Website: https://www.gillyflowerfarm.com/
Gillyflower Farm
Lower Poscoe, Lostwithiel
PL22 0HQ, Cornwall
info@gillyflowerfarm.com
Tel.: 01208226977
Plans for Sir Tim Smit’s new project submitted
Souce: 18.02.2021 – https://cornishstuff.com/2021/01/18/plans-for-sir-tim-smits-new-project-submitted/
Detailed plans for the latest venture from Eden Project co-founder Tim Smit have been published.
Sir Tim shared a video last year about his plans for Gillyflower Farm on the site of the former Lostwithiel Golf Course and now a planning application for the development has been submitted to Cornwall Council.
… a 16-hole golf course (formerly 18 holes) with planning status for leisure development (no longer agriculture), which had been cut off from the water supply, with no electricity and a history of course management which had left the fairways depleted of biodiversity dependent on four types of grass for hardy golf use, which underneath had formed into a tough thatch and was soil nutrient-poor, and degraded of mineral content and nitrogen.
Source: https://www.gillyflowerfarm.com/our-journey-
The application is to build a “new centre for the teaching and learning of agronomy” along with an owner/manager’s house and 20 accommodation “drums”.
Agronomy is the science and technology of using plants in agriculture for food, fuel and land restoration.
Under the plans Gillyflower Farm will have a main building – The Hub – which will have facilities for lectures and learning along with a cafe/restaurant, exhibition spaces, market area and cookery school.
There will also be 20 “drums” where visitors can stay and, at the opposite end of the site, a house for the owner/manager.
A design and access statement submitted with the planning application explains that Sir Tim, along with his son Alex, purchased the former golf course in 2016.
They bought the site with a view of turning two-thirds of it into “the greatest rare orchard in Europe”. To date 2,972 fruit trees have been planted and there are plans for 1,000 more.
The site has been renamed Gillyflower Farm after an apple variety which was discovered in a cottage garden near Truro in around 1813.
Cornish Stuff Homepage
The statement explained: “Sir Tim and Alex have drawn on their experience and knowledge of working at The Lost Gardens of Heligan over the last 30 years (in protecting rare heritage varieties of fruits and vegetables that have disappeared from the popular food canon), and their ambition for Gillyflower Farm is to grow these rare European vegetables and allow the public to taste them, via a new cookery school and tasting kitchen.
“Their objective is to cultivate a range of crops that can be grown by partner farmers and become a new range of economic crops that allows Lostwithiel to develop into a centre for the development of new food crops.
Read more
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Eden Project’s Tim Smit plans cookery school in Lostwithiel
The co-founder of the Eden Project has submitted plans to build a cookery school and accommodation on an old golf course.
Sir Tim Smit wants to create a “world class” facility on the former site of Lostwithiel Golf Course in Cornwall.
Mr Smit wants to grow “rare European vegetables and allow the public to taste them, via a new cookery school and tasting kitchen”.
No date has been set for when Cornwall Council will decide on the plans.
Mr Smit bought the site with his son Alex in 2016 and has already planted nearly 3,000 fruit trees with plans for 1,000 more.
The planning application states they want Lostwithiel to “develop into a centre for the development of new food crops” as reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
The new teaching facility and 20 accommodation units will be aimed at “would-be horticulturalists, amateur gardeners and horticultural students that will visit and stay at Gillyflower Farm”.
The application also sets out plans for “a microbrewery, distillery, cider and fruit presses, and of course, a fruit storage area designed to enable the fruit to ripen naturally”.
Read more
In 2019, as 2,972 fruit trees were planted in terrible weather, we fell in love with the name Gillyflower – probably the finest Cornish apple, and which make up 20% of our apples. We have planted 20 acres of them. We have supplemented the Gillyflower with a further 9 rare Cornish apple varieties.
Source: https://www.gillyflowerfarm.com/our-journey-
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Lostwithiel: Sir Tim Smit’s horticultural centre plans rejected
Source: 14.04.2022 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-61111955
A plan by Eden project co-founder Sir Tim Smit for a horticultural centre has been rejected by councillors.
The proposals for Gillyflower Farm near Lostwithiel in Cornwall had more than 300 objections.
Lostwithiel Town Council said the proposal would “decimate” the local economy.
