Chelsea Physic Garden Explained

Chelsea Physic Garden
Location:Chelsea, London
Coordinates:51.485°N -0.1628°W
Area:3.5acres
Founder:Worshipful Society of Apothecaries
Species:5,000

The Chelsea Physic Garden was established as the Apothecaries' Garden in London, England, in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries to grow plants to be used as medicines.[1] This four acre physic garden, the term here referring to the science of healing, is among the oldest botanical gardens in Britain, after the University of Oxford Botanic Garden. Its rock garden is the oldest in Europe devoted to alpine plants and Mediterranean plants. The largest fruiting olive tree in Britain is there, protected by the garden's heat-trapping high brick walls, along with what is doubtless the world's northernmost grapefruit growing outdoors. Jealously guarded during the tenure of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, the garden became a registered charity in 1983 and was opened to the general public for the first time.

The garden is a member of the London Museums of Health & Medicine.[2] It is also Grade I listed in the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England by English Heritage.[3]

History

The Worshipful Society of Apothecaries initially established the garden on a leased site of Sir John Danvers' well-established garden in Chelsea, London. This house, called Danvers House, adjoined the mansion that had once been the house of Sir Thomas More. Danvers House was pulled down in 1696 to make room for Danvers Street.

In 1713, Sir Hans Sloane purchased from Charles Cheyne the adjacent Manor of Chelsea, about 4acres, which he leased in 1722 to the Society of Apothecaries for £5 a year in perpetuity, requiring in the Deed of Conveyance that the garden supply the Royal Society, of which he was a principal, with 50 good herbarium samples per year, up to a total of 2,000 plants.[4]

That initiated the golden age of the Chelsea Physic Garden under the direction of Philip Miller (1722–1770), when it became the world's most richly stocked botanic garden. Its seed-exchange programme was established following a visit in 1682 from Paul Hermann, a Dutch botanist connected with the Hortus Botanicus Leiden and has lasted until the present day. The seed exchange programme's most notable act may have been the introduction of cotton into the colony of Georgia and more recently, the worldwide spread of the Madagascar periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus).

Isaac Rand, a member and a fellow of the Royal Society, published a condensed catalogue of the garden in 1730, Index plantarum officinalium, quas ad materiae medicae scientiam promovendam, in horto Chelseiano. Elizabeth Blackwell's A Curious Herbal (1737–1739) was illustrated partly from specimens taken from the Chelsea Physic Garden. In 1781, the collection of specimens was donated by the Royal Society to the British Museum in Bloomsbury, then moved in 1881 to the Department of Botany of the British Museum in Kensington, now the Natural History Museum.

Sir Joseph Banks worked with the head gardener and curator John Fairbairn during the 1780–1814 period. Fairbairn specialized in growing and cultivating plants from around the world.

Parts of the garden have been lost to road development – the river bank during 1874 construction of the Chelsea Embankment on the north bank of the River Thames, and a strip of the garden to allow widening of Royal Hospital Road. What remains is a 3.5acres patch in the heart of London.[5]

The Trustees of the London Parochial Charities took over management of the garden in 1899 and for the majority of the twentieth century, it was used for scientific research and was not open to the public.[6] In 1983, the garden became a charity and was run by a private board of trustees, and a few years later in 1987, it was open to the general public for the first time.[7]

In 2001 the then director Rosie Atkins led changes that improved the educational role of the garden.[8]

As of 2020, the chairman of the trust that manages the garden is Michael Prideaux.[9] His predecessor was Sarah Troughton.[10] The garden director is Sue Medway. As of 2020 the garden is raising funds to restore the historic glasshouses on the site.[11]

Current garden

As of October 2017, the garden included 5,000 plants, in areas such as:[12]

References

Notes

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Chelsea Physic Garden. History.
  2. Web site: Medical Museums. medicalmuseums.org. 26 August 2016.
  3. Web site: Chelsea Physic Garden, Kensington and Chelsea - 1000147. Historic England.
  4. Stungo . Ruth . 1993 . The Royal Society Specimens from the Chelsea Physic Garden 1722-1799 . Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London . 47 . 2 . 213–224 . 10.1098/rsnr.1993.0028 . 531786 . 11623188 . 43440960 . 0035-9149.
  5. Book: Minter, Sue . Apothecaries' Garden . The History Press . 1996 . 9780752495279.
  6. Elliott . Charles . November–December 1998 . The apothecaries' plot . Horticulture: The Art of American Gardening . 95 . 9 . Gale Academic OneFile.
  7. Web site: History . 2023-05-11 . Chelsea Physic Garden . en-GB.
  8. May 2024 . Top gardeners honoured for their impact. . The Garden . 15.
  9. Web site: Trustees . 25 October 2017 . Chelsea Physic Garden.
  10. https://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/article/1017/Lord-Lieutenant-of-Wiltshire Lord-Lieutenant of Wiltshire
  11. News: Prynn . Jonathan . 9 December 2020 . Million pound appeal launched to save threatened glasshouses at Chelsea Physic Garden . Evening Standard .
  12. Web site: Plant collections. Chelsea Physic Garden.