In 1987 Sir Tim Smit KBE moved to Cornwall where he and John Nelson together ‘discovered’ and then restored the Lost Gardens of Heligan. Tim remains a Director of the gardens to the present day.
Sir Tim Smit read Archaeology and Anthropology at Durham University, this began a lifelong passion for regeneration and working to put things into good heart.
Following occupations embracing his many interests from Archaeology through music to wreck diving, Rare Breed animal husbandry and building restoration, in 1990 He ‘discovered’ and then restored ‘The Lost Gardens of Heligan’ with John Nelson. Of which he remains a Director.
This is now one of the UK’s best loved gardens having been named ‘Garden of the Year’ by BBC Countryfile Awards (Mar 2018). Tim’s book ‘The Lost Gardens of Heligan’ won Book of the Year in 1997.
Tim is today Executive Chair and Co-founder of the multi award-winning Eden Project in Cornwall. Since its opening in 2001, over 23 million people have come to see a once sterile pit, turned into a cradle of life containing world-class horticulture and startling architecture symbolic of human endeavour and our dependence and unbreakable part in the systems of the natural world.
