Cornwall explorer tops £100,000 for hospital garden

Robin Hanbury-Tenison defied atrocious weather to walk up 1,378ft (420m) Brown Willy in his fundraising for the garden

A veteran explorer who recovered from coronavirus has raised more than £100,000 for a "healing garden" at the Royal Cornwall Hospital.

Robin Hanbury-Tenison, 84, from Bodmin, Cornwall, spent five weeks in intensive care at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth in 2020.

He believes a healing garden at the hospital helped him recover.

Staff from the Royal Cornwall Hospital paid him a surprise visit at his home to thank him for the fundraising.

Robin Hanbury-Tenison gets a surprise visit from staff at the Royal Cornwall Hospital

The specially-adapted garden at the hospital in Truro will be equipped with hospital equipment so patients can experience the outdoors under care.

Staff hope it will open in the summer and Mr Hanbury-Tenison intends to carry on raising money for healing gardens at hospitals around the country.

Mr Hanbury-Tenison said he remembered being "wheeled out" of his ward at Derriford into the garden and "knew I was going to live".

"It was a manifestation of the power of nature," he said.

He returned home in May 2020 and five months later he was battling Storm Alex to climb Cornwall's highest peak, 1,378ft (420m) Brown Willy, to raise money for the garden at the Royal Cornwall Hospital.

The Derriford garden which Robin Hanbury-Tenison said gave him confidence that he was "going to live"

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