TEN minutes’ walk from Sloane Square Underground station, verdant respite awaits. Founded in 1673, the Chelsea Physic Garden feels like a secluded sanctuary in the middle of Zone 1, a serene enclave hidden within London’s chaos. Now bounded by, yet discreetly hidden from, the thoroughfares of Royal Hospital Road and Chelsea Embankment, it is the country’s second oldest Botanic Garden—Oxford pips it to the post by 52 years.
The Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London leased the plot from Charles Cheyne (of Walk fame), 1st Viscount Newhaven and owner of Chelsea Manor, then part of Middle- sex. The location was chosen not only for its fertile, south-facing land, but because it was directly on the north bank of the Thames, giving the Apothecaries—forerunners to today’s pharmacists—a place to moor the barge they used for ‘herborising’ expeditions: scout- ing the surrounding meadows for medicinal plants to bring back, grow and study.
The Apothecaries established their Hortus Medicus, as the Garden was then known, as an outdoor classroom to school their apprentices in what we now call herbalism or phytotherapy, teaching them which plants could heal and which could harm. After all, as deputy director Frances Sampayo cautions when she begins a tour of the grounds, ‘garden is an anagram of danger. In the right dosage, plants can either cure you or kill you’. A skull-and-crossbones sign planted next to a bed of poisonous specimens reinforces her point, although another reminds us that plants have developed poison to protect themselves—they can’t run away from their predators as animals can.
This story is from the September 06, 2023 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the September 06, 2023 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning
