The Castle Garden of Gornesti is easy to find. Going to Reghin from Târgu Mureş, the village of Dumbraveni is followed by Gornesti. In the centre of the village we turn left and from this side-way we will see the garden.
Map of the road from Târgu Mureş to the Castle Garden of Gornesti.
Gornesti lays 15 km north-east of Târgu Mureş, on the left bank of the river Mureş. The village is famous for the Castle of the Teleki family and the surrounding garden.
The building was originally built as a fortified castle between 1462-65 by István Erdélyi. King Matthias mentions the castle in a diploma in 1478 as a royal castle (Castrum Nostrum). In 1675 Mihály Apaffi, the voivod of Transylvania donates it to Mihály Teleki. Since then it has been the property of the Teleki family. The castle was enlarged and fortified by Mihály Teleki between 1686 – 1687. By the end of the XVIII. In 1771 they started rebuilding the castle in Baroque style. Plans were made by András Mayerhoffer, on the request of count József Teleki, thus it resembles the so called Grassalkovich-style buildings around Pest. Reconstructions were finished around 1792. The building is U-shaped, the middle part of the building forms a cupola. The structure of the building follows the structure of a calendar: it has 52 rooms and 365 windows.
In 1792 the garden was reconstructed as well as a French garden.
The French garden was remodelled in English style at the beginning of the past century. Unlike French gardens, English gardens avoid geometrical compositions, straight lines. In spite of all irregularities some rules still exist: there must not exist axis that would divide the garden into section.
This type of garden ignores all sorts of formalities and golden rules. It uses the following elements: winding pathways among the accidentally arranged trees and bushes, unexpectedly appearing wild flower carpets, meadows, hills, alleys, un-mown grass, marshes, pond surrounded by reed and iris, bridges, arbours.
As an interesting element of the garden we should mention the several-hundred-years Ginkgo biloba tree. This species is considered a fossil as they have no congeners. The only species of the class of Ginkgophytas lives in East China, most probably propagated by monks. It is an ancient species, its conspecifics lived 270 million years ago.