The Spirit of Harvest

Autumn is the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and marks the end of the growing season and, of course, the harvest. Since ancient times it has been a celebrated season and, when the crops had been harvested and stored, heralded the beginning of a new year. The Celts believed that, at the end of Harvest, the veil between the world of mortals and spirits was temporarily dissolved. This was the origin of Halloween.

Let us invite you to this year’s autumn celebration and share with us the bounty of our gardens and estate, from the Kitchen Garden to the fields and woodland: vegetables, fruit, herbs, seeds, meat, flowers and even timber - all from Heligan’s Garden & Estate.

Harvest is a significant time of year for us. It is at a momentous point in the calendar, where we can fully appreciate and share all of the hard work and effort that our team has given, during the last twelve months and celebrate the fruits of our labour.

For October half-term from Saturday 25^th October to Sunday 2^nd November Heligan gets spooky as it celebrates Cornish folklore and Halloween. Visitors can take part in potion and wand making crafts then brave a walk around the ‘Wise Witches of Nature’ trail. Here explorers will encounter tales of Cornish folklore; guardians of the natural world entwined in Cornwall’s rich harvest traditions. The trail concludes with the chance to toast a marshmallow over a warm fire pit. On top of this, there will be donkey and goat walks and ponies in paniers, an ancient harvest technique used to move produce across the land. 

Across the fortnight there will also be daily traditional corn dolly workshops, apple-pressing demonstrations (Saturdays and Sundays only) and an impressive harvest produce display.