Cornish gardens have it all: dramatic natural settings in coast or combe, a wet and mild climate yielding exotic and extravagant plant growth, an indefinable quality of foreignness. Antony has a magnificent early eighteenth-century house in an equally fine natural setting, Glendurgan is the repository of a plant-collecting dynasty who have lived there since the 1820s, while the beautifully restored Heligan retains all the charm of its Victorian heyday.
Caerhays boasts an unrivalled collection of camellias, rhododendrons and magnolias. Contemporary gardens like the vertiginous jungle encasing Lamorran House, Barbara Hepworth's sculpture garden and the ambitious landscape taking shape at Tremenheere, not to mention the world-famous Eden Project, are proof positive that Cornish gardens continue to be both generic and unique. Above all, as backdrop to these spectacular places, there is the sea.
