn’t linger outside in the grounds of The Eden Project, we went in to the rainforest biome,
It took a while for my lens to clear and even then, it was hard to capture the scale, I’ll settle for telling you it is massive.
You can walk along the canopy walkway, taking you high amongst the tree tops.
Beautiful orchids amongst the lush foliage.
This reminded Mr Uphilldowndale and I of our visit to Borneo, many many moons ago, we were privileged to stay in a tribal longhouse; I wonder, and worry if that part of the world still has it’s rainforest.
We ambled around in and amongst a party of lovely school children from Gordano school, who were having a ball.
But he was determined, he stayed in the centre of the platform, whilst I had a peek over the side, it was a long way down,
In this shot you can see the next batch of children patiently waiting to come up (not the place for overcrowding!)
The platform and the steps are suspended from the roof by wire ropes, so the steps sway a little, nothing too dramatic, but enough to slow down even a teenager!
So you’ve discovered, reclaimed and restored the lost gardens of Heligan, what do you do for an encore, what is the next great quest? How about building the worlds largest green houses in a china clay quarry, in the heart of Cornwall? That is what Tim Smit and friends did next. The Eden Project, this is what they started with.
As with nature the Eden Project is constantly morphing and changing, and as with Heligan it has a delightful dash of creativity, with added playfulness.
Part of the vision for the Eden Project was that the domes should remain hidden in the depths of the quarry, revealing themselves as you approach. As we approached, the main entrance, revealed to us on the information boards, photos of Mr Uphilldowndale’s late aunt and uncle, they are in the foreground, the photo captures them perfectly, with their bright enquiring minds and love of lively conversation. Sadly, they are no longer with us, they died in 2009 and 2011, they lived not to far away in South Devon and were early visitors to Eden, the public were encouraged to visit, before it was even finished, to engage with the dream and watch the project grow.
If you garden you soon come to realise that you are trying to keep control of a force far greater than you, or any number of gardeners, turn your back on your plot and it will revert to a path of its own. Nature will reclaim.
In the benign climate of Cornwall the gardens of Heligan, went there own way, like so many gardens of the ‘big house’ after WWI, when the carnage of war wiped out a generation of men, who worked the pleasure grounds and productive gardens. Heligan house was sold, but the land was not. This has resulted in a time capsule.
Hop on over to the website for the story of how this magical place was rediscovered, or better still read Tim Smit’s book, I really enjoyed it, Smit, Rob Poole and John Nelson’s drive and determination to restore the gardens was both epic and obsessive! You can only start to imagine how overgrown it must have been.
We were there before the crowds, Spud the dog was welcome on a lead, we headed down into the jungle. Full of tree ferns, palms and tropical plants, gathered with such vigour by the Victorian plant hunters; we swung by the Burmese rope bridge. Spud wasn’t allowed on here ( and we know just how much a dogs leg can cost to repair). Spud had to sit on the bank and admire his masters aura, from afar.
Cornwall’s gardens are famed for their camellia and azalea.
As well as the time capsule of the old, their was the new, with sculpture and art, you can’t keep a good plant down.
My favourite part was the productive gardens, there you can really get a feel for the people who worked here. I just love the anemones in this image, got to be one of my favourite flowers.
But it wasn’t just fruit veg and flowers, these are bee boles
I had plant pot envy.
The head gardeners bothy
The curved shadow are from the distinctively shaped panes of glass
The magnificent pineapple frames, heated by horse muck.
Rare, exotic and hard to grow, Pineapples were a symbol of great status and wealth in Victorian times. A pineapple on your dining table meant you were a person of discernment, style and affluence.
I loved this green house, its light, warmth and scent, and because it reminded me of the painting by Eric Ravilious
The poignancy of the effects of WWI on the Heligan gardens if perhaps best capture, by the Thunderbox room (the toilet) written on its white washed walls ‘Do not come here to sleep or slumber’ and a list of signatures and a date 1914.
It strikes me I still have a whole holidays worth of photographs awaiting blogging, from our week in Cornwall, back in March. If I don’t get a wiggle on, I’ll think they are to ‘unseasonal’ to post. I’d best get cracking.
