Tour Overview
A trip into Cornwall in spring is always a rewarding experience. The daffodils at home may have barely pushed their green fingers through the late snows, but down here they are in full bloom along with a host of other bulbs and early flowers. Our spring jaunt to Cornwall takes in two special events which celebrate this uplifting time of year, the Cornwall Garden Society’s Spring Flower Show at Boconnoc and the Eden Project’s Bulbmania.
Eden's 20-strong team has planted more than a million bulbs all over the vast outdoor arena surrounding the world's two biggest greenhouses - each one by hand. The result is the Bulbmania festival, one of the most spectacular horticultural shows in Eden's history, with a huge range of flowers from familiar British natives to exotics from the Mediterranean and beyond. A more traditional scene greets us in the picturesque 18th century landscape of Boconnoc, host to the Cornwall Garden Society's Spring Flower Show. This is a classic English flower show with impressive floral displays, keenly fought competitions, trade stands and exhibitions.
Also included are visits to our old friends at the Lost Gardens of Heligan, Pine Lodge, Lanhydrock and Trewithen, which are always a pleasure to see and complete a colourful and rejuvenating spring break.
Friday 9 April 2010
We depart from London Paddington by train at 10.00 am approximately (regional connections/departures and first class up-grades available on request). In the early afternoon we will arrive in Cornwall and alight at St Austell, where we will be met by our comfortable coach and transfer to our first garden visit - the Lost Gardens of Heligan. The award winning gardens, asleep for more than seventy years, are the scene of the largest garden restoration project in Europe. In the spring of 1991, the Gardens of Heligan lay under a blanket of bramble, ivy, rampant laurel and fallen timber. A year later the restoration team opened the gardens to enable the public to share in the excitement of their discovery.
We continue to our hotel, the comfortable Bay Hotel, Newquay (or similar) to arrive in time for dinner. All rooms have en suite facilities, hairdryer, television and hospitality tray. The evening will be at leisure to relax.
Saturday 10 April 2010
Today following our full English breakfast we will travel to Boconnoc, the late-18th century landscape garden which is the superb setting for the Cornwall Garden Society’s Spring Flower Show. This classic English flower show is noted for its range of impressive floral displays and keenly fought competitions, along with trade stands and plant sales, exhibitions and sideshows.
Our next visit is to Lanhydrock Gardens. Now the property of the National Trust, Lanhydrock was the home of the Robartes family from 1620 until 1953. The magnificent seventeenth century house is surrounded by nineteeth century formal terraced gardens which formed part of a scheme of improvements overseen by George Gilbert Scott in 1857. Beyond the terraced gardens are areas of informal pleasure grounds which were developed from the mid nineteenth century with many choice trees and shrubs. The parkland with the famous beech avenue was first enclosed in the mid seventeenth century, and remains one of the finest examples in Cornwall. Lanhydrock Gardens also feature a formal courtyard garden and a woodland garden.
We return to our hotel in time for dinner.
Sunday 11 April 2010
Today, following breakfast, we will travel to the exciting Eden Project, near St Austell. The Eden Project is a 50 metre deep, 34 acre china clay pit which has been reclaimed and transformed to house 2 controlled environment plant conservatories, the larger of which recreates the climate of the Tropics and displays some of its plants such as cotton, rice, rubber, orchids, bamboo and rainforest flowers. At its highest point it reaches 50 metres, taller than Nelson’s Column. The second conservatory recreates a warm temperature climate and houses plants from Southern Africa, the Mediterranean and south western America, with orange trees, olives, grape vines and hundreds of colourful flowers. The great attraction at this time of year, however, is the Bulb Mania Festival, a spectacular horticultural display involving over a million bulbs which have been laboriously planted by the Eden team, sometimes in surprising places such as the steep slopes of the Mediterranean Outdoors area, with the result that tulips and daffodils appear among the spiky exotics of the Med. Other bulbs include hyacinths and early-flowering narcissi from the Scilly Isles.
Our last visit today is to the remarkable Pine Lodge Gardens. Set in 30 acres of parkland Pine Lodge boasts a pinetum arboretum, a marsh garden and many rare and tender plants. The plants are labelled for easy identification. Dinner is served at the hotel in the evening.
Monday 12 April 2010
Sadly today we must return home, but we have time for one more visit this morning. Trewithen’s reputation amongst connoisseurs of gardens has always been of the highest but it is only recently that its great beauty and horticultural importance has become known to a wider public. Despite the loss of many mature trees in the great storm of 1979, it remains very much a woodland garden designed on the grand scale, with evidence of the great age of plant collecting to be found everywhere. Many of the flowering trees and shrubs were grown from seed sent from China, Burma and Assam and are now bigger than their parent plants, having flourished in the mild damp Cornish climate. From the South Lawn, smooth gently curving paths lead into numerous bays and glades, full of spectacular blooms and constantly offering new vistas and glimpses to tempt you on. From very early spring there is dramatic colour to be enjoyed in the huge Magnolias and the vast array of Camellias.
Following our visit we will return to St Austell railway station, where we will board our train back to London, where we expect to arrive in the evening.
3 nights at the comfortable Bay Hotel, Newquay (or similar) on a dinner, bed and English breakfast basis. All rooms with private facilities.
Return standard class rail travel from London Paddington to St Austell. Comfortable coaching in Cornwall.
Entrance to the Spring Flower Show at Boconnoc, the Eden Project and the gardens of Pine Lodge, Trewithen, Heligan and Lanhydrock.
Services of a Brightwater Holidays tour manager.
Single room supplement £45.00
Insurance £19.00 (66 years & over £38.00)
London Paddington Railway Station