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| July 16th | Henry Hawkins Tremayne (Birth) |
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Henry Hawkins Tremayne (1741 – 1829) was the owner of the Heligan Estate near Mevagissey. A wealthy landowner and a successful mine investor, Tremayne created the gardens around Heligan House (now well known as the Lost Gardens of Heligan). Educated at Blundell’s School in Tiverton and Balliol College, Oxford he was ordained in 1766 and became Curate of Lostwithiel. Ordination was a typical role for the second son in a wealthy family but Tremayne’s elder brother, Lewis, died suddenly leaving him the heir to the family estates. His wealth increased further with his marriage to Harriet Hearle of the wealthy Hearle family of Penryn and he then also inherited estates in Sydenham in Devon. Whilst fulfilling the traditional roles of the gentry – Parliament, Justice of the Peace etc; – Tremayne’s first love was horticulture and he converted the parkland into sheltered gardens at Heligan by planting protective belts of conifers, building walled gardens and glasshouses and digging a pineapple pit. Tremayne’s descendants continued developing the Heligan gardens and, by the start of World War I, the family employed eighteen gardeners. Twelve volunteered to fight and only three returned. After the Armistice, the then owner John ‘Jack’ Tremayne donated the house as a soldiers’ convalescent home and moved to Italy. The gardens were neglected until the estate was inherited by Sir Tim Smit in 1990.
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