Wild Week returns to The Lost Gardens of Heligan this May half term and you’re invited, to rediscover the wild, its importance, its beauty, and our place within it. Restore your wild side, hone your survival skills, and enjoy a week of creative outdoor play in your favourite half term habitat of Heligan.
Start your adventure by picking your tribe, choosing a species that lives in one of Heligan’s varied habitats. Will you be the clever and feisty fox, the dam building beaver, our nightime huntress the barn Owl or the fluttery flower loving magician, the Blue Butterfly?
Bring together your friends and family, paint your faces, create your wild head dress and get ready to get stuck into our wild activities. (Suitable for all ages.)
This year Wild Week is ‘Inspired by Wild Isles’, the recent BBC one natural history documentary series. Wild Week will bring you closer to learn about the incredible habitats right here in Cornwall, their astonishing inhabitants and why they are so beautiful, fascinating and important. Never has it been so vital but to protect the Wild.
‘Wildlife in the British Isles can be just as “dramatic and spectacular” as anything elsewhere’, Says Sir David Attenborough.
With the BBC series showcasing Woodlands, grasslands, and natural water, we welcome you to understand these important habitats found here at Heligan, get curious about the Wildlife who make Heligan and Cornwall their home, and to feel hopeful about the projects in place to protect it.
Discover our popular hunting and survival skills enclosure where the team from Canoe Cornwall will teach you how to throw an axe with the precision of a hunting fox, and to take aim and fire like a swooping owl, with our target practice lessons. What skills for hunting and survival in the wild will you learn? And how competitive will the parents become this year?
(Lessons are open to all ages on a first come first served basis)
Our wild outdoor play area awaits adventurers big and small to test your wild animal instincts: can you take off with style like an owl as you take on the zipwire? Sail like a beaver through our tunnels and balance with expert butterfly perfection along our challenging balance beams and wires? Leap like a fox as you explore the new play pieces recently created within our ever-expanding play area.
After you have explored, had fun and awakened your Wild side, it may feel time to wind down and chill out by our campfire, to toast some marshmallows and to take in the stunning scenery.
Learn some simple bush craft skills; try your hand at fire striking and work together with your friends and family to make rope bracelets and create your very own Wild Nature head dresses.
Venture down to our wildlife Hide to learn more about our recent re-introduction of beavers into our estate, to watch live video’s of our nesting barn owls and to watch the variety of bird species that make our hide their home. Why not stop by the ‘Voices from the Lost Gardens’ shepherds’ huts to engage and be entertained by the Springs interviews with ‘The dragonfly’, ‘The Bluebell, ‘The Longwool sheep’ and ‘The seven spot Lady bird’.
With nature inspired crafts and engaging photographic displays that tell the story of Wild Heligan and its residents, you will become inspired to keep introducing wildlife-based activities into your lives.
Our East Lawn outlet will be ready to serve up the best of Cornish ice-creams, snacks and refreshments and our Heligan BBQ will have a wild menu you won’t be able to resist.
All Heligan Wild Week activities are included within normal garden admission charges.
