A Garden of Simples
Londons Chelsea Physic Garden
December/January 1995
By Robbie L. Cranch & Gary Thomson
IN THE HEART of metropolitan London grows a
garden of living history: the Chelsea Physic Garden. It is the
oldest teaching garden in continuous use in the Western world, and
it is of particular interest to herb lovers because its purpose for
more than 300 years has been the study of useful plants.
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In 1673, at a time when ornamental gardens were rapidly
increasing in size and popularity, the Worshipful Society of
Apothecaries of London founded the four-acre garden alongside the
Thames. The apothecaries, who dispensed medications, attended to
patients, and often prepared and sold medicinal compounds of their
own, were charged as a guild with strict accountability for the
purity, honesty, and standard strength of their ingredients. As a
result, they had a lively interest in both member education and
plant research. One of the best ways to address these interests was
to create a “garden of simples” where apothecaries and their
apprentices could learn the identity, habits, and properties of
medicinal plants.
To distinguish their garden from the newly popular pleasure
gardens, the apothecaries identified their guild’s project as a
“physic” garden. Knowledgeable instructors accompanied students
along “herborizing” paths, guiding them in studying familiar and
exotic plants for their therapeutic qualities.
A walk through history
The Chelsea Physic Garden got off to a shaky start. The
apothecaries were not a wealthy guild, and operating funds were
hard to come by. In addition, apothecary John Watts, the curator,
lost interest in the garden during his advancing years, and new
plantings lacked direction and purpose.
Financial solvency came in 1712 when Dr. Hans Sloane purchased
the Manor of Chelsea and so became owner of the garden’s freehold.
Wealthy and influential, Sloane had studied at the garden during
his training as a physician. In 1722, he granted a lease in
perpetuity to the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries for £5 a year
“on condition that it be for ever kept up and maintained by the
Company as a physick garden.”
In the same year, Sloane appointed Philip Miller as curator. Son
of a market gardener, Miller soon gained a reputation for stubborn
excellence and obsessive secrecy in his procurement of new
plantings. Diligence, achievement, and notoriety marked his
forty-eight years of service. He planted numerous specimens from
Europe, such as tassel hyacinth (Muscari comosum), and from the
Americas, including balsam fir (Abies balsamea) and American
barberry (Berberis canadensis). He also acquired, via the Jardin
des Plantes in Paris, a specimen from Madagascar: Madagascar
periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus). Miller oversaw the export of
cottonseed to colonial Georgia to found the staple crop. And
throughout his tenure, he worked on his Gardeners Dictionary, the
first modern encyclopedia of horticulture, which ran into its
eighth edition during his lifetime. He also trained many botanists
who later assumed prominence in British horticulture.
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