Website: http://www.chelseaphysicgarden.co.ukToday ABJ and I visited the Chelsea Physic Garden. We'd tried to go once before but had ended up mistakenly in the "Royal Hospital Chelsea" down the road. This time we were successful.
The entry fee for students is a mere £5 for which you get two information sheets, a map, hand-held audio-guide and the opportunity to follow a guided tour around the gardens. We decided to skip the guided tour and rely on the audio-guide instead to aid our visit to the 3.8 acre site:
We found a bench near the centre of the gardens, sat and read the information sheets and then keyed in "1" and "Play" on our audio wands. It turns out the garden was founded in 1673 by a group of apothecaries who wanted to grow plants for use in their medicines as well as teach their apprentices how to care for the plants they needed. In the course of history the site was acquired by Dr Hans Sloane (after whom Sloane Square is named) and the rent for the site was fixed forever at £5 (which is still paid to an Earl of Somewhere).The long history means that many important plants were introduced to Britain first in the Chelsea Physic Garden. The garden went through lots of ups and downs and in 1983 was threatened with closure. This forced them to set up a charity to run it and open the gardens to the public.
We watched the mixture of local residents who were there for the tranquillity and tourists who were there for the history. All the tourists sat listening to their audio-guides (us included) while the locals reclined in their benches looking snooty - compare left and right here:
We set off from our bench and walked to the Pond Rockery. This was the oldest rockery in Europe and a listed "building". Amongst the rocks were volcanic basalt brought back as ballast by explorers from Iceland as well as masonry from the Tower of London:
It was an excellent rockery.We then wandered the planted beds and saw rare plants and vegetables. Apparently it's now no longer possible to by 90% of the seed varieties you could buy at the start of the 20th century. That doesn't sound good does it? This area of the garden was part of their attempt to preserve these unusual varieties of onions, potatoes etc.
In our walking we came across the oldest outdoor olive tree in Britain (which still gives a good harvest of green olives every year - these must be picked before the pigeons eat them):
We then entered the glasshouses to the north of the gardens. Here we saw lots of tropical plants:
including vanilla:
and chillis:
After passing the Poison Plot where they keep all the poisonous (but sometimes medicinally useful) plants we found ourselves at the cafe. It served tea and homemade cakes and was packed by posh Chelsea people:
We had a quick look at some carnivourous plants:
and some really impressive plants that have evolved to camouflage themselves like pebbles:
Next stop was the Cool Fernery (that's its actual name by the way):
and some secluded walks through the undergrowth. We arrived at a big gate that led out to the Thames Embankment which is "used only for Royalty and manure":
Next we saw the giant compost heaps:
the study centre (complete with a "which plants grow best on roofs" experiment):
and the garden's beehives:
They sell honey from the bees which is in such demand it's limited to 1 jar per person.We stopped for a while at Fortune's Tank Pond and watched the wildlife (including the other visitors) before going out through the shop and buying a Purple Basil plant on the way.
Summary: A great day out in good weather.
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