Mud Maid of Heligan: Sleeping Beauty Garden Sculpture in Lost Gardens

Summary: Mud Maid of Heligan is a gigantic natural sculpture created by sibling artists Pete and Sue Hill for the Lost Gardens of Heligan near Megavissey, Cornwall.

view of coast from Heligan: roger geach, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

One of the ancestral homes of the landed Cornish family of Tremayne, Heligan estate is located in south central Cornwall. The county encompasses the traditional homeland of the Cornish people in the westernmost segment of England’s southwestern peninsula.

Lying on steep slopes on the eastern edge of the civil parish of St Ewe, Heligan (Cornish: helygen, “willow tree”) overlooks the adjoining civil parish, fishing port and village of Mevagissey, known as Lannvorek in Cornish.

The first known mention of Heligan occurs in the 12th century as an estate connected with the prominent Arundel family. Heligan estate entered into the Tremayne family holdings as a purchase in 1569 from Richard Grenville (ca. 1524–ca. 1577/1578), Member of Parliament, by Sampson Tremayne (ca. 1528–April 1593).

Two manor homes were built in the 17th century as Heligan passed down Sampson's line: Sampson's son William Tremayne (ca. 1558/1561-February 1614); William's son John Tremayne (1581–1665); John’s son Colonel Lewis Tremayne (ca. 1619/1620–1685); Colonel Lewis’ son Sir John Tremayne (1647–Feb. 20, 1694).

Around 1603 Sampson’s son William (ca. 1558/1561–February 1614) built a manor house in the Jacobean style associated with the reign of James (June 19, 1566–March 27, 1625) as King James I of England and Ireland (March 26, 1603, to his death).

In 1692, apart from the basement, William’s building was extensively rebuilt by his great grandson Sir John Tremayne (1647–Feb. 20, 1694) in the Dutch- and Huguenot-influenced William and Mary architectural style. The style was associated with William Henry of Orange (Nov. 4, 1650–March 8, 1702) as King William III of England, Ireland and Scotland (Feb. 13, 1689, to his death) and his co-regnant spouse, Mary (April 30, 1662–Dec. 28, 1694) as Queen Mary II.

Heligan’s 1,000 acres include gardens that owe their creation to Reverend Henry Hawkins Tremayne (July 27, 1741–Feb. 10, 1829). To achieve his dream of great, themed gardens in the 19th century Gardenesque style, Reverend Hawkins drew inspiration from touring such grand gardens in his homeland: Blenheim Palace’s English landscape park designed by Capability Brown (Aug. 30, 1716–Feb. 6, 1783) in Oxfordshire; Park Place’s Ragged Arch, also known as Conway’s Bridge, designed by Humphrey Gainsborough (1718–Aug. 23, 1776) in Berkshire; and Stowe House’s landscape garden, with Palladian style temples by William Kent (ca. 1685–April 12, 1748) and naturalizing elements by Capability Brown, in Buckinghamshire.

Among Reverend Tremayne’s timeless contributions was a pineapple pit, which now remains as Europe’s only extant, working Georgian exemplar. Pineapple pits hearken to the Victorian era as a method for cultivating pineapples in cold climates.

Heligan’s gardens flourished until World War I (July 28, 1914–Nov. 11, 1918). With the wartime demise of many in the estate’s workforce and with changing priorities in the war's aftermath, Heligan’s gardens deteriorated, hiding under brambles, ivy, laurel and fallen timber for almost seven decades.

Restoration projects envisioned with the gardens' rediscovery in 1990 have succeeded in transforming Heligan’s secret gardens into thriving landscapes known as the Lost Gardens of Heligan.

Among a bevy of accolades bestowed upon the time-capsule gardens is recognition of the gardeners' lavatory and storeroom, known as the Thunderbox Room, by the Imperial War Museums as a living memorial in 2013.

Giant's Head with montbretia (Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora) in bloom: Giant's Head: Gemma Louise Lowe, CC BY ND 2.0, via Flickr

In 1998 Cornwall-based sibling artists Pete and Sue Hill were commissioned to create two giant, natural sculptures for Heligan. The imaginative sculptures are sited along the Woodland Walk, which links the ticket office to the section named the Jungle, a south-facing, steep-sided valley garden of four linked ponds rimmed with the British Isles’ largest collection of palms and tree ferns.

Giant’s Head is the first of the Hills’ creations to greet visitors embarking on the scenic Woodland Walk. A gigantic tree stump exposed by northwestern Europe’s great windstorm of Jan. 25–26, 1990, serves as an enormous skull blanketed with mind-your-own-business (Soleirolia soleirolii) as green-hued skin and plumed with montbretia (Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora) for spiky hair. The giant’s eyes represent glass and pottery chips retrieved on site.

The Mud Maid emerges realistically from the ground as a sleeping beauty. Timber and windbreak netting comprise the hollow framework that, coated with sticky mud and clothed in ivy, shapes her somnolent outline. A mixture of cement, mud and stone forms her face and hands. Montbretia and woodsedge (Carex spp.) serve as the Mud Maid’s hair.

The Giant’s Head and the Mud Maid continue in the 21st century as two of many popular attractions at Heligan.

Lost Gardens of Heligan: if you go
Apart from being closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the Lost Gardens are open every day.

Schedule of annual opening hours:
spring/early summer (April 1-July 24): 10 a.m.-6 p.m.;
Theatre Month (July 25-Aug. 23): Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m.-7:30 p.m.; Sunday through Monday, 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m.;
late summer (Aug. 24-Sept. 30): 10 a.m.-6 p.m.;
autumn/winter (Oct. 1-March 31): 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Contact information
address: The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Pentewan, St.Austell, Cornwall, PL26 6EN
phone: +44(0)1726 845100
email: info@heligan.com

Sleeping Beauty at Heligan ~ Mud Maid: Tony Hisgett (ahisgett), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

view of coast from Heligan: roger geach, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_view_from_Heligan_looking_towards_the_sea._-_geograph.org.uk_-_735827.jpg

Giant's Head: Gemma Louise Lowe, CC BY ND 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/gemmalouiselowe/4596769992/

Mud Maid: Tony Hisgett (ahisgett), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/hisgett/19198097959/

For further information:

Burke, John, and John Bernard Burke. A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland. Vol. II: M to Z. Henry Colburn, MDCCCXLVII (1847).
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/08/cape-henry-lighthouse-lit-1792-on.html

House, Christian. "The Lost Gardeners of Heligan." The Telegraph > History > World War One. Aug. 2, 2014.
Available @ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/11007666/The-lost-gardeners-of-Heligan.html

Polsue, Joseph. The Complete Parochial History of the County of Cornwall, Compiled From the Best Authorities & Corrected and Improved From Actual Survey. Vol. I. Truro: William Lake; London: John Camden Hotten, 1867.
Available via HathiTrust @ https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b2928597

Smit, Tim. The Lost Gardens of Heligan. A Channel Four Book. London UK: Victor Gollancz, 1997.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/08/cape-henry-lighthouse-lit-1792-on.html

"Timeline." The Lost Gardens of Heligan > The Story > Introduction.
Available @ http://heligan.com/the-story/heligan-timeline/