Hydrangea Valley, Trebah Gardens, Cornwall
Trebah is a 26-acre sub-tropical garden situated in Cornwall, England, UK, above the Helford River. In 1831 Trebah was acquired by the Fox family. Trebah was first laid out as a pleasure garden by Charles Fox, a Quaker polymath of enormous creative energy who paid meticulous attention to the exact positioning of every tree. His son-in-law, Edmund Backhouse, for Darlington, took the work further. In 1907 Trebah was bought by Charles Hawkins Hext and inherited on his death in 1917 by his wife, Alice, who died in 1939. From 1939 to 1981 the garden fell into decline, since the substantial Trebah Estate was sold off in small packages, of which the house and garden was one. During the Second World War, Trebah was used for military purposes and the assault on Omaha Beach in Normandy was launched from Polgwidden Beach, at the foot of Trebah Garden. One of the subsequent owners was Donald Healey, the motor car designer, who removed some of the concrete military structures and provided a boathouse on the beach. In 1981, Tony and Eira Hibbert bought Trebah as their retirement home. They were persuaded to give up the first three years of retirement to restore the garden. Indeed, when Major Hibbert agreed to three years, little did he know it would become a quarter century. The decision, he eventually wrote, "has given us the happiest twenty-four years of our lives and had we not taken up the challenge we'd have been dead long ago of gin poisoning and boredom.” The garden was opened to the public in 1987 and by 1989 visitor numbers had reached 36,000. The Hibbert family then gave the house, garden and cottages to the Trebah Garden Trust, a registered charity, to ensure that the garden could be preserved for future generations. In 2000 visitor numbers had exceeded 105,000 and a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund allowed Trebah to build the new 'Hibbert Centre', to rebuild Alice Hext's seat, restore the nursery and carry out major landscaping and garden improvements.
Size: 3413px × 5120px
Location: Trebah Gardens, Cornwall, England, UK
Photo credit: © will Perrett / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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