Tresco is the second largest of the islands of the Isles of Scilly. History goes back to prehistoric times and a megalithic burial chamber from the Bronze Age (4,000 years ago) shows that it has been inhabited during a long time. Was it maybe part of the Lyonesse Kingdom?
King Henry I gave it to Tavistock Abbey, which established a priory on Tresco. King Henry VIII abolished the monastery in the 16th century during the dissolution of the monasteries. With the priory absent a difficult time started for the islanders. The Spanish Armada, after that the Civil War, when the islands changed hands several times and then the Napoleonic Wars all caused havoc on the islands.
But the tide turned in 1834, when Augustus Smith was appointed as Lord Proprietor of the Scillies. He broke with the tradition of absentee landlords and settled on the island of Tresco.
He selected a site close to the Priory to make his home. The original Priory had fallen in disrepair, and he built a new house nearby naming it Tresco Abbey. And next to his new house he started creating a garden around the priory ruins. The fifth generation Smith now live at Tresco Abbey, and the family has since the garden began its existence continued to introduce new species.
The Abbey Gardens are now home to some 20,000 plants from ore than 80 countries and more than 4,000 different specimens from across the southern hemisphere and the the subtropics, and they all flourish in the Atlantic climate protected by walls and granite terraces.
The Abbey Gardens are without doubt the main attraction of the island and have deservedly got a global reputation. We visited as a family during our stay on the islands in the summer of 2010 and I returned with other photographers now in November 2022. I came across a pavilion, where I remembered I took a photo of Mikee in 2010 and asked one of my friends to capture a photo of me in a smilar position in 2022.
