Storm Goretti decimates famous Cornwall gardens

Some of Cornwall's historic gardens have been decimated by Storm Goretti, with many trees brought down.

Head gardener Darren Little said almost 100 of the trees at St Michael's Mount, near Penzance, had been felled by winds recorded by its weather station to have been 111mph (179km/h) at one point.

Gary Long, head of Trewithen near Grampound Road, said a quarter of the large mature trees, some of which were 250 years old, had been felled by the storm on Thursday.

Referencing the storm which devastated south-east England in 1987, he said: "This will be our 'great storm'. Historically, it's a reset now."

Little said the trees that had been felled by the winds on the Mount had been pine trees aged between 20 and 90 years old, and more would have to be felled as they had been uprooted by the gusts.

He said the clean-up would take between three and four months and would be complicated by the challenge of getting machinery to the tidal island and its steep gradient.

Long said the Trewithen team had noted 50 fallen trees but "we've almost stopped counting now because there's trees under trees - the domino effect - so we don't know".

He said one of the storm's victims had been an Acer cissifolium, the tallest of its type in the British Isles.

Five beech trees had fallen in the valley area, nine very large trees had fallen across the drive blocking access and on the east side "a massive lime and a massive beech had flattened a whole corner of the garden", he added.

Long said the pine and fir trees which had been planted as a windbreak some 200 years ago had fallen first.

He said they would have to take more damaged trees down and the camellias, a flowering plant, had also been badly affected at Trewithen - a Cornish word which means house of the trees.

Long said they would have to recover, replant and start again in some areas of the garden.

"This will be our great storm," he said.

"In 1987, the south-east of England got hit and Kew Gardens was really hit devastatingly. This will be ours."

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