St. Lucia Botanical Gardens

St. Lucia Botanical Gardens, also known as the Diamond Botanical Gardens, is home of the Diamond Waterfall and the oldest botanical gardens on the island of St. Lucia. The botanical garden is located in the town of Soufrière, in the South-Western region of the island St. Lucia.

The Sulphur Springs from which the town of Soufriere got its name are a weak spot in the crust of an enormous collapsed crater, the result of a volcanic upheaval of gigantic proportions that took place some 40,000 years ago. Similar hot springs feed the mineral baths on the Diamond Estate, built originally in 1784 for the troops of King Louis XVI of France, so they could benefit from the therapeutic waters.

The Baron de Micoud, Governor of St Lucia at that time, sent samples of the hot spring water back to France to be analyzed by the "Médecine du Roi". They were found to contain the same healing powers as Aix les Bains in France and Aix la Chapelle (or Aachen) in Germany.

The King was sufficiently impressed to allocate the necessary funds to construct a building with a dozen large stone baths fed by a catchment that still operates today. For about eight years they were put to good use, but then during the French Revolution and the Brigand War, the bath house, like so many buildings at the time, was totally destroyed. The baths gradually became overgrown and hidden by the bushes, until Andre du Boulay, the owner of Soufriere Estate and Diamond decided in 1930 to excavate and repair two baths for his own use. Much later the outside pools were built and made available to the public for a small fee. The Estate grounds leading to the baths and waterfall were already well established in citrus and cocoa. The area became further transformed in 1983 after the death of Mr. du Boulay, when his daughter Joan du Boulay (Devaux) took on the management of Soufriere Estate and Diamond Baths. The grounds were landscaped, and this naturally beautiful gorge was developed as an historical garden. Flowering shrubs and bushes of every type and colour were planted around and beneath the existing trees. Hibiscus, Heliconias, Ixora and the magnificent Balisier with their exotic blossoms and equally exotic names now brighten the gardens. Vanilla, a mamber of the orchid family, climbs up the trunk of the cocoa trees (a natural host) only bearing its valuable aromatic pods if each flower is carefully pollenated by hand.

Behind the baths a path leads to the beautiful waterfall whose water creates brilliant colours on the rock face by the minerals it contains. These gardens are a portion of Soufriere Estate, which was originally part of a 2,000 acre grant to three Devaux brothers from Normandy in France by King Louis XIII in 1713 in recognition of their services to Crown and Country. These Devaux brothers arrived in St Lucia in 1742 to claim their land and set up plantations. This Estate is still owned by the same families – The Devauxs and du Boulays.

Empress Josephine as a child played with her cousins, the young Devauxs, at Soufriere Estate. She was then Josephine Tache de la Pagone, whose father owned a property in Soufriere called “Mal Maison Plantation.” It is claimed that her last home outside of Paris was called “The Maison” in memory of her happy life as a young girl at this plantation.

Towards the end of the 18th century, two events took place which reduced the island of St Lucia to shambles. The first was the devastating hurricane of 1780, which destroyed most of the buildings, crops and roads. The second was the French Revolution when the guillotine was set up in the town of Soufriere, and many owners and their families lost their lives. The greatest destruction and devastation ever endured by St Lucia was as a result of the French Revolution. St Lucia changed hands fourteen times between the French and the English remaining British until independence in 1979.