I SPY LONDON(15) the definitive DG guide to London's sights-worth-seeing Somewhere pretty: The Museum of Garden History Location: Lambeth Palace Road SE1 7LB [map] Open: 10.30am - 5pm Admission: £3 5-word summary: digging up our horticultural past Website:www.museumgardenhistory.org Time to set aside: about an hour
Given the amount of time that Britons spend tending their gardens, it's only right that there should be a national museum devoted to our horticultural history. What you might not expect is that this museum is housed in a deconsecrated church beside Lambeth Palace[photo], across the Thames from the Houses of Parliament. But there are some very famous people buried in the 900 year-old churchyard of St Mary-at-Lambeth, including two of the country's most famous gardeners, so this really is the perfect plot.
Inside the nave of the old church a small number of quirky garden-related exhibits have been laid out inside tall glass cases. You'd expect to see trugs and wheelbarrows, but maybe not a display devoted to seed packets, a shelf full of gnomes and a bright yellow tin of slug powder. Here I came face to face with the museum's amazing "Vegetable Lamb of Tartary" (it was believed for centuries that this mythical species of mini-sheep grew on a stalk from the ground, honest, until botanists proved it was nothing but an ordinary fern root). Along one wall is a 2000-year history of the British garden, via knot gardens, cottage gardens and big ostentatious stately gardens. Where the font once stood there's now an ambitious audio-visual exhibit detailing local Lambeth history. The foot of the nave is taken up by an extensive (and tasteful) giftshop, which sells packets of seeds grown on site as well as the more usual books and teatowels. And where the side chapel used to be is a small café, plus the big oak door out to the churchyard.
January probably isn't the best month to visit a garden museum's garden. The depleted knot garden was looking more brown than green, but there were still a couple of blue agapanthus in bloom to provide a slight splash of colour. The most striking tomb in the churchyard is that of Captain William Bligh [photo], the unfortunate victim of Fletcher Christian's Mutiny on the Bounty. Bligh's voyage was commissioned to collect various botanic specimens, and it was while harvesting breadfruit on Tahiti that his crew rose up and cast him adrift. He survived this ordeal, just, later retiring to the relative safety of landlocked Lambeth. Beside Bligh - in a tomb adorned with images of skulls, death and destruction - lie the two John Tradescants[photo]. John-the-elder started out as Head Gardener at Hatfield House in 1610, rising to a more royal position under King Charles I. Both John and his son were extremely keen on plant collecting, and travelled around the world to bring new species back to their new botanic garden in Lambeth. They founded a collection of curiosities called "The Ark", which became Britain's first pay-to-enter public museum. The Tradescants' collection ended up forming the nucleus of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. No doubt the two Johns would be pleased that this new horticultural anthology is housed much closer to home. by bus: 3, 77, 344, 507, C10
I SPY LONDON (15)
Given the amount of time that Britons spend tending their gardens, it's only right that there should be a national museum devoted to our horticultural history. What you might not expect is that this museum is housed in a deconsecrated church beside Lambeth Palace [photo], across the Thames from the Houses of Parliament. But there are some very famous people buried in the 900 year-old churchyard of St Mary-at-Lambeth, including two of the country's most famous gardeners, so this really is the perfect plot.
I SPY LONDON (15)
