The son of Tom HERON, who brought his family to West Cornwall in 1925, Patrick was born in Leeds. Heron Sr had come to the South West at the invitation of Alec George WALKER to manage the business of CRYSEDE, the design and silks company based in Newlyn.

Patrick's training in art was at the Slade School in London, where his intelligence and socially-aware attitudes blossomed. He was a Conscientious Objector during WWII, and worked on the land instead.  Later he returned to Cornwall and worked for Bernard LEACH at the Pottery, returning to painting full-time after the war ended.

Patrick purchased and established his permanent home just outside Zennor, Cornwall in 1955.  The dramatically placed Eagle's Nest was the former home of the Andrew-Westlake family and the Arnold-Forster family, both of whom had strong ties to the arts communities in West Cornwall.

In 1978 Heron suggested a novel idea for an exhibition to his neighbour Alethea GARSTIN that a show should be arranged for the works of her father, Norman GARSTIN and her own paintings together. Michael CANNEY was willing to organise this at NAG, and the resulting show was an enormous success, reviewed widely and nationally.  In his capacity as a popular art critic, Heron was known to believe that Alethea's work was 'as good as Vuillard' (p114, Hardie 1995).

Heron's work was not only as a painter and teacher of art, but also as a social and environmental campaigner, and influential art critic, both locally and nationally. His support for the Tate St Ives was influential in its establishment, and a memorial to his life and work takes the form of a wall-sized stain glass window in the vibrant colours of his pallette and to his own design. His bibliography is large, and a record of his writings is kept in WCAA files.

He died on March 20th 1999 in Zennor, and is buried in the Zennor Churchyard.