New Cornwall golf course markets itself as ‘edible’

A golf course in Cornwall that will open in June is devoting every square metre of non-playing surface to be used to grow fruit and vegetables or encourage flora and fauna.

Gillyflower Golf, which is being launched by the same people who created the Eden Project and The Lost Gardens of Heligan, are marketing the site as a unique “edible” and green golf course.

Each of the nine holes on the course has fruit and nut trees and vegetables planted around it.

Gillyflower Golf. Image from Instagram

‘Every hole themed with an unusual crop,’ states its website. ‘Think Augusta set within a cornucopia of fruit, nuts and vegetables instead of azaleas and magnolias.

‘With permanently uncut and expanded areas of rough, narrow corridors of unique fruit and nut trees, and cunningly considered tee positions, both our ‘long’ front nine and ‘short’ back nine will present one of the most unique 18 holes of golf to be found anywhere in Britain.’

“Golf has a reputation for not being very green,” said Gillyflower’s director of golf, Joe Micklethwaite. “The idea here is to create a great course but making sure everything we do is going to be as good for the environment as possible. We all join in. It’s been a steep learning curve.”

Cherry trees are on one hole, apple trees on another and there are pineapple guava bushes next to the railway line, plus plans for a tea plantation on the slope of the second hole, while three Tamworth pigs are kept on site to help trim undergrowth in a more natural way.

Gillyflower Golf. Image from Instagram

Gillyflower has been created out of the remains of the old Lostwithiel Golf and Country Club, which closed in 2014.

Sir Tim Smit, one of the founders of the Eden Project, and his son, Alex, who both live nearby, fell in love with the sweep of land next to the River Fowey and though neither were golfers, decided to save it.

Rob Porrington, the head greenkeeper and one of the builders of the original course, said: “People can’t wait to get back now. It will be wonderful to see people playing golf here again.”