The Eden Project

One of the most ambitious gardens ever conceived, the visionary Eden Project is a showcase for global bio-diversity and man’s relationship with plants.

Built in a disused clay pit near St Austell, Cornwall, two huge biomes create a living theatre of plants and people.

Three climatic zones house more than one million plants representing 5,000 species. The biomes stand on a single 890m long continuous foundation beam which weaves serpent-like around Eden’s greenhouse footprint.

The Eden Project was voted Project of the Decade at the Quality in Construction Awards. Eden picked up the award, voted for by people working within the construction industry, ahead of a host of other major projects including the Royal Bank of Scotland Headquarters and the Millennium Dome.

Construction of the project, undertaken by the McAlpine Joint Venture, started in 1998. Designed by architects Grimshaw, structural engineer Anthony Hunt Associates and landscape architect Land Use Consultants, Eden became a visitor attraction long before it opened, with more than 250,000 day-trippers queuing to watch its construction.

The project tells the story of man’s relationship with plants, and houses more than 5,000 species. It boosted the economy of the South West by £150million within the first year of opening, quickly becoming among the top five paid-for attractions in the UK.

Manhole Covers Limited was proud to be centrally involved with the design and supply of many specialist bespoke access covers for the original, and each new phase, of the Eden project, as this world famous site has evolved since its original construction in 1998.