Glendurgan Garden Cornwall
Glendurgan Garden is a National Trust garden in a steep valley running down to the tidal estuary of the Helford River on the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall, a garden of exceptional beauty created from 1820 onward by the Fox family of Falmouth that uses the sheltered, frost-free microclimate of the valley to cultivate tender plants of unusual variety and size. The combination of the naturalistic woodland garden, the famous laurel maze, the views down the valley to the Helford River below and the collection of exotic trees and shrubs of considerable age and stature makes Glendurgan one of the most rewarding gardens on the Cornish coast.
The Fox family, Quaker merchants of Falmouth whose commercial success in the shipping business provided the resources for both the garden's creation and the plant collecting that enriched it, laid out Glendurgan in the Romantic tradition of naturalistic woodland gardens that was fashionable in the early nineteenth century. The steep valley sides are planted with a mixture of native and exotic trees including enormous specimens of tulip tree, handkerchief tree, giant redwood and a remarkable range of temperate zone species that thrive in the Cornish climate, their scale and age giving the garden an established quality that belongs to an earlier era of garden-making.
The laurel maze at Glendurgan, planted in 1833 in the valley bottom, is one of the oldest surviving hedge mazes in England and provides one of the garden's most popular features, the dense laurel hedges creating an authentic maze experience of considerable entertainment. The path leading from the maze down to the small hamlet of Durgan on the Helford shore, past the thatched cottages of the village, extends the garden visit into the broader landscape of the estuary and the coast.
The Helford River visible at the bottom of the valley and accessible from Durgan beach provides a beautiful coastal context for a garden visit.