A heron in the field pond, I don’t think I’ve seen one wade in quiet so deep before, not quite up to his neck in it, this is about as deep as it gets (too deep for a chicken we established).
Nature has been dead in tooth and claw, kestrels are nesting in a dead tree in a neighbouring field, but the jackdaws are mobbing them, I hope they manage to rear their chicks, and I don’t think the three dead goldfish found in the yard are the herons work, more likely to be the cat’s antics.
We meandered our way through Shropshire, and the South Wales coalfields, to reach Cardiff, our boy Joe has been working in Cardiff on his industry placement year, what a cracking time he’s been having (he’s studying civil engineering at Swansea University). There is a very handy campsite, near the city centre, (book it is you can it is fully booked more often than not) this allowed us to catch up (and feed, what student doesn’t want mum and dad to turn up and take them out for dinner?) with Joe in the evenings and we got to have a good mooch around the city, with Spud the dog, close at hand.
We were on the doorstop of The Museum of Wales, at opening time, along with a large number of school parties, but we were swift of foot, and savvy to getting ahead of school parties, before teacher could raise their clipboard, we were off and in, to see astronaut Tim Peake’s *landing capsule, which has been touring the UK, it’s got a bit of a Sutton Hoo look about it, in the background, the parachute with which it drifted down to earth or came down with a bump, depending whose story you believe.
It was very well lit, so you could see inside, not much room to swing a cat…
it looks kind of basic doesn’t it, compared to the smart phone or tablet you might be reading this blog on?
We were comforted to see, that if all else fails, there is a ring bider or two you can refer to for instructions what to do next.
Not sure how you recharge it though.
It looks like it took a bit of a knock, I’m sure a bit of body filler or gaffer tape would sort it though, no harm done.
*Tim Peak is a bit of a hero in our books, not only for what he did in space, but with what he continues to do educating and encouraging young people into studying STEM sciences and with his involvement of The Scout Association
I want to go to Big Pit, said Mr Uphilldowndale, after we’d been wallowing in the history of the industrial revolution in Ironbridge. ‘That sounds interesting’ I said, ‘but I’m not going down it.’ For decades Mr Uphilldowndale has been regaling me with his description of what it was like, back in the very early 1980’s, when he went down to the 48 inch thick coal face of Emley Moor colliery and there was no way I was going to be wriggling around 300 feet underground. Far to claustrophobic for my liking.
So we headed south into Wales and rolled up at Big Pitt,
Mr UHDD went to check the lie of the land and came back to tell me that I wouldn’t have to crawl around I could stand up throughout our tour, that admission was free (I had been feeding the dogs) and that we were going down the pit now, as they were expecting 70 school children to arrive in twenty minutes time. So cajoled by added headroom and propelled by the thought of not wanting to be caught up amongst 70 children in a confined space we were on our way down Big Pit.
The mine is covered by HM Inspectorate of Mines regulations, because it is still classed as a working pit.[4] Visitors wear a plastic hard hat, safety lamp, and a battery on a waist belt which weighs 5 kilograms (11 lb). Visitors must also carry on their belt a rebreather, which in case of emergency will filter foul air for approximately one hour, giving a chance for survival and escape.[40]
The tour guides are men who used to work at the coal face, or either Big Pit or another colliery, so you got a real flavour of what it was like ‘in their day’ and plenty of history too. Who can start to imagine what it was like for children, working underground. There was enough to see and hear about keep my attention from wandering to the fact, I was in a coal mine, most of the time. I was surprised about the amount of woodworm in the pit props and timbers though! They can’t treat the timber with chemicals, they just have to keep on replacing it.
They had some beautiful shiny miners lamps, I’ve one at home, it looks a little neglected to compared to Big Pit’s lamps. No canaries down the mine but they did have some in the lamp room (I hadn’t been reunited with my camera at this point!)
Plenty to see around the mine
Many of the original buildings are accessible, from the explosives store,
to the medical room,
And displays of equipment and ephemera.
The locker room, what a lot of lockers! I’d never thought about the fact a miner would have two lockers, one for his coal soiled clothes and one for his clean clothes.
I can imagine both would have been popular.
The arrival of ‘pit head baths’ must have transformed the daily routine, for the miners and the women at home… I love these towels, their style is on the edge of my childhood memory.
