Gardens and Gateaux at Shaldon Botanical Gardens

A picture perfect day, weather-wise, enabled the Gardens and Gateaux group to enjoy the Shaldon Botanical Gardens to the full, along with beautiful views.  Our guided tour began at The Castle with a short history of Maria and William Homeyard.  Mr Homeyard made his large fortune from understanding how to successfully advertise his invention of Liqufruta cough medicine. The Homeyards bought Ness cottage in Shaldon as a second home and began to create the Gardens, complete with a folly, known as The Castle.

We were shown a photograph of William standing outside The Castle, shortly before his death, in 1927. Not long afterwards, Maria purchased more adjacent land and extended the gardens and planted many trees and shrubs, plus created a series of ponds and a rill.  Sadly, the smaller ponds and rill became very overgrown, and despite efforts last year, there was too much water loss to get them flowing satisfactorily again. However, the largest pond is thriving and still home to a few goldfish plus a couple of newts were spotted hiding at the bottom.

Maria also paid for 54 houses to be built locally, roofing them with Cornish slate – as a nod to her family who lived in Cornwall. These included a row of 20 houses, compete with allotments and direct access gates to the Botanical Gardens, which were rented out at a preferential rate to the 12 gardeners she employed, as well as her other staff.

Maria continued as a benefactress in multiple ways to the village of Shaldon until her death in 1944, after which the estate fell into disrepair as the war was still on. Eventually, Teignmouth Town Council were persuaded to purchase the gardens, but very little attention was given to them until the Friends of Homeyards Botanical Gardens were formed in 1989, and they have been instrumental in restoring the gardens and worked hard to get Heritage Lottery Funding, mainly used to put a roof back on The Castle and to provide a small kitchen area and an inside toilet.

The volunteer run café raises money for several children’s activities during the year.

Our excellent guide, Lisa Pash, has spent 25 years researching the history of the Homeyards philanthropic work and the creation of the Gardens. She is available to do walk and talk tours in The Gardens for other groups, or to come and give talks at your local venue. Please email the shaldonbotanicals@gmail.com if you wish to contact her as there is so much more to tell.

There are photographs and more information contained in the book “Homeyards Gardens and Houses”, available for £10 from The Castle, Teignmouth Museum, Shaldon Post Office and by post via the Friends of Homeyards website.

The next meeting of Gardens and Gateaux is on Tuesday, 13th of August at the Strand Hall, Dawlish at 12:30 when we will be considering possibilities for the August outing.

Jenny Lancaster, convenor