One of the key challenges for the Eden Project team was to find a suitable location on which they could build their vision. This took months. But it was Tim Smit who eventually rang the architects one day to say, "I've found the ideal site, a real beauty".

What he had found was an old china clay pit at Bodelva in Cornwall. It had many of the things the desginers were looking for. It was south facing, sheltered and had a spectacular crater big enough for 35 football pitches! You could also see the sea.

But for all its beauty the designers had some big problems to overcome. The site was in the shape of an upside-down cone, tended to flood easily and was also unstable. But perhaps the biggest problem, given the nature of the project, was that there was no soil.

Undaunted, a team was put together and after a long, hard hunt for financial backers to match the Millennium Commission, building work began 15 October 1998.