Motley Talk about London's Physic Gardens
Why did medieval monks think that a goose was a fruit, and could be eaten in Lent? And why were Physic Gardens important?
Dear friends, spring seems a good time to talk about the Physic Gardens of London. From medieval times monasteries and great houses had large gardens for growing plants for food, herbs for flavouring, flowers for perfume and plants used for dying wool and fabric. But a Physic Garden, also known as an ‘apothecary garden’, was for growing herbs & plants used for healing, and a place to teach physicians and apothecaries (who prepared and sold medicines made from plants). 'Apothecary' derives from the Ancient Greek word 'apotheca' which was a store for spices and herbs.
There were many great gardens cultivated by religious orders in London. In 1253 it was noted there were the Benedictines at Westminster, Franciscans at Greyfriars, Dominicans at Blackfriars, Crutched Friars near Tower Hill (they carried a crutch or staff with a cross on top), and Augustinians in Old Broad Street & Bishopsgate. Only the garden at Westminster Abbey remains. The rest have mostly been covered by buildings.
As well as places of worship and living quarters for the monks and lay people, monasteries usually included guest houses for travellers, and infirmaries for the sick. Westminster Abbey had gardens to grow food for their large community. There was also an orchard, fishponds and beehives. Westminster College Garden was originally their Physic Garden, where they grew herbs and plants for healing; it has been in cultivation for over 900 years. Nowadays it is an ‘ordinary’ garden that you can visit as part of your ticket for the Abbey (though the garden is sometimes closed for events). There is also a small beautiful cloister garden nearby, that is worth a visit.
While the monks were praying & planting their gardens in medieval England, the trades were forming Livery Companies. These trade associations formed to guarantee that a member was trustworthy and fully qualified, and that the goods they produced were of reputable quality. Also, they regulated apprenticeships to the trade. The term ‘livery’ is because of the formal dress worn by each company. There are still 110 livery companies based in the City of London and each is known as 'The Worshipful Company (or Society) of...'. This is because there was a strong religious element to the company, each adopting a Patron Saint and being attached to a local monastery or church. Thus, the expression ‘Worshipful Company’ - a company that worships.
Some City Livery Companies acquired former religious institutions and their gardens following the Dissolution of the Monasteries by King Henry VIII in 1536. The Worshipful Society of Apothecaries Hall, in the City of London, was once part of the Dominican Priory of Blackfriars (see map below).
One Master (head) of The Worshipful Company of Barbers was John Gerard (1545–1612), a Barber-Surgeon. Barbers were closely associated with surgery in medieval times, I guess because they had the appropriate tools. Gerard created several physic gardens in London, probably on Monastery lands. In 1597 he also published a herbal book, the ‘Grete Herball’. In a previous article I said there were no illustrated herbals until Elizabeth Blackwell published her book in 1737, but I have found out that I was mistaken. Gerard’s book included many illustrations, though they are in black & white (due to the limitations of the printing press at the time), and therefore less useful for plant identification. His book was also, even in his own time, considered inaccurate in some details.
However, his illustration of the Barnakles (Goose) tree, showing the geese emerging from the buds of the tree where they had grown, and falling into the sea, was thought true at the time.
In fact, Irish clergy happily ate goose during Lent and on Fridays, on the grounds that it was fruit, not flesh. That was until Pope Innocent III issued an edict saying that goose could not be eaten on fast days. The Pope did not dispute its ‘unusual reproduction’, but ruled that, as these geese lived and fed like ducks, they were therefore meat, not fruit. Barnacle geese still winter in northern parts of the UK and (as they always have) they raise their young during the summer in Greenland.
Sorry, I got carried away by the idea of growing geese, back to the gardens. While none of Gerard’s gardens survive, a tiny Barbers’ Company Garden was built in 1987, within the shelter of the ancient London Wall. The garden is open to the public, and includes many plants that are mentioned in Gerard’s ‘Grete Herball’. Sadly, the Goose Tree is not grown.
Next to Regent’s Park is the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians. This is also a new garden built in 2006. The 1,100 plants tell the story of medicine from ancient Egypt to the prescription drugs of today. There is also a descendant of the tree under which Hippocrates taught medical students 2,400 years ago. You can visit the gardens for free on weekdays (though it is sometimes closed for events).
Lastly, there is the Chelsea Physic Garden in London, the last of the big medicinal gardens, hidden away behind houses in central London. Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753) was a successful physician and collector. He married Elizabeth Rose, a wealthy heiress of sugar plantations in Jamaica, so their wealth was based on work done by slaves. Sloane lived in a manor house in Chelsea1.
Sloane bought four acres of land next to his house, which he leased in 1722 to the Apothecaries, for £5 a year in perpetuity. The only requirement was that the garden collect up to 50 good herbarium samples per year (no duplicates), up to a total of 2,000 plants.
This was a wonderful gift for the Apothecaries, and they started to develop the garden. The Physic Garden became the world's most richly stocked botanic garden of the time. The garden ran beside the river Thames, so they built a boathouse for their barge, which was their main source of transport for people and plants (due to the terrible state of the 18th Century roads).
A world-wide seed-exchange programme was also established, which is still in place today. Sloane, who had dealings with the American colony of Georgia, asked the Physic Garden to send the first plants of cotton to the colony. For two years, from 1846, Robert Fortune, between tea stealing expeditions, led the expansion of the garden. He later sent many seeds and young plants to the garden. I have previously written about Robert and his tea adventures here.
The gardens had the first heated greenhouses in the UK, requiring round-the-clock gardeners to keep the fires alight. This allowed them to grow pineapples and exotic plants.
In the 1770s, well before they were fashionable in the 19th Century, a rock garden, one of Europe's first, was built in the garden. It included lava rock brought from a volcano in Iceland (carried in a ship sailed by Joseph Banks from the first British scientific expedition to Iceland), and stone from parts of the Tower of London that were being demolished. The rock garden can still be seen today.
Parts of the garden, and the river frontage, were lost when the river was embanked in 1874; the garden is now around 3.5 acres. For most of its history the garden remained a ‘secret’ and only open to the Apothecaries and botany students. But gradually herbs were seen as less relevant as modern pharmaceuticals developed, and the gardens became more expensive to run, despite the extraordinary £5 rent. Thankfully the terms of Sloane’s covenant said that the land could not be sold, and therefore built upon.
The Apothecaries handed over the management of the garden to a foundation in 1899. But by the 1970s the financial situation had become a crisis and an appeal was made to set up a Charitable Foundation. In the 1980s the gardens were finally opened to the paying public. The Chelsea Physic Garden continues to give pleasure to visitors, holds an education role especially in the field of natural medicine, contributes to research and still sends seeds around the world.
If you would like to visit Chelsea Physic Garden check the opening times here (you have to pay). Sadly, you will be unable to enter through the main gates that used to open onto the river. The gates are only opened on two occasions: for a visit from a senior member of the Royal Family or for a delivery of manure.
If you would like to go on a digital tour of Chelsea Physic Garden, click here.
As always, the links are provided to give the reader more information. I do not make any money from the links. Where possible permissions have been sought for the use of images and text, unless they are in the Public Domain. If there is an issue with copyright please contact me.
Sloane Square and the many other ‘Sloane’ roads in South Kensington are named after Hans Sloane. As are all the ‘Hans’ - Hans Street, Hans Crescent etc.