Cornwall Council’s Strategic Planning Committee voted seven to four against the application, against officers’ recommendations.
Under the plans the development would create the Gillyflower Farm Education Centre for Horticulture, Agronomy and Cookery with a cafe and shop along with 19 holiday lodges and new parking and access arrangements.
In the report, planning officers stated the proposal would “benefit” the agricultural industry.
But some locals feared it would spoil their views, take trade away from local shops and increase traffic and pollution.
Richard Whitehouse of the Local Democracy Reporting Service, said Sir Tim put up a “passionate defence” of his scheme at the meeting.
He said: “Sir Tim said it was a worthy project that would bring great benefits to Lostwithiel and sustainable agriculture and horticulture would help Cornwall in the future.”
Video
Rick Stein’s Cornwall: Episode 6 of 15
Rick journeys inland from the majestic Camel Estuary to one of Britain’s finest vineyards, where he joins in harvesting the grapes to discover that the Cornish weather is perfect for making some of the best wine in the country.
Just off Pentire Point, as the sun sets, Rick rides the gentle swell of the North Atlantic with an old friend, casting his line to hook Britain’s fastest fish, before firing up the barbecue to cook his catch with a recipe inspired by a trip to Goa.
Rick joins Tim Smit, best known for starting the hugely successful Eden Project, who reveals to Rick his new and ambitious idea in Cornwall.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000r6t7
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About Sir Tim Smit, KBE
Sir Tim Smit KBE was born in Holland on 25 September 1954. He read Archaeology and Anthropology at Durham University. Tim worked for ten years in the music industry as composer/producer in both rock music and opera.
n 1987 Tim moved to Cornwall where he and John Nelson together ‘discovered’ and then restored the Lost Gardens of Heligan. Tim remains a Director of the gardens to the present day.
Tim is Executive Vice-Chair, and Co-founder of the award-winning Eden Project near St Austell in Cornwall. Eden began as a dream in 1995 and opened its doors to the public in 2000, since when more than 19 million people have come to see what was once a sterile pit turned into a cradle of life containing world-class horticulture and startling architecture symbolic of human endeavour.
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The Lost Gardens of Heligan
Website: https://www.heligan.com/the-story/introduction
Abbreviated history
The Lost Gardens of Heligan (Cornish: Lowarth Helygen, meaning “willow tree garden”) are located near Mevagissey in Cornwall, England and are considered to be amongst the most popular in the UK. The gardens are typical of the 19th century Gardenesque style with areas of different character and in different design styles.
The gardens were created by members of the Cornish Tremayne family from the mid-18th century to the beginning of the 20th century, and still form part of the family’s Heligan estate.
Before the First World War, the garden required the services of 22 gardeners to maintain it, but that war lead to the deaths of 16 of those gardeners, and by 1916, the garden was being looked after by only eight men. By the 1920s, Jack Tremayne’s love of Italy, which had earlier inspired the Italian Garden, led him to set up permanent home there, and lease out Heligan. The house was tenanted for most of the 20th century, used by the US Army during the Second World War, and then converted into flats and sold, without the gardens, in the 1970s. Against this background, the gardens fell into a serious state of neglect, and were lost to sight.
After the childless death of Jack Tremayne, the Heligan estate came under the ownership of a trust to the benefit of several members of the extended Tremayne family. One of these, John Willis, lived in the area and was responsible for introducing record producer Tim Smit to the gardens. A group of fellow enthusiasts and he decided to restore the garden to its former glory, and eventually leased them from the Tremayne family.
The restoration, which was the subject of a six-part Channel 4 television series produced by Bamboo Productions and Cicada Films in 1996, proved to be an outstanding success, not only revitalising the gardens but also the local economy around Heligan by providing employment. The gardens are now leased by a company owned by their restorers, who continue to cultivate them and operate them as a visitor attraction.
The gardens include aged and colossal rhododendrons and camellias, a series of lakes fed by a ram pump over 100 years old, highly productive flower and vegetable gardens, an Italian garden, and a wild area filled with subtropical tree ferns called “The Jungle”. The gardens also have Europe’s only remaining pineapple pit, warmed by rotting manure, and two figures made from rocks and plants known as the Mud Maid and the Giant’s Head.
Additional information:
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Gardens_of_Heligan
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