Tender ashore to the island of Tresco
where you will be met by your guide today.
Tresco is best known for it’s Abbey Gardens,
laid out by the remarkable Augustus Smith – a
wealthy merchant banker who purchased the islands from
the Duchy of Cornwall in the mid 1830s. Work on the
gardens commenced in 1834 on the site of the old Benedictine
Abbey. By building tall wind-breaks, Augustus Smith
(a botanist and plant collector) channelled the weather
up and over the network of walled enclosures he built
around the Priory ruins, and the three terraces he carved
from the rocky, south facing slope looking towards St
Mary's. In this way he maximised the generous clijmate
that Tresco ejoys thanks to the prevailing effects of
the Gulf Stream, climate is mild, with sunshine hours
generally greater than the UK average, rainfall less,
and winter frost and snow unexpected.
Tresco is thought of as a perennial Kew without the
glass - shrugging off salt spray and Atlantic gales
to host 20,000 exotic plants. Many of those plants would
stand no chance on the Cornish mainland, less than 30
miles away. Yet even at the winter equinox more than
300 plants will be in flower. All in all, the garden
is home to glorious species from 80 countries, ranging
from Brazil to New Zealand and Burma to South Africa.
Subsequent generations have continued the development
of the Garden, which is today a major attraction of
the islands.
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