Episode 108 - Sir Tim Smit KBE 'discovered' and restored 'The Lost Gardens of Heligan' with John Nelson and is the founder of the Eden Project.
Sir Tim Smit KBE (Knight of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) studied Archaeology and Anthropology at Durham University. This began a lifelong passion for regeneration and putting his passion and energy into his work. He has followed his 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 and remains a director. Heligan is now one of the UK’s best-loved gardens having been named ‘Garden of the Year’ by BBC Countryfile Awards in March of 2018. Tim’s book The Lost Gardens of Heligan won Book of the Year in 1997.
Today, Tim is 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. Eden contains world-class horticulture and startling architecture symbolic of human endeavor and our dependence and unbreakable part in the systems of the natural world.
