CORNWALL GARDENS TRUST

Dear Members 

First of all, I must thank Jean Marcus for her very efficient editorship of our excellent Journal since 2003. The Journal has always been most professionally produced and the wide range of contents has meant that there is always something to read immediately or to keep for reference. I know that our new editor, Trish Gibson, will prove to be a very worthy successor to Jean. Trish has an MA in Garden History from Bristol University, has worked for the BBC and also sat on the Garden History Society’s publications’ committee, and been their webmaster. Her biography of the garden designer and landscape architect Brenda Colvin – Working for Splendour - is to be published this month.

This year’s interesting selection of articles includes Pamela Long’s update on the Tudor Garden at Trerice which describes how the work there has continued and the very successful links maintained with St Newlyn East Primary School. Mackenzie Bell writes on the development of Northwood Gardens, Nigel Mathews briefs us on the Trust’s history over its 21 years and Peter Herring introduces the Great Trees of Cornwall project.

A highlight of my first year as Chairman was the ‘Way Forward’ presentation at Antony where we were roused to action by Gilly Drummond, President of the Association of Gardens Trusts. We had gathered together planners, representatives of statutory bodies and those with a specific interest in Cornish gardens to make us all aware of the special heritage we have here. This impetus may well be very opportune as with the credit crunch (I can’t get away without mentioning it) and, one assumes, less money available for foreign holidays, Cornwall may well gain from its considerable tourist potential. So it is up to all of us to promote our county and in particular our parks and gardens, continuing to be vigilant when they are threatened or neglected. Our excellent and varied garden visits continue to be a good way of discovering just what treasures we have, and by becoming a recorder or accessing the archival material one can learn to appreciate historic and modern gardens in greater depth.

The said ‘crunch’ may also stimulate a greater interest in growing food at home. The burgeoning allotment movement is an aspect of this, and so the part we play in educating schoolchildren to appreciate the importance of gardening should have tangible and edible results. The CGT bursaries and awards assist future horticulturalists and designers in learning their trade which will then be put to use in the county’s gardens and nurseries, and, in the case of the Micropropagation Unit at the Duchy College, Rosewarne, will actually save rare or endangered specimens. Ros Smith’s article updates us on this remarkable project.

Finally, the editor has asked me to amplify my ‘Cornish credentials’ which are somewhat sparse but I am certainly Celtic: my father was born in Ireland, my mother in Scotland and I happened to be born in Pakistan! My grandparents came to live at Lelant in the 1930s; one uncle went to the Camborne School of Mines, another married an artist and lived in St Ives, and my aunt, Catherine Bent, after service with the WRNS, developed her hidden talent as a water diviner and worked for many years with Visicks at Perranwell as their dowser. My mother, a war widow, returned to Cornwall from India and worked on General Sir Francis Tuker’s flower farm in Mawnan Smith. I went to school at the convent; firstly, at Kerris Vean, Wood Lane, until it moved to Penmere Manor. Eventually we moved to Ireland but my family and I have always returned to Cornwall to visit friends and relations, and now in retirement we live – where else but Mawnan Smith!

Dr Angela Stubbs