Tresco Abbey Gardens
After a night of gentle rocking and rolling across the Celtic Sea between the south-west coast of Ireland and the south-west corner of England, we spent a relaxing morning on board the National Geographic Endeavour, making our way towards the Isles of Scilly. This provided the opportunity for some final on-board sessions. Tom Heffernan started off with a gripping account of the effects of the Black Death on medieval British society, sparking off a lively debate on the medical niceties of the plague and its implications for today’s world. That was followed by David Cothran’s underwater footage of his dives in Ireland, at Innishmurray, Innishmore on the Aran Islands, and below the cliffs of Moher. We watched enthralled as the kelp forests revealed their secrets: shy Wrasse taking shelter there, alongside the hydroids, topshells, and the sea urchins grazing on the kelp itself, while the visiting saithe cruised by looking for an opportune meal.
The highlight of the day, however, was our visit to Tresco Abbey gardens. Because of the shallow water and the challenging sea conditions, the National Geographic Endeavour had to position in the lee of the Isle of St Mary’s, presenting us with a memorable one-mile-long Zodiac passage to our landing place. Once ashore, however, we were soon embraced by the balmy climate of Tresco. Despite its northerly latitude, Tresco is bathed in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, providing a climate which is untypically frost-free and mild. This enabled the garden’s creator, Augustus Smith, who leased the islands from the Duchy of Cornwall from 1834, to develop an exotic garden with plants drawn from the five Mediterranean floral regions of the world – South America, North America, South Africa, the Mediterranean basin, and Australia and New Zealand. This included eucalyptus, camellias, palms from China, Mexico, Chile and Australia, New Zealand ‘Flame Trees’, and King Proteas. The garden was ornamented with work such as the beautiful sculpture of Gaia in South African marble by David Wend, and by antiquities gathered from the surrounding islands, like the 1900-year-old Roman altar, not to mention the picturesque ruins of a real-life medieval Benedictine abbey, whose brethren had probably been forced to flee by the piratical activities of the 15th-century islanders.
Walking back to the jetty in the afternoon sunshine, past drifts of escaped sky-blue Agapanthus, past remains of 17th-century installations left over from the English Civil War, it was a brief glimpse of a beautiful and ancient island slowly yielding to the rising sea levels, like the mythical island of Arthurian legend with which it is associated.
After a night of gentle rocking and rolling across the Celtic Sea between the south-west coast of Ireland and the south-west corner of England, we spent a relaxing morning on board the National Geographic Endeavour, making our way towards the Isles of Scilly. This provided the opportunity for some final on-board sessions. Tom Heffernan started off with a gripping account of the effects of the Black Death on medieval British society, sparking off a lively debate on the medical niceties of the plague and its implications for today’s world. That was followed by David Cothran’s underwater footage of his dives in Ireland, at Innishmurray, Innishmore on the Aran Islands, and below the cliffs of Moher. We watched enthralled as the kelp forests revealed their secrets: shy Wrasse taking shelter there, alongside the hydroids, topshells, and the sea urchins grazing on the kelp itself, while the visiting saithe cruised by looking for an opportune meal.
The highlight of the day, however, was our visit to Tresco Abbey gardens. Because of the shallow water and the challenging sea conditions, the National Geographic Endeavour had to position in the lee of the Isle of St Mary’s, presenting us with a memorable one-mile-long Zodiac passage to our landing place. Once ashore, however, we were soon embraced by the balmy climate of Tresco. Despite its northerly latitude, Tresco is bathed in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, providing a climate which is untypically frost-free and mild. This enabled the garden’s creator, Augustus Smith, who leased the islands from the Duchy of Cornwall from 1834, to develop an exotic garden with plants drawn from the five Mediterranean floral regions of the world – South America, North America, South Africa, the Mediterranean basin, and Australia and New Zealand. This included eucalyptus, camellias, palms from China, Mexico, Chile and Australia, New Zealand ‘Flame Trees’, and King Proteas. The garden was ornamented with work such as the beautiful sculpture of Gaia in South African marble by David Wend, and by antiquities gathered from the surrounding islands, like the 1900-year-old Roman altar, not to mention the picturesque ruins of a real-life medieval Benedictine abbey, whose brethren had probably been forced to flee by the piratical activities of the 15th-century islanders.
Walking back to the jetty in the afternoon sunshine, past drifts of escaped sky-blue Agapanthus, past remains of 17th-century installations left over from the English Civil War, it was a brief glimpse of a beautiful and ancient island slowly yielding to the rising sea levels, like the mythical island of Arthurian legend with which it is associated